2023, Art, Movies, News, Uncategorized

Scrap Artist

50 Comments

I ran across this yesterday. This artist lives in Lemmon, SD, about 80 miles south of where we live. I have never heard of him before.

https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/04/19/lemmon-sd-artist-gets-international-attention-new-documentary/

The Scrap documentary highlights people who have found uses for objects that are no longer needed. For eample, one of the stories involves a British man and his family who have restored more than 2000 British phone booths that have turned up in all sorts of locations in England. Another team of architects has turned abandoned ocean liners in a cafe and a church. I think it is great the documentary film maker also highlighted the sculptor in Lemmon.

Having been around farmsteads for much of my life, I can imagine that there is scrap metal galore to use for projects like this. I think about all the things that got thrown in the groves at my grandparents’ farms. You often see old corn pickers and threshing machines parked on top of hills out here as monuments to the past. I just think it is wonderful that he can do this in Lemmon.

Do you know any actively working artists? What are some ideas you would have for repurposing things we don’t use anymore, like telephone booths? Ever done much work with blow torches?

50 thoughts on “Scrap Artist”

  1. My entire adult life, many of my closest friends have been working artists. Several of them are, regrettably, no longer with us. None of them happened to work much with scrap metal but at least one is a welder. My college roommate is known and represented internationally

    I consider Robin to be a working artist. She works with intention using repurposed materials.

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      1. I have a useful skill set, which I used to fulfill the requirements of others, and I have engaged in various art projects but they tended to be disconnected to each other and not part of a larger vision, which I think is what makes an artist.

        Am I an artist? Not for me to say.

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  2. I know several working artists here, one or two who rent studio space to hold classes. The spring Bluff Country Art Tour is coming up last April weekend, with both town and country locations: https://bluffcountrystudioarttour.org/

    And a friend’s daughter has a S. Mpls shop – Sassy Knitwear https://www.yelp.com/biz/sassy-knitwear-minneapolis , at 48th and Chicago that sells women’s and children’s kintwear made from repurposed knit clothing. Started in one of the owners’ attics lo these many years ago.

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    1. hey Barb, I meant to get a hold of you earlier one of my good artist friends is publishing, a book of drawings and poetry and launching it in winona tonight at the marine museum at 7
      mara adamitz scrupe
      doing good as a poet these days
      past life in clay , sculpture, outdoor design engineering etc
      plus she’s a great human being

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  4. Whenever anyone mentions junk art, I have to tout this extraordinary installation:

    http://www.worldofevermore.com

    We discovered this place (in the old location) while taking a different route home from Madison after WisCon, and were absolutely delighted–the perfect wrapup to a long weekend of immersion in science fiction fandom. The Forevertron is unlike anything any of us had seen before, a truly epic creation! Unfortunately the sculptor has died, but his legacy lives on.

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  5. Rise and Create, Baboons,

    Tomorrow I am hosting a potluck and gathering for 3 other artists and we will sit on my porch and work, and gossip, and eat. One is the RenFest photographer, one is a doll maker, and third is a world famous polymer clay artist and teacher. Here is her website:

    https://www.weefolk.com/index-secure.htm

    I consider myself a hobby artist without much skill but lots of pleasure from the hobby.

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    1. You have in that area bentonite a clay with industrial uses such as added in minutes quantities to processed taconite to make it roll into pellets.
      Clyde

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  8. Yes, I know a few working artists. One friend was a fused glass artist but he branched into metal sculptures with glass. His workshop is in Kasota, MN (suburb of St. Peter) and he has a huge kiln that gets into the thousands of degrees. I have some of his smaller glass pieces. The new metal sculptures are amazing. There are a few in Bemidji, in Wisconsin, and of course in Mankato. I think they have them in other towns too. I’m trying to help him get one installed here in Northfield. Their website doesn’t do justice to all he has created, so I find photos of his work on his facebook site: Hallmark Glass. His wife has commented on Trail Baboon in the deep past. She posted as MN Firefly and some of you may know her.

