I have a lot to say about junk...art. Or, as most would prefer to say, “art from found objects.” So much more poetic. But still, when I find sexy cool junk I immediately want to make some art and so should you.
The Kenyan villagers who found a half ton of space junk in a farmers field are undecided. The Kenya Space Agency (KSA) identified it as a separation ring from a launch rocket more than eight feet in diameter. The U.S. Air Force estimates there is at least 9,000 metric tonnes of that stuff circling us up there .
I wonder if the Kenyans thought of that space ring as junk or a “found object”? That right there is the issue. Whether we call it art from found objects or junk, “context,” in the words of Bianca Bosker, is everything. My neighbor down the street has a hand-painted ceramic toilet planter in her front yard. Marcel Duchamp took almost the same thing, a urinal, and upended the art world. One creative effort sunk my home’s value a bit, the other started an art movement. Context.
Satisfaction for life (and a page of prominence in H. W. Janson’s History of Art) was Duchamp’s prize. He helped establish Dadaism, satirical and tongue-in-cheek art intended to upend the status quo. “Readymades,” art from found objects declared art solely by the creator, was particularly subversive.
And that’s the thrill of sexy cool junk art: “Aha, I found this cool thing. If I do this very creative thing to it/with it, it’ll be cooler still and maybe someone else will also think it’s cool and fun and interesting. Or at least I’ll have some really good yard art.” As compared to inviting passersby to treat my lawn like a bathroom.
In addition to Mr. Duchamp and his “Fountain”, we should also consider a few other “junk” artists - John Chamberlain: sculpture from crushed up car bumpers, Man Ray: visual puns built of trash, and Meret Oppenheim: a furry teacup.
And yes, anyone can create work and call it art. That’s what my neighbor did with her toilet (unsuccessfully in my opinion). What about you?
Vince Hannemann who built a Cathedral of Junk in Austin Texas is a better example of yard art from trash. Cathedral of Junk is a crazy quilt accretion of hubcaps, bike parts, CDs and light fixtures that teeters over 33 feet high. Stuff got found and stuff got accreted and then it got discovered. Vince’s creation is a must-see destination for Austin tourists and requires an appointment to visit.
Elmer Long believed in the beauty of bottles, all colors. Certainly every one of them when found roadside would qualify as junk but in Elmer’s hands they became Bottle Tree Ranch, a forest of colored bottles stuffed onto tree branches to twinkle in sunlight. In Oro Grande, CA. Elmer’s legacy lives on, curated and cared for by his son Elliott.
Closer to my home in Tucson Arizona there once was an artist named Jerry Hall. Jerry was a retired miner who populated his house and yard with muffler people. They were cut and welded and painted figures with steel spaghetti hair and friendly smiles. Jerry was a folk artist on the cusp of art world stardom when he passed in 2010. He was 65.
But none of these descriptions quite convey the joy of process. Essentially just the fun of recognizing connection and metaphor while gazing at detritus. And I used to have a lot more junk to gaze at . Today my collection extends to just what covers my three-foot by eight-foot workbench and several shelves of a steel storage rack. Some of it was from scrap yards purchased by the pound, some of it was donated by friends and lovers. Some I simply scooped off of the street without a second thought.
Sexy cool Junk: Get Yourself Some
And it definitely isn’t all ferrous. My junk collection is a not-at-all logical amalgamation of rusted metal, curious objects and even trash pile nastiness including random doll parts, a sewing mannequin, and curious tree growths. And of course the oh-so-popular weathered animal skull.
The beauty of a junk collection is that almost everyone already has the beginnings of one. A fecund and fertile pile of forgotten crap exposed to the elements and mostly forgotten. It’s waiting there. For you. To make art from. Discoveries and connections and metaphors abound. The rusted parts and broken bits of plastic beg you put them together and make meaning. Somehow, anyhow. You’ll know it when you see it.
