Charles Ringer spent his life turning scrap and steel into motion and wonder. A self-taught artist who traded convention for curiosity, he called Joliet (jaw-lee-et), Montana, home. The rural town framed by dramatic mountain scenery shaped his work for decades. One of his striking sculptures, Double Knot, has found its home at the Roosevelt Center in Red Lodge.

I grew up in rural Minnesota and by age five, I was dragging my red wagon to the dump, hauling back treasures and materials to transform them. My mom saw the feral curiosity inside of me. She once told me, “I thought you were going to be different, but I didn’t think you’d be that different.” She was right. At fourteen, we took a creative welding class together. At fifteen, I built my first car, a 1930 Ford hot rod that’s still in my yard. At sixteen, I sold my first sculpture. And that sparked the path forward.

I married Emily, and together we built a rolling life, living in a 1969 Econoline van and towing a homemade studio trailer. For three years we chased the seasons, crafting small sculptures from scrap metal and learning how little you really need if you’ve got the imagination and motivation.

In 1971 we drove through Joliet, Montana, and saw a junkyard for sale: $6700 for a piece of land packed with wrecks. We bought it and never left. It took years to haul out 100 cars, but we slowly turned it into our home, gallery, and studio. The place is packed with interesting things and potential sculpture materials we have collected over the years. Steel sculptures are positioned all around. There’s even a ruined piano out back. Someday I’m going to catapult it. People ask me if I’m joking, but with me, it’s hard to tell.

Ideas come at night in barrages; I lie awake building blueprints in my head until I can’t stand it and have to create them. The sculptures mesmerize people, but for me, they’re just the byproducts of my lifestyle. My real art is the life I’ve built, choosing freedom over certainty, curiosity over convention. I’ve never had an eight-to-five job, and I don’t plan on it now. When I’m short on ideas, I just wander, and something always comes up. Everything I’ve done is testing, trial and error, and experimentation.

In 2026, Charles Ringer passed away at home on the last day of winter, surrounded by his beloved Emily and a few good creatures. It was the kind of gentle exit that fits a life lived on his own terms, guided by curiosity to the end. His shop may be quiet now, but his legacy lives on.