May 2025- Self-taught metal sculptor and fabrication artist Dominique Martinez has earned several labels over the years from man of steel, mastermind and visionary to the guy with one of the biggest hearts in Tampa. But if Martinez had a theme song, it would be “Defying Gravity” from the Broadway show and 2024 film, “Wicked,” particularly the lyric: “I’m through accepting limits.”
That idea personifies the way Martinez approaches his life and work. His upward trajectory began in 2002 when a series of jobs took him from New York City to Tampa, Florida. Martinez was a direct mail marketing specialist when a friend gave him the keys to a brake and friction shop.
“I was always attracted to the idea of working with metal,” says the former student of art in New York’s auction houses. “I would go in about 2 a.m., start drawing and try to make the things I drew out of scrap. Then I would go back to my day job at 9 a.m.”
ORIGIN STORY
It wasn’t long before the night owl hobbyist’s projects collided with his day job. “I asked for time off and my manager said ‘take 10 minutes in the hallway. If you need more than that, then leave,’” Martinez recalls. Like a line from the song cited above, he decided to close his eyes and leap.
A magazine cover story, a sold-out art show and a feature story on a local news station propelled Martinez into the public eye. A picture frame he made for a friend caught the eye of an interior designer.
“He called me and said, ‘I understand you work with steel. Can you do gates and railings?’” recalls Martinez. “When I saw the property, it was a 14,000-sq.-ft. home with an observation deck. I thought this is way out of my league.” But a neighbor volunteered her son, who worked in metal, and another person who could make drawings. “We fabricated the gates and railings with a nautilus theme. Everything just mushroomed after that.”
A commission check for a stylized staircase gave him the funds he needed to start Rustic Steel in 2002. He generated business for his fl edgling company by visiting job sites with samples of his railings in the bed of his pickup truck. He also took commissions and continued to collect scrap wherever he could find it.
He gave free rein to his imagination by fabricating a 23 ft. long, 12 ft. tall dragon. After constructing the skeleton, he cladded it with everything from computer motherboards to chains from motorcycles.
In 2004, Martinez gained national exposure for Rustic Steel when he decided to drive the dragon from Florida to New York City.
ROAD TRIP
“I took a friend [who is also an employee] with me,” Martinez says. “He asked if I had a plan. I told him we were going to be on “Good Morning America” (GMA) and meet the Teutul family, who founded Orange County Choppers.”
The metal artist now admits he had neither called GMA, nor identified the right producer, pitched his idea nor received permission to appear on the television program.
“We weren’t able to get close enough to GMA’s location in Times Square so we drove to Fox News in Midtown Manhattan.” They pulled right up next to the studios on Avenue of the Americas. “An associate came out and asked us what we were doing. When he saw the dragon, he said, ‘wait right here.’ He came back out with a producer and they did a news segment on our dragon right on the spot.”
After touring New York, the pair headed back to Florida. “On our way home, we located Orange County Choppers and visited with the Teutuls for about an hour,” he says.
Martinez’s “no limits” attitude fuels the company’s growth, builds its reputation and influences team members. Tony Blasucci, one of Rustic Steel’s fabricators, agrees. “I’ve heard a lot of Dom’s stories.
I don’t think we’d be where we are as a company if it weren’t for his perseverance and belief that nothing is impossible. He’s not afraid to get out there and try even if there is potential for failure. He bends and pushes boundaries that would bring most people to a halt,” he says.
Martinez credits the contributions of his team. “The culture of our team has a synergy like no other. Tony is my right-hand guy. He comes from an academic background. I don’t. He balances me.”
According to Martinez, Rustic Steel’s team comprises diverse backgrounds and ethnicities and “everyone gets along” by communicating and pulling together.
Rustic Steel hired a new foreman in March 2025. Jonathan Reeder has more than 30 years of experience in the fabrication industry and oversees management of the entire shop. Martinez says he hired three different foremen in 2024, but “none of them lasted long. It’s a tough business. We’re not [making] goose down pillows here. It’s blood, sweat and tears. You become the material you work with.”
PORTFOLIO
After riding the ups and downs of the building boom and the subsequent recession, Martinez says he came to a new crossroads during the pandemic. “It gave me the time to think about what my passion really was,” he says. “I decided to focus on my art.”
Today, Rustic Steel’s work can be seen throughout Florida from private residences to businesses. Its architectural division creates decorative parking facades, custom staircases and railings, wall cladding, commercial oven hoods and canopies as well as lighting, furniture and other crafted elements. The 10,000-sq.-ft. shop houses custom fabrication and roll and bend equipment for such materials as carbon and stainless steel, aluminum and copper alloys.
Aside from Martinez’s extensive work for clients like the Waldorf Astoria, U.S. Embassy of Dubai and the British Virgin Islands’ Scrub Island, visitors and residents can see evidence of Martinez’s larger-than-life sculptures in Tampa’s public spaces.
