HAVERHILL — Northern Essex Community College students and staff got a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with an artist whose creations are larger than life.
Sculptor Dale Rogers visited the Haverhill Campus on Wednesday as part of Engineering Week. During an event co-hosted by the college’s STEM Division and Library, Rogers shared how he creates his welded masterpieces, like the 26-foot “American Dog” that graces Exit 48 on Interstate 495 and the “Live Your Dreams” statue outside NECC’s Bentley Library.
As a child with learning disabilities, school was often a challenging place for Rogers. But he found solace in art classes. After graduating from Haverhill High School, he attended four colleges, including Northern Essex, eventually earning a business degree. In 2002, he combined his love of art, knowledge of business, and knack for welding (learned by working on the family’s Spring Hill Farm) and launched Dale Rogers Studios.
“I was always hesitant to say I wanted to be an artist because it’s the only profession where the word ‘starving’ is attached,” joked Rogers. “I started out making wine racks and clocks, just to get better at welding. And then I moved on to sculptures and opened my studio.”
Soon, Rogers was making versions of the “American Dog” and other similar sculptures and selling them at trade shows. Little by little, he built up recognition and further honed his craft, harnessing technological and technical changes along the way.
“I started with some simple software where I would actually just take the distance of a dog, you know, and I would measure from the distance of its nose to the distance of its tail, and that would give me, you know, 47.825. And then I would make a rectangle that was 47.25 by 6 inches. I would feed those measurements into a computer and use a program to cut the metal. But it would take a long time to process, so you’d cut a piece, and then it would stop for 20 minutes while it was processing.”
As technology advanced, so did his designs. He said that, during the COVID lockdown in particular, he was able to experiment with new programs to create more complex, three-dimensional sculptures.
Rogers’ work can now be found all over the country and even overseas. But he continues to give back to the community where he was born and raised. His studio is just down the road from the “American Dog” at exit 48, and he employs several welders, office staff, and interns. He’s also a big supporter of community college and the role it plays in helping local entrepreneurs find their footing.
“If you want to be an entrepreneur, I 100% recommend coming [to Northern Essex]. Study business and use that money you’re saving on your education as seed money in the future. I had to save for a long time to start my business, knowing that I probably wasn’t going to make money right away.”
Rogers often creates pieces for municipalities at no cost. Custom and commissioned pieces can be ordered through his website. The “Live Your Dreams” sculpture at NECC was installed in 2017, and during Wednesday’s talk, Rogers offered to donate a smaller “American Dog” in the near future.
Northern Essex offers two engineering degree programs: engineering science and engineering science: technology option. Learn more about these programs and more by visiting necc.edu.