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Tableaus of fighting elk, curving aspen leaves and fisherman casting lines into streams play
out in Mark Fisher's decorative metalwork, which is so popular as an accent in mountain
homes he has a hard time keeping samples in stock.

Fisher is the creator of Pony Tracks Handcrafted Metal Work in Buena Vista, where he
pounds, twists and grinds steel into works of art. His unique designs focus on life in the
west, with silhouetted figures of wildlife and ranching drawn onto sheets of metal, cut out,
polished and fired to catch the light with different colors.

The rising price of steel — from $38 to $95
per sheet over the past nine months alone
— affects the cost of Fisher's work, but
primarily the cost of his items depends on
the detailed work at hand. Fireplace doors
take about three weeks to make and range
in price from $1,500 and up. Doors with
three-dimensional, layered metal start at
$2,100. Sofa tables take Fisher about one
week to craft, and cost about $1,200 to
$1,500 per table. Fisher's name and address
signs for homes are also popular, and can
include wildlife images as well as lettering.
They take one day to make, and range from
$50 to $150, depending on their size.

"I think when you're spending a lot of money on
a house, you want something that the neighbors don't have," he says. "I like the creativity and
hands-on work."
All of Fisher's creations are hand wrought using hammers, anvils, grinders and welders. Taking
a project from design to build is like making sculpture to him, without the use of modern day
technology like lasers or computers.
His technique has paid off — Fisher's fireplace doors, that range from simpler forged designs
to three-dimensional artwork, are one of his trademark items. Metal is shaped around each
stone in a fireplace hearth, and the doors fold back to lie flush against the wall.
Fisher also crafts sofa tables and coffee tables with any number of wildlife scenes, bucking
broncos or mountain landscapes, and recently began making light fixtures with metal images
that pop out against paper-thin layers of mica. To pull the decorative look of a home together,
he has added metal finishes to baseboard heating, bed frames, and adorned homes with coat
racks and weather vanes.
The metal work can look rustic, with antique finishes, or more modern with clean lines and
shining surfaces. His touches are being added as decorative gates for the Prospector
Condominiums in Aspen, and fireplace doors for condos in Park City, Utah. It's rare for any two
of his items to look the same.
"A lot of people work on steel with lasers and computers, but I draw all of my stuff out by hand,"
he said.
Fisher was raised in Colorado Springs, and his dad first discovered metalwork during the
Korean War, while serving in the National Guard. His father pushed him to take welding
courses, but he never

used the skill until the early 90s, when he and his wife Kaylo moved to
Wyoming to work as ranch hands. While welding gates out of scrap oil pipes he spent winters
discovering his own art form in a workshop.
Although he sold his earliest works wholesale and mass-produced items for the Cody Rodeo
and the Roy Rogers Museum, it wasn't long before he scaled back his operation to enjoy the
creativity of working one-on-one with a client.
"These guys want to sit down with the guy who's going to do the work, and bounce ideas back
and forth until we come up with a mutual idea," he says. "It's part of the process, and that's a
niche for me, if you want to call it that. It's being small enough to do just what they want."