You'll never identify his work by a signature or a logo. But the one thing you'll recognize about a Jack Lebowitz piece is its individuality, which to him is better than any mark that can ever be put to a piece of art.

"I refuse to sign my pieces," said Lebowitz, who is sometimes described as an arrogant but dedicated artist. "If you don't know my work, I didn't do my job."

The 75-year-old former set designer uses his knowledge of staging and chemistry to create modern art from sheets of copper. His primary medium is coloring copper with chemical solutions - a process known as "fuming." But he loves to experiment. With a careful eye and a steady hand, he lightly torches the surface of a copper canvas covered in silver mica dust to bring out new colors.

"My idea of art is developing a process," he said.

He describes his art as an expression that meets the eye through chemistry. And while he admits that what he produces is a collaborative effort between him and Mother Nature, he gladly pockets the royalties.

He says his claim to fame is his innovative patina formulas. He spends countless hours playing with copper and color in a small sectioned-off studio space, barely the size of a single-car garage, in ArtSpace, an artists' collective in downtown St. Petersburg, Fla. He shows his work there and at two galleries at St. Pete Beach.

A native New Yorker, Lebowitz studied industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and worked on a variety of Broadway shows as a set designer. He moved to St. Petersburg 8 years ago.

Lebowitz has spent more than 50 years perfecting his art, which he accidentally stumbled upon while trying to remove a grease stain from a piece of copper given to him by a friend.

"I had to get it clean," he cried. He grabbed different soaps and cleaning solutions, but nothing worked. Along the way, he discovered something much bigger that ultimately changed his life.

The process is called fuming, an age-old process where metal is oxidized by a liquid solution. Lebowitz claims to add a special ingredient to the process, creating a secret formula that he refuses to reveal, even to his art understudies.

He works his copper with a specially formulated salt solution that transforms bland copper foils into colorful sheets of rich eccentric abstractions. The art itself is 100 percent metal, which looks and sounds heavy. But in actuality, each piece weighs just a few ounces and is typically framed and hung on a wall.

Nancy Doyal says Lebowitz is very good at capturing abstract expressions. She studied arts management at Eastern Michigan University and is the arts coordinator for the Don Vista Cultural Arts Center at St. Pete Beach, where Lebowitz's work is displayed.

"I've never seen anything quite like it," said Doyal. "It's a very unique art form that comes from a unique prospective."

She said a good abstract piece can be put anywhere, meaning it has a good balance of color, shape and movement, something she says is represented in a piece that hangs in her office.

Lebowitz's fumed copper pieces start at $500; some sell for thousands of dollars. Most of his buyers are men, which he attributes to the strength that his pieces represent.

Over the years, Lebowitz has cultivated relationships with metal industry professionals, which got him access to very raw and hard-to-find materials like the copper he imports from upper Michigan and micas he gets from overseas.

The more materials he acquires, the more he experiments. He calls himself "the mad chemist."

"I want to mystify people. They think I'm screwy ... but I go for the goo-goo eyes and the 'Oh, how wonderful,' " he said in a wicked voice.

Peter Fischbach, a developer for the Snell Arcade, located in downtown St. Petersburg, found Lebowitz's art added just the right touch of distinction to his building's lobby with a set of specially designed elevator doors.

"I find that his designs are very tasteful and blend well into the art of the building," he said.

But Lebowitz is as picky about his customers as he is about his art-making process. If he doesn't like where his art is going he won't sell it. Fortunately for Evelyn Craft, executive director for the Arts Center in downtown St. Petersburg, Lebowitz approved of her kitchen, where his work is now the center of attention.

"His work adds a beautiful decorative element to fill space," Craft said.

His personality is as unique as his art, which is not always a good thing, as his assistant Ethel Owens Wagner explains.

"He speaks his mind," she said. "He's happiest when he's got everybody irritated. But he does it to try to make you think ... giving you a different perspective."

Lebowitz agrees, saying his mouth sometimes gets him in trouble. But Owens Wagner thinks he's misunderstood.

"A lot of artists don't take him seriously. They think he's a crazy old man," she said.

She says he's somewhat of a perfectionist who is never satisfied. Consequently dozens of unfinished pieces line Lebowitz's studio wall.

"An artist never knows when his work is finished," said Lebowitz.

Interested in more? Click here to see the related video project "The artistic chemist."

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