An interview with Amy & Katie of Metal METcALfe — the creative sisters that design and fabricate botanical metal sculptures from waste material.
Hawke’s Bay based sisters, Katie and Amy, are the creative duo behind Metal METcALfe. Their botanically-inspired metal sculptures are the result of the merger of Katie’s design and illustration experience and Amy’s metalwork and product design knowledge.
With backgrounds in interior design and furniture/product design, the sisters combined their aesthetic and fabrication skills to experiment with making some metal blooms for a local wildflower and sculpture exhibition in 2020. The sculptures sold like hot cakes — and that’s when ‘METcALfe’ was born.
The sisters were born and raised in the UK. Having both lived and worked around the world, they are now based in Hawke’s Bay New Zealand. This is where they design and create their colourful pieces.
They repurpose used 44-gallon steel drums to make their sculptures — which are considered waste material after their original use. Much of the inspiration for each piece they create comes from the colours of the drums they find.
Each of their pieces are designed, hand cut and welded by the pair. Something they have a huge amount of fun doing. The story of Amy and Katie is unique, and it straddles the world of product design, craft-lead production and high-end artwork.

We interviewed Amy and Katie about their creative pathway and what inspires them most with making metallic botanical sculptures — read it below:
Amy and Katie, tell us a little about yourselves and your backgrounds…
We are two curly-headed creative sisters who grew up in the UK and are very fortunate to now call New Zealand home.
As very young children we would run wild in the untamed landscape of our Scottish home. Bogs, brooks, forests and rambling stone walls were our playground. Posters of plants and birds were blu-tacked to our ceiling and walls in our bunk bed bedroom.
Drawing and making around the kitchen table filled our days and in our later childhood we lived in the Southeast of England and had London on our doorstep. We made full use of world class exhibitions that would exhibit in the capital! We’d visit Royal Horticultural Gardens weekly and attend art classes and workshops at the local art school.
Our parents are medics who both have exceptional artistic talents. Encouraged by them to explore and create, both of us completed tertiary education in the Arts. Katie has a BA (Hons) in Fashion and an MA (Hons) in Interior Design and Amy has a BA (Hons) in Furniture and Product design.
Katie worked for the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Betty Jackson, then her skillset and love of cars led her into the world of interior automotive design. She worked for companies such as Bentley Motors, VW/AUDI and JaguarLandRover.

Amy’s entire professional career has been in New Zealand. Arriving in 2004 (after meeting her Kiwi husband, Josh, while travelling), they moved to Hawke’s Bay the following year, where Amy spent nearly ten years with David Trubridge Design, working up to the role of Lead Designer.
Both Katie and our mum Colly would visit the Hawke’s Bay regularly from the UK. New Zealand became a second home for them and soon the pull was too strong and both Katie and her family emigrated and not long after, mum retired to New Zealand too.
With an impressive résumé, Katie secured jobs at Massey University as Creative Director of Open Lab Design Studio and Senior Lecturer/Researcher in Wellington, and then Group Colour Manager at Cavalier Bremworth in Napier.
We have both consulted for all sorts of companies and projects over our professional careers. Designing and, in most instances, creating interiors for five-star hotels and high-end restaurants, as well as community sculptures and different projects for regional councils.
When we combine the years of creating and think about the scope of companies and projects we have been involved with, we can get pretty bamboozled by it! We know going into any project that we have a wealth of knowledge and expertise that stand us apart.
We have both found New Zealand a place of great opportunity if you just say: ‘Yes’. We left a large chunk of our English ‘reserved-ness’ behind and have fully embraced the Kiwi ‘can do’ attitude!
“As very young children we would run wild in the untamed landscape of our Scottish home. Bogs, brooks, forests and rambling stone walls were our playground.“
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Now you’re both in Aotearoa New Zealand, working together designing and making creative pieces together. Tell us more about what you do…
Our maiden name is Metcalfe and it so happens to have the word ‘metal’ in it. We call ourselves METcALfe (Metal Metcalfe). It is a fledgling business, but we know we have a unique position and story which straddles the world of product design, craft-lead production and high-end artwork.
Our first experiment of working together came from the Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition (Hastings) in 2020. A few months prior, we came up with the idea of combining the graphic stylised blooms of Katie’s aesthetic, with Amy’s fabrication skills. We whipped up 125 ‘Full Bloom’ garden sculptures and filled three flower beds in the beautiful gardens where the exhibition was being held.
Opening night was a soggy event, but we noticed more and more people clutching our bright blooms as they walked around the gardens. Talking with customers they expressed the simple joy of a big, bright sunflower or the memory of a family member through one of our Forget-me-nots. By the end of the exhibition the flower beds had been picked clean! We quickly realised we were onto something: creating pieces that people loved, donating a sizeable amount to the local Hospice and… we loved working together on this little project.
This initial success gave us the confidence to move forward and explore the potential of our collaboration. We now know this was the conception of METcALfe! Getting grubby, playing with materials and working through solutions is very much our happy space. Work very rarely feels like work!


