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GULFPORT, Fla. – Eric Allen Folsom Jr. was born and raised in St. Petersburg<\/a> and has been connected to Gulfport since he was an infant.<\/p>\n Metalwork artist history <\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n His father was a pastor there, and Folsom says the city\u2019s art scene has helped him build a life around creativity.<\/p>\n Folsom mainly works with bronze and copper, using oxygen acetylene, welding rods and sheet copper to create bracelets, earrings and small art objects.<\/p>\n Folsom\u2019s pieces include mermaids, zodiac signs, animals, flowers and even Tampa Bay Rays-inspired artwork created for a Florida CraftArt exhibition.<\/p>\n Folsom says a teacher in fourth grade helped him realize he was an artist and encouraged him to be himself.<\/p>\n Today, Folsom uses a torch with a 7,000-degree flame to heat, shape and weld metal into one-of-a-kind pieces. Some of his bracelets are inspired by images from the Webb Space Telescope.<\/p>\n Creative impact <\/p>\n Big picture view:<\/p>\n Folsom says nature and astronomy are major sources of inspiration because of the beauty around us. He hopes his work gives people a sense of calm or joy.<\/p>\n Folsom says he is grateful for Gulfport\u2019s art scene because he does not have to go far to connect with other artists.<\/p>\n Artist gallery locations <\/p>\n What you can do:<\/p>\n You can find artist Eric Folsom’s work at Florida CraftArt in downtown St. Petersburg, the Dunedin Fine Art Center, and DRV Gallery in Gulfport.<\/p>\n Meet him in person on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Stella’s Sundries in Gulfport.<\/p>\n The Source: The information in this story was gathered from interviews with Gulfport metal artist Eric Folsom.<\/p>\n Made in Tampa Bay<\/a>Pinellas County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article GULFPORT, Fla. – Eric Allen Folsom Jr. was born and raised in St. Petersburg and has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,7104,115,1157,405,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-333426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-fl","tag-made-in-tampa-bay","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-series","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/vlcsnap-2026-07-08-14h16m50s632.png\")
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