♪ ♪
>> Our garages are busy.
They're home to bands
and band saws,
places to practice handiwork
or avoid housework.
On a quiet street
in Eau Claire there's a garage
that's home to Eric Lee's
life-long passion.
>> I've become very fond of it
out here.
I actually really miss it
if I'm not working out here.
It's just a dedicated space
where I know I'm coming to work
to do something.
[wrenching sound]
>> His passion?
Art.
It's a love affair
that began in grade school.
>> Drawing, you know,
like any kid, just draw a lot.
Then I just never stopped
doing it.
I really learned from
drawing transformer boxes.
I actually traded kids
to get their boxes from them,
not their toys,
so I could do learn how to do
what they were doing
on the boxes at the time.
>> Throughout high school,
Eric's love for art blossomed
into admiration for painters
of the Northern Renaissance
and 20th century surrealists.
>> After high school,
I ended up moving to Superior.
That was a real eye-opener
for me.
>> Eric was fascinated
by the city and
its industrial architecture.
>> Superior gave me
what I ended up working with
in painting
for the next 10 to 15 years.
And it seemed like an entirely
different place altogether,
the big grain elevators,
the docks, the neighborhoods
were completely different.
>> Eric eventually
moved back to Eau Claire,
where he'd gone to high school.
He took up odd jobs,
studied art in college,
got married, and bought a house.
Of course, making art
didn't always mean
making money.
>> After school, the truth is,
I couldn't get work.
It was a struggle for a while.
But one thing led to another,
and I started making furniture
and different things for people.
>> One item in particular
seemed to catch on.
>> I really started
going full-blast
into the drum building.
>> An accomplished drummer
himself, Eric started building
specialty wooden snare drums.
>> I started out real basic
and made a lot of mistakes,
made some really terrible shells
and made some drums
that sounded just awful.
And then slowly worked
my way up from there,
and about a year into it,
I made a decent drum.
>> In the years since,
Eric has churned out
dozens of wooden drums
from his garage.
The wood comes from
a familiar place.
>> The Superior connection again
comes in with
the globe elevator,
which was a place I use to--
Well, I used to trespass every
Sunday pretty much,
and walk around.
[chuckling]
When people were watching
football I'd go in there,
and yeah, that was what
I would do.
But when I moved back here,
I got to know the people
who were dismantling
the globe elevator,
wonderful people,
and they were selling off
the lumber for people to put
in their houses and, you know,
make all sorts of
things from.
And I managed to get some of
the hardwood that was used
in the elevator, oak,
and started using that
in the drums themselves.
♪ ♪
With income from his drums,
Eric pursued his passion
for art.
In the shelter of his garage,
that pursuit took unique,
even explosive turns.
>> I like oil painting,
and I do very meticulous,
I guess you could call it very
highly-representational art,
but I guess more modern
techniques.
I use explosives.
I use flammables.
And what it ends up looking like
is sort of a mixture
between abstraction and very
sharply-focused
representational work.
The subject matter is coming
almost entirely from
my experiences in Superior.
My work up to now has
kind of focused on
collapse and life-cycles
of towns and cities and people,
how generations start something
and maybe it doesn't continue.
Maybe it does.
I'm really hoping that people
who see this and aren't sure
what they're seeing
will have a reaction similar
to the one I had when I first
laid eyes on things that,
I guess, drove me to make
this stuff in the first place.
That's kind of
what I'm trying for
is just to be honest
in that it will resonate
in others.
>> And, it seems, Eric's work
is resonating with others.
His pieces have been shown
at openings around the Midwest,
like this one in Eau Claire.
But with success comes change.
>> I'm sort of stepping into
new directions now,
new things.
It'll still have a lot of things
in common with this work,
but I see myself as
going into the next phase.
♪ ♪
>> As his work changes,
so is his workspace.
Eric is moving,
leaving his old garage behind.
>> We just needed more room.
This place will
have a restored barn,
so I don't have to worry about,
you know, shorting the house out
when I start a saw.
Yeah, it's going to be great.
>> Still, Eric says
he'll miss this garage,
the light from its windows
and the stories on its walls.
But he'll take something else
with him,
a bit of wisdom about work:
>> If you can stand out
in what you're doing
and you believe enough
in what you're doing
that you're willing to
put in the time and the work,
I see no reason whatsoever
a person can't do
exactly what
they want to do now.