A brief Bio:
I was born and raised in the Mojave Desert town of Barstow in Southern California. I loved building car models, constructing Lego, assembling Capsela and tinkering with other building toys. Once I hit my teen years that expanded into working on cars, especially Volkswagen Beetles. Needing a change of pace I joined the United States Coast Guard serving for ten years at shore stations and aboard three different cutters in Louisiana, Oregon and Texas. Eventually my wife Paloma and I settled in the western Portland metro area city of Hillsboro, Oregon.
My entry in to formal art has been through welding sculpture classes at Portland Community College. I started with oxyacetylene, welding and brazing wire and steel. Later began taking full welding sculpture classes allowing me to try all welding processes and have a lot of fun hammering out metal. I have branched out to other media such as drawing and painting as well as digital media. I recently completed a 365 day project of making a robot a day (inspired by Noah Scalin and his Skull-A-Day project) where I made a different robot each day using many mediums and art forms. All robots were made on the day of posting, this pushed my creativity and allowed me to experiment with other forms of art while sticking to a daily deadline.
Aside from art I play guitar and dabble in other stringed instruments.
My Vision:
The process is the art to me, letting my ideas flow and develop as I make my creations, a very zen-like journey. The end result brings me happiness and I hope that others find a bit of joy in my work.
- Chris Zeliff, July 2012
Showings -
Skull Appreciation Day Showing - Gallery 5, Richmond, Virginia. June 3 - July 8, 2011 Curated by Noah Scalin and Philip Cheney.
"Robot Skull Quilt Square" - Part of a charity quilt curated by Abby Davis, auctioned with proceeds benefiting Becky's Fund which provides domestic violence awareness.
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This site is dedicated to the memory of Chris’ dad, Robert ‘Bob’ Zeliff (1941-2009) who he gleaned much of his tinkering skill and drive from. His pop could and did build anything that came to mind.
Robert and Betty Zeliff