How does your care for the environment influence your work?
Having both worked within various design roles for global brands, we’ve observed both large volumes of waste within some manufacturing sectors but also conscious and pro-active efforts to minimise environmental impact from others.
It was a conscious decision to source a pre-finished, metal, waste material. Amy trialled wrecked car panels (without success!) then came across our material of choice: repurposed 44-gallon steel drums.
We soon discovered that where we live in Hawke’s Bay, there is an abundance of horticulture and food production factories. Many of these factories produce these steel drums as a waste product or send them to the recyclers – some after only one use!
Now within our own design practice challenge, we incorporate and ultimately work to minimise waste and seek opportunities to add value to existing materials or resources.
“‘Botanicals’ are three works exploring the flora and fauna used in the creation of gin. Just as distillers select their botanicals for scent and flavour, we have selected our botanicals for form and colour.”
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Where do you draw your inspiration from for each piece or project?
We discovered these steel drums come in the most incredible kaleidoscope of colours and we get so excited when we come across a new colour (such as bright pink!). We are very much influenced by the colour of the drums we find.
When we found the perfect wisteria purple drum, we knew that would inform the next body of works. Our most recent artworks came about from a conversation around a table with three complete strangers who (over a glass or two), became collaborators and friends.
‘Botanicals’ are three works exploring the flora and fauna used in the creation of gin. Just as distillers select their botanicals for scent and flavour, we have selected our botanicals for form and colour. Peppercorns nestle up to citrus blossom and vanilla pods. Cucumber leaves roll and entangle themselves around cardamom and lemongrass. Sweet smelling lavender sways alongside sage and coriander and the flags of the bearded Iris stand tall.


What drew you to sculpting flowers and botanicals?
Katie is definitely the green fingered one of the two of us! However the draw of the colour palette that ‘Mother Nature’ puts together has probably been the biggest influence.
As children we would spend every Sunday morning walking the paths of RHS Wisley near our hometown of Guildford, UK. We’d watch as each season would bring vast change to the gardens and glasshouses.
In spring 2000 Katie completed a 100 day project, completing 100 drawings every day for 100 days! This compiled a staggering 10,000 images by the end of the project which has given us a wealth of forms and ideas to continually refer to.



What is the process of making your pieces, from concept to the final product?
Concepts can come from the simplest of things but usually the colour of the drums we find will be the starting point. When we found a perfect kōwhai yellow drum, we knew we had to make kōwhai sculptures!
Plasma cutting (or drawing with fire, as we call it) allows us to freehand cut the blooms from the drums. We have also ventured into laser cutting flattened panels of the drum to allow intricate profiles to be cut. Profiles are formed by hand or rolled though our machines. We have the tiniest of jewellery rollers up to large industrial machines to allow us to fabricate all scales of work.
The bloom profiles are welded onto backings or stakes depending on the artworks we are creating. We love exploring colour combinations and adding in other found metal materials to our works to add depth and detail.

Amy and Katie, what are your favourite flowers?
Amy: At the top of the road where we grew up was a crossroads and on each of the corners was a flower bed. They were empty for ten months of the year, but at the beginning of spring a single yellow daffodil would bloom, then another until each of the beds were full of trumpeting, cheerful daffodils. Having moved to Hawke’s Bay, a trip to Taniwha Daffodils each September brings back such wonderful memories and has become a new family tradition.
Katie: As a child we would go to the weekly market in our hometown on a Saturday morning. Mum would buy a small posy of freesias from the flower stall. I can’t get enough of their scent, it takes me right back to my childhood.


How do your natural surroundings affect your creative practice?
Amy: My happy place is anywhere with a view to or from the mountains/ranges. If there is a dusting of snow, I am even happier! My commute (if you can call a 15 minute bike ride a commute!) takes me through the Havelock North village and out through the orchards. Many winter mornings the fog can be lifting and I can see out to the stunning Kaweka Ranges. With starts to each day like this, I am always ready for a day of creating!
Katie: The outdoors has always been for me a place of reflection and fatigue, because it usually includes walking up some decent hill or mountain! My natural surroundings, whether a beach or mountain, provide me with an opportunity to freshen my perspective, question my assumptions and immerse myself in a rhythm that provides clarity and solutions to creative (and life’s) challenges or questions.

If you could grow only three things in your garden, what would they be?
Amy: I’m just in the process of ‘wilding’ my garden. A trial of only putting natives into a section of my garden brought birds and insects, and my battle with weeds disappeared! I love Kakabeak (Clianthus) and I want to add a red one.
The year my son Xavier was born, we planted fruit trees with the hope he’d grow up and pick delicious fruit from these trees – eating them warmed and ripened from the sun. This has been more than successful with Xavier having an Honesty Box outside the house when fruits are in abundance. Sadly we never planted a feijoa (Acca sellowiana) and they are my favourite fruit (I hated them when I first came to New Zealand!), so I’ll have to find a spot to plant a feijoa tree.
I’d love to convert the front grass verge outside my house to be a community vegetable garden, as having travelled for the past year I have seen many examples of this, especially in Northern America.
Katie: They would all be edible in our garden. A seedless, prolific table grape – I have fond memories of Joseph and I sitting on the ground when we first moved to Hastings picking and devouring as many as we could of the warm, sweet tasting grapes. Having recently moved house it will be one of the first things I will plant in our new garden.
The second would be a large orange tree, definitely one you can climb! I still have to pinch myself when citrus grows so readily here – a far cry from our UK childhood weather conditions. The third would be year-round coriander that didn’t bolt in warm weather – because I use so much of it!
