'I'm focused on that nostalgic, time machine thing' - the ex-tradie sculpting oversized Kiwi lollies

After leaving school at 15, one of Simon Lewis Wards' first jobs was at his friend's dad's glass-blowing company. There, "a little seed was planted", he says, and years later, glass was the material with which he created his first sculpture - a replica of an iconic Jetplane lolly.

The former drainlayer now crafts an ever-growing range of oversized lolly artworks that spirit Kiwis straight back to the dairy runs of childhood.

"[Their stories are] different but all similar in their warm nature. It's just beautiful to be able to transport people back to that place. I love it," he tells Culture 101.

Tagging and drawing graffiti was "art school" for Lewis Wards and the buddies he had at 13, many of whom also work as creatives now.

After leaving school, he picked up practical skills as a plumber, builder, and drainlayer that ended up translating "nicely" into his art practice, which kicked off around 2010.

"I never really loved the trades, but what I did like about it was being outside and using my hands, the physical nature of it. There's a lot of problem-solving stuff, and just the engineering nature of my practice now is not so different to turning up to a site. Every day, I use skills that tap into my old pipe-cutting and digging and engineering days back in the trades. It actually set me up really nicely to be a sculptor."

Soon after making his first life-sized glass Jetplanes, Lewis Wards realised that, scaled up in size, the colourful gummy lollies had a much more powerful "time-machine effect".

"The size of them makes you feel smaller, and maybe more like a kid in that way."

Sometimes - as with super-chewy and now-hard-to-find K Bars - it's the packaging, not the beloved sweet treat itself, that delivers the "little nostalgic time machine thing", Lewis Wards says.

Without their gorgeously designed cardboard boxes - which he now recreates as artworks - to him, Snifters (RIP) and Jaffas read as just "uninteresting" green and red balls.

"Whatever it is that kind of pops you in that [time] machine is really where I'm going to focus on."

Lewis Wards says he had "a bit of a starving artist mentality" when he started getting into sculpture back in 2010. He only worked when he "thought that he felt inspired" until his eyes were opened by reading the "amazing" artist's The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

"[The message] was like you gotta show up every day for that inspiration, maybe that muse or that genius to show up. To get given those ideas, you've really gotta do your part. I was like, Okay, am I going to just do this half pie, or am I going to take it seriously?"

Exploring new and different ways to sculpt art objects from study and from fellow "makers" is what motivates Lewis Wards now.

"I'm always looking to what's next and what excites me."

For the last seven years, he's often worked six days a week from 7am to 5pm at his West Auckland art studio, with help from a few assistants.

"We take it seriously and work extremely hard."

Propelled by anxiety - "but not in a bad way" - the father-of-three says that 15 years into his art practice, it feels like he's only started "scratching the surface" of what he wants to create.

"I'm just scared that I'm not going to have enough time to make everything that I want to make. That gets me showing up to the studio every day, just in itself. I've got so many ideas. There's so much stuff that I want to do."