[5] Joyce stated in a 2008 lecture at the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University in Chicago: "As a pre-teen adolescent, unearthing disparate shards of once complete objects, made from diverse materials, and attempting to visualize the whole form from fragments, has instructed my practice as an artist to the present day.

Joyce quit high school to devote himself full-time to learning the trade and developed a classically oriented curriculum of studying historic ironwork in the storage collections of New Mexico's many museums.

A McCune Foundation grant received in 1996 expanded the program to include "at risk" middle and high school students, giving New Mexico youth an opportunity to learn metalworking techniques in free, after-school classes.

In 1989, while lecturing at the First International Festival of Iron in Cardiff, Wales, Joyce, along with German artist Achim Kuhn, were given the Highest Honorary Fellowship into the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths with the Addy Taylor Cup.

[13] Working hands-on in various industrial settings, multi-ton remnants from parts being manufactured for multinational corporations, government agencies, and military forces around the world are forged into sculptures that appear at first as soft as clay.