I love Joe Pogans work. He creates fascinating animal sculptures using nuts and bolts and other discarded-metal objects that he finds here and there. On his website he talks about his style: "I start by welding a frame to make the general shape. Then I weld or braze the metal objects one at a time, to form the outer shell of the sculpture. I use a "blending" technique that leaves no space between the objects, so the sculpture looks solid. This allows me to hide interesting objects all over each piece, which enhances the excitement of discovery. Some of the works are mounted on a hardwood base that I finish with natural oil."

Animal sculpting seems to be a recurrent theme with a lot of ecoist artists. While that's "natural" (no pun intended), what's interesting is the use of metal for these sculptoral creations. Come to think of it, I don't see why not. Metal is a very versatile and textural design element which appeals very well to our visual senses. It is long-lasting and is one of the most recyclable or reusable materials we know and are familiar with. It's only an added bonus that these artists decided not to buy metal but make use of metal that already exists in familiar product forms.


For instance, Anna Built creates colorful metal birds with abandoned cans and bins. I find her work fascinating, because it's colorful and ingenious. More than that however, it takes me back in time. As a kid, I used to visit a city fair (that we call the exhibition) with my friends and relatives. Like in any part of the world, a visit to the fair generally meant the fun rides on the roller coasters and the ferris wheel (that was human powered in India), magic shows and bike shows, and loads of popcorn and flavor-free pink cotton candy. Now that's the fair bit. There was also the exhibition bit, where craftsmen and other small sellers sold everything from beautiful clothes and artwork to cheap vinyl and rubber toys in hundreds of haphazardly organized stalls. The whole ambience was a multi-sensory experience. Coming back to the stalls, there were some toys that I always came back with - the yo-yo, the slinky spring toy, and a metal click toy (i wish i knew what it is called) made with old tins.. I should have had a huge collection of these by now, if not for the fact that I was (and still am) quite short-sighted. The best part of the click toys, apart from the click itself is the fact that I could sometimes identify what purpose they served before they were converted to toy form. Usually, they were paint cans or old tins with "caution" labels on them. There were even some with a lot of text, making them borderline questionable. Anyway, of all metals toys, I wish I bought one type of toy that I always avoided then. They were the discarded-metal wind-up toys, usually a walking parrot, a clapping monkey or a dented car. I really see them in new light today (the wistful mushy reminiscence light).

There is one artist whom I find particularly inspiring today. Going by the hundreds of pages on google about him, I can say with some certainty that he is very popular.

Joseph Cornell is an artist with absolutely no formal art training. However, his love for surrealism (note: not the environment or recycling) inspired him to make some very beautiful collages. He shopped local junk shops and dime stores and used his collection of maps, toys, marbles, springs, feathers and sequins to create boxes "filled with fantasy and longing".

My apartment is filled with junk. I don't even need to make a trip to a junk store. So with some inspiration and patience, I should be able to explore l'art de junk sculpture. I have nothing stopping me (except, not having a creative bent of mind!)