I get raw material for my sculptures from a number of places. One of them is along the roadsides and train tracks where I walk and sometimes pick up litter. I find tools, wheel covers, chrome hub caps, sheets of rusty steel, railroad spikes, fence posts bent from car accidents, and leftover hardware from telephone pole replacements. I also sometimes see free furniture left out on the curb for collection. Steel-framed desks and chairs are perfect salvage material.
Another source is donations from people who know me and my work and are happy to contribute materials, sometimes from the shop of a widow. Neighbors with rusty steel that seems useless to them often become part of my next creation. I recently had a local ranch lady, who had seen my work at the wine bar she was sitting in, give me a pile of miscellaneous hardware and ranch-related objects.
In the past, I have come across a surplus coil of rusty barbed wire while hiking in Arizona. Having no tools with me to cut it free, I returned the next day with cable cutters, cut it free, and hauled it back to my car. This particular coil of barbed wire became two of the pieces in my portfolio, namely “Barbed Cross” and “Barbed Pi”. During the process of constructing those two sculptures, I learned just how wicked that material is to work with. After getting poked several times through heavy welding gloves, I deemed it prudent to get a tetanus shot, just in case.
Created in 2013. Salvaged barbed wire and barn wood. SOLD