Throughout his life, Scott Lacey has been in a variety of fields.

The Dahlonega man has been a construction worker, a landscaper and a teacher. But one element has remained the same: an artistic creativity in each career.

“I’ve been doing art for quite sometime one way or the other,” he said. “I started out pretty much doing it through landscapes by design process and integrating different elements.”

Each of those professions has led Lacey to a new career — sculpting.

His latest sculpture is on display at the Quinlan Visual Arts Center, 514 Green St. NE, in Gainesville. And his piece is in the sculpture garden.

“It fills a niche right now that’s not being filled otherwise,” he said. “I won’t say there’s not a lot of competition, because there are a lot of very good artists out there. But I’m fortunate enough to have a location such as the Quinlan where a piece can be on public display.”

Quinlan Visual Arts Center Executive Director Amanda McClure said Lacey’s work is well-suited for the outdoor space.

“He uses rusted metal and interesting shapes, and it is such a scale that I knew it would look impressive from a distance,” she said.

The one oddity is the piece is untitled. But Lacey has a reason for that.

“If you title it, you will already cause people to think a certain thing,” he said. “And I would rather them come upon that and set their own title if they will.”

However, Lacey described his pieces as having an “organic concept.”

“I have an overarching concept called organic geometry,” he said. “They also have a reminiscent of family. In several cases, there’s more than one element to it. There’s also a certain amount of my plant background that comes into play as far as inspiration goes. I derive a certain amount of my inspiration from nature.”

Lacey’s background with plants stems from his first stent at North Georgia College and State University from 1986-91. He was a biology major with a focus on native plants in North Georgia. Lacey returned to the college, now the University of North Georgia, in 2010 to obtain an art degree.

“Then I kind of got sidetracked into sculpture because of my construction background,” he said. “I had all these tools that would work really well in sculpture — hammers, saws, chisels — all the tools that a carpenter would have.”

But as Lacey grows as an artist, he can put his many skills into a different kind of use.

“I’m trying to shift more toward an art-focused future,” he said. “You can’t throw down your old tools until you can pick up the new ones and move forward. But in my case I’m kind of fortunate that I can use my old tools to produce my new forward motion, hopefully with sculpture.”

And his future plans are wide open.

“What I would really like to do is be involved with others to help them do their art,” he said. “I’d like to be involved at the school working with other students. It’s nice to have the idea of being involved in the process directly but also being involved in other people’s processes to watch them grow as well.”