When Dr. Lyone Hochman retired after decades as a Houston gastroenterologist, his wife had one request.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this saying,” he said with a laugh. “When I retired, my wife looked at me and said she married me for better or worse, but not for lunch.”

So, Hochman set out to find something to fill his days.

Living in Museum Tower, just steps from the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, he wandered into a sculpture class, despite having no artistic background.

“I’d done zero sculpture, zero anything like that at all,” he told the JHV. “Nothing in the arts ever. I was handy around the house fixing things. That’s it.”

He expected a pastime.

Instead, he found a passion.

Today, Hochman spends his days bending wood into graceful curves, welding steel into intricate forms and creating sculptures that seem to defy the limits of their materials. Retirement didn’t simply give him a hobby. It revealed an artist he never knew existed.

However, the learning process wasn’t always easy.

Created in honor of Dr. Lyone Hochman’s granddaughter, Maya, this Star of David sits at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin.

“They basically just watch you make mistakes and then give you some ideas for next time,” he said of his instructors. “They really make you muddle through it.”

It was frustrating at times, but the process taught him something medicine had taught him decades earlier: Solving difficult problems requires patience.

Then came another surprise.

“I never imagined I’d be good at welding.”

Now, steel is as much a part of his vocabulary as wood. He purchases much of his metal from Triple-S Steel. Specialty pieces are cut to order by Metal Supermarkets before he transforms them into sculptures that balance strength with movement.

One of his most ambitious works weaves 32 feet of bent wood into intertwined circles that appear to float. Another combines weathered timbers and steel in a study of balance. A large steel bell, built after his grandchildren challenged him to make one they could ring, carries its rich tone throughout the neighborhood.

Some works are deeply personal.

For granddaughter Maya’s 2024 Bat Mitzvah, Hochman created a sculptural Star of David that reimagines the ancient Jewish symbol in bold geometric forms. It stands at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, reflecting both his growing confidence as an artist and his connection to Jewish life.

Then, somewhere along the way, sculpture stopped being something Hochman did. Instead, it became part of who he is.

“When I’m trying to go to sleep or I get up in the morning, I’m not thinking about anything other than what kind of sculpture I’m going to make or how I’m going to mechanically produce what I’m thinking about,” he said.

What began as a single class to fill his retirement days has become an indispensable part of his life.

“I just started out taking one class thinking it would occupy a little bit of time, and now if I can’t get to the studio for a couple days, I get a little fidgety.”

Hochman says his sculptures rarely end where he expects.

“I never end up finishing with what I started with,” he said. “When you start, it takes on a life of its own.”

It turns out, the same could be said of retirement.

Watch for more stories of how seniors have transformed their retirement year in future issues of the JHV.