In a business landscape where companies are embracing AI, smart machines and cobot coworkers, Martinez unlocks the door to his imagination with chalk on a concrete floor. Like 3D printing gone low-tech, a singular object rises under his hands as he begins to shape, cut, bend and weld materials together. Intentional selection of scrap for cladding is characterized by subtle layers of meaning and expression.
Martinez sources both recycled and salvaged parts as well as various metals from Tampa Bay Steel. He and his team have installed more than 250 pieces in public access places. For fans of his work, a road trip around Tampa is a bit like looking for Easter eggs. In 2015, Rustic Steel delivered the largest fish in Florida to the Ugly Grouper Restaurant. It weighs 4,100 lbs., is 20 ft. long, 10 ft. wide and 14 ft. tall. Composed of found objects with lips crafted from Harley Davidson exhaust pipes, the Ugly Grouper has become an icon for the restaurant.
Next to the local YMCA, a massive rhinoceros, 18 ft. long, more than 6 ft. wide and weighing 3,000 lbs., stands guard. Called Crash Unidos, the symbol of beauty from ashes is made from salvaged car parts, many of which are from actual accidents. A larger-thanlife Tyrannosaurus Rex lurks in the backyard of a client. A replica of a P51 Mustang fighter plane appears suspended in flight at the Hillsborough County Tax Collector’s office, paying homage to the World War II-era Drew Airfield.
Several 9/11 memorials and a pair of soldiers made in collaboration with the Wounded Warriors Project are widely recognized. Made from objects ranging from kitchen appliances to car and motorcycle parts, the soldier carries a wounded comrade. The sculpture routinely travels to events in honor of veterans and service members.
Once a piece is completed, Rustic Steel has a tradition that has become entrenched in the fabric of the company. “We try to hold on to a piece for a little bit after it’s finished,” he says. “We load it on the truck and drive it all over the area so the community can see it. It’s like a maiden voyage, a victory lap for the whole team.”
IMMORTALIZED
Martinez points to another sculpture and the events that inspired it that has impacted him the most.
On March 9, 2021, Tampa police officer Jesse Madsen intentionally drove into the path of a wrong-way driver in order to save the lives of other drivers. He lost his own life doing so. Madsen loved lions and he was a fan of Rustic Steel, having visited the shop more than once.
“Major Eric DeFelice and Detective Jason Derocco approached me in 2022 to ask if I could create a lion sculpture as a memorial to Jesse and other officers who died in the line of duty,” says Martinez. “I asked if I could have access to his wrecked vehicle to reclaim parts I thought might be usable. I also asked for guns from their buyback program.” The piece required 9,000 hours of fabrication and more than 6,000 welds. Martinez used 1,000 ft. of stainless steel cable to create the lion’s mane and wove 200 decommissioned pistols, revolvers, shotguns and rifles into its body. Poised on what Martinez calls Pride Rock, the sculpture, titled “Taking A Stance,” measures 10 ft. tall by 10 ft. long and weighs 1,200 lbs.
“The title of the sculpture was really important to me,” says Martinez. “I wanted to epitomize his bravery.”
On the day of the unveiling ceremony, the Rustic Steel team loaded the sculpture onto the truck and “made our way to Tampa Police District One. We were escorted by 15 motorcycle officers, air support and four unmarked cars. Nearly 100 police cars lined up as well. There were approximately 360 police officers involved altogether.”
In 2026, the sculpture is slated to travel to an event during National Police Week.
Thad Treadwell, left, general manager of Ugly Grouper Restaurant, with Dominique Martinez in front of the artist’s “Taking A Stance” sculpture. The restaurant boasts its own iconic Rustic Steel sculpture, a 4,100-lb. grouper.
A dragon made of mirrored stainless steel guards the Associated Watch and Jewelry Store
One of Martinez’s current projects seeks to marry local history with the boundless imagination of Jules Verne, the 19th century French science fiction author. Rustic Steel has secured a vintage 45-ft.-long trolley car which he plans to stand on end and wrap it in the tentacles of an oversized octopus.
“It’s a way to preserve a piece of Tampa’s history, which dates back to 1886 and gives a nod to Jules Verne, who mentions Tampa Town in his novel Earth to the Moon,” says Martinez. “Verne was always pushing the boundaries of what was possible. I relate to that.”
The trolley car piece could be the largest artistic work yet for Rustic Steel. As Martinez revs up his “reverse engineering brain,” he finds he is once again, “flying high, defying gravity.”
Dominique Martinez welds aluminum for a tree sculpture.
Crash Unidos was clad with objects salvaged from wrecked cars, repurposed items from body shops and other scrap.
Team Rustic Steel.
A sculpture installed at Englewood Beach symbolizes the community’s strength and resilience in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Called “Go Ask Alice When She’s 10 Feet Tall,” the whimsical sculpture includes car parts and was covered in multicolor paints and a clear-coat finish.
Rustic Steel, 813/222-0016, rusticsteel.com
