LOGANSPORT — Jim Galbreath spent an entire week crafting Sally’s size 24 high heels out of steel.

When he didn’t like the first pair he created, he scrapped them and started over.

Galbreath is in the business of steel fabrication. He is no artist, but his latest project will be Logansport’s newest piece of art.

Galbreath is building a 12-foot-tall statue of ballroom dance partners that will be displayed at the corner of Third Street and Broadway in about a month. Right now, the piece is little more than a pair of legs and four shoes.

The project is being funded by donations from the first-ever Dancing With Our Stars event held last year. The Logan’s Landing fundraiser raised $47,000, and Galbreath said he is being paid $20,000 for his work.

The statue will be a part of the Arts & Design District in downtown Logansport. The downtown economic development organization plans to have up to 11 more public art pieces.

Galbreath plans to finish the sculpture before this year’s event in October — something that will require him to put in a lot of extra hours in the next month.

“I knew going into it that this was going to be one of the toughest projects I’ve ever done,” Galbreath said.

As owner of Galbreath Industrial Services, the Logansport man is used to creating machines, not sculptures.

“The human body is one of the hardest things to recreate with metal.”

And he has to create two bodies intertwined in a dance pose.

He patted the leg of the female dancer Wednesday.

“I nicknamed her Sally,” Galbreath said with a laugh.

He spent a week making her heels, which stand more than a foot tall.

“There’s a lot of individual pieces of metal welded together to make them,” he said.

Then he used an anvil and hammer to create the lines and curves of the shoe. Galbreath said he has machines that can help with the work but about 75 percent has to be done by hand.

And when his first pair of shoes didn’t turn out like he expected, he threw them away and started again.

“It’s a lot of trial-and-error,” he said. “I’ve thrown a lot of stuff away because it doesn’t look right.”

He has some help.

Every few minutes he looked closely at a 12-inch model of the statue he’s creating. It was designed by local artist Bill Dahman.

Dahman said even he needed help when he was asked to create the model.

“It took me a couple of months to make,” Dahman said. “I had to do research on ballroom dancers. I don’t know anything about dancing.”

On Wednesday, Dahman and Galbreath worked together on the project. Dahman, who said he doesn’t know much about welding, took measurements for the sculpture.

Galbreath rolled a sheet of metal through a machine to create a curve in it. He was making the bottom of the male dancer’s pant leg.

“Every little piece is detailed,” he said.

He had to make sure the pant leg flared at the bottom. That’s how Dahman designed it.

But he said the male dancer is still much easier to create than Sally.

“The man’s pants and jackets come to corners,” he said.

The female’s body is more rounded and detailed, he said. Galbreath said he will create her strands of hair using individual wires that he will weld onto the head.

“It’s all tedious work,” he said. “And my biggest concern is that it doesn’t look like the Tin Man when I’m done.”

Galbreath has never recreated a person with metal, and he said he was honored that he was asked to do this project.

“I want to make something that the people of Logansport can be proud of, something that people will come to see,” Galbreath said.

When it’s finished, the statue will weigh about 1,500 pounds, and it will have to be moved to its new home by forklift, Galbreath said.

For now, the statue remains incomplete. Sally’s legs and shoes stand firmly on the concrete in Galbreath’s shop, but she has no clothing, upper body or head.

Galbreath said he hasn’t finished enough of the male dancer to give him a nickname yet. The dancer doesn’t even have a full set of legs.

But that will change soon.

When Galbreath finished talking Wednesday, he pulled his welding mask over his face and went back to work.

• Lindsey Ziliak is a staff writer at the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached at 574-732-5148 or lindsey.ziliak@pharostribune.com.