And, do you really need to be an artist to appreciate and enjoy the pleasure of whimsy? (Granted your family and neighbors may have an opinion about your tastes and talents but what pleasure is creation without the adrenalin of drama? What good is an HOA if not the ready access to conflict?)
Junk can of course be purchased. That’s why God invented thrift stores. But don’t or don’t do it much. So much of the spirit of discovery is lost when your selection has been subjected to even the most modest curation and a cash transaction. Shopping at Salvation Army, Goodwill and even the red-headed stepchild of thrift: St. Vincent de Paul should be treated as cheating.
Better to find those treasures on your own through curbside and alleyway picking. (And, BTW; ixnay no-way on watching American Pickers, Pluto TV. Those clowns are strictly cash flush antique hoarders.) Yes to hoarding, no to spending. Junk should be mostly always free or you lose the karma.
Sexy cool junk from scrap may or may not be what you’re holding in your hand down some dank alley. The jury is still very much out on this. Is it a found object or did you collect some plain old junk? Think of it as the difference between half a vintage doll head (the half with the face hopefully) and a handful of Barbie legs. The one is totally a found (as in discovered, unearthed, a true find) and the other is just junk-worthless trash. Maybe. Curation is everything. (Also context)
All those aforementioned artists - Duchamp, Chamberlain, Hannemann, Long and Hall started small and just never stopped. Junk makes you make stuff. Even the tiniest creative spark is spurred to an inferno with a bit of wonderment and a moment to tinker. Et voilà: cool shit.
Por ejemplo - I found a molded paste baby doll head cracked apart front to back. I grabbed a nubby blue rubber ovoid chew toy. It fit the empty head space perfectly. Voilà yet again - an alien monster with a pimply blue rubber face sans eyes.
Now That’s Satisfaction for life
Outside my studio and house I hear junk art sing to me everytime the wind blows. I have countless windchimes hanging around the property all crafted from crap. Many are made of hard drive discs my son the network engineer gifted me. Gorgeous tones.
I’ve been blessed over the years with so many other sources of supply. Likely you too have these treasure troves in your backyard or nearby.
For many years I found Tucson metal recycling yards absolute goldmines of fascination, inspiration and satisfaction for life. Ellis Metals and Tucson Iron and Metal Surplus once provided hours and hours of good grubby discovery. Conveyor wheels used to offload produce became pull toy wheels, a hollow copper float transformed itself into a garden gnome.
Sadly both these outlets are either gone or no longer available to artists. One site became a yuppified apartment complex. (I can still see my son bounding over the scrap piles narrowly avoiding death by electromagnetic crane.) The other, Tucson Iron and Metal Surplus suffered a terribly unfortunate mishap when a worker cut into a live munition after mistaking it for harmless scrap.
Commercial outlets are now all but absent thanks to liability, lawyers and gentrification. Fortunately there's always Brush and Bulky. In Tucson and elsewhere city residents enjoy a couple monster trash days each year. Put out any old crap (almost) and a crew of city workers will gladly bundle it off.
Be there before the city and the professional scrappers and the trash world is your oyster. And, the city publishes the pickup schedule for every week of the year. If there’s no junk to be had in my neighborhood, it’s out there somewhere else.
With bounty in hand the next trick to start joining crap to other crap as the inspiration strikes. There are two camps to this question. The first recommends joining parts and pieces anyway you can with nuts bolts, glue, a drill and/or a good welding rig. Sturdy, secure, and able to attain great heights.
The other camp is a bit more purist: “We shall drill no holes where there are none already existing” - yikes. Do go learn from the best if this “No Holes” philosophy sounds like you: Mat Bevel aka Ned Schaper whose Museum of Kinetic Art offers a stellar example of no holes joinery. My kid and I were regulars for Mat’s costumed presentations of his work back in the 1990s in Tucson.
Collect sexy cool junk and you’ll have satisfaction for life with what you create even if concerned and fretful neighbors are your biggest fans.