    I also have friends who are fiber artists and one graphic artist (the Rock Bend t-shirt designer). Also so many musician friends that I wouldn’t be able to count them all. I

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  10. When we lived on the North Shore we were around many artists, true artists I would say. I did framing for many of them. Some moved in and then moved out. Some had prestigious oeuvres. Sandy knew most of them through the library. They were a loose sort of society. Some real jerks, some difficult ones, some nice ones, some very quiet ones. Some loners who scorned the group. One man insisted he got to tell the several carvers what they were going to carve. That group fell apart of course.
    There is an artists group here in town that hangs out in the senior center. Arrogant inept know-it-alls. They have nothing to learn. The group up on the shore attended workshops, were eager to learn from each other, took museum trips together. Such a contrast.
    I have 5 students I know of who earn their living in art. I am not counting Chris Dalbec the neighbor boy who had footage in the Nature show Wednesday night, who is so very talented. I never had him as a student. I have many students who have written creative books but that is not how they earn their living.

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  12. “Artist” is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but it’s not one I’m entirely comfortable using. I’m not sure we’d all be able to agree on what art is, let alone who is an artist. Used loosely, I suppose any creative pursuit that requires at least some skill level would qualify. Be that what it may, I know lots of creative types, some of whom consider themselves artists, but most of them don’t think of themselves in those terms. I know painters, musicians, potters, weavers, photographers, sculptors and writers. Also, some very fine cooks – culinary artists, if your will. Some of them make a living doing it, but most don’t.

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    1. I have a couple of pieces from Africa that are made with recycled wire and beads. Actually it out the beads are recycled but all of the wire is.

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  14. Joe Havel was my bass player and worked in clay sculpture. When I knew him as a young man he went on to become a well-known sculptor mostly in branch and today is over in Paris, studying or doing art at a fellowship after retiring as the head of the art department for the University of Houston, and teaching many students how to get their art brain on in order to get into the large national and international galleries around the world where he exhibits his stuff, Mara, Adam much Scrupe he who I have listed above in Barb’s earlier comment decided to switch from outdoor installations and sculpture to poetry about five years ago and today is a frequently awarded poet who publishes two or three books here and is marvelous although her words tend to be a bit ostentatious because that’s who she is craig blacklock is a Minnesota treasure that many of you know that I grew up with and Kala friend and once you’re in that artist community, you tend to be in that artist community cousin Dan Jones is a painter of outdoor landscapes and I love his work he’s based out of Fargo and I think all of those people have websites joe has a Facebook spot that shows his work that he’s currently doing in Paris. I love checking in on these guys to see how they’re doing and I always keep in touch as far as a blow torch. I’ve used a blow torch for killing weeds, I’ve used acetylene torches for cutting steel and welding , and it’s some thing I thought about getting into in a bigger way, but I’ll probably get into painting, carving and writing as well as my music when my artistic needs are wanting to get outside the current comfort zone and into discovery and creativity

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  15. while using the torch to catch steel, I wasn’t exactly sure how worked and one time starting up the torch. It kind of went poof, and a big fireball surrounded my head and singed my hair and beard not fully off, but certainly shortened it up quite a bit before I had burned out the gas, and realized that that was a thing, I continued cutting but I was a little more careful

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  17. Pj SwiftGTRApp voi spendete non arrivo in WhatsApp hai proprio poi fanno Lucy serve la fashion Because Some Reason tipo giù all’e-commerce il nome di Donna Pippo soir producer base scorso venerdì se puoi hanno Jackie ormai sopra a Birds.

    The preceding paragraph brought to you by my Italian voice recognition. Sorry about that.

    What I meant to say was that I agree with PJ and we could probably spend days here arguing the merits of what is art and not art. I tend to fall on the loosey-goosey side of the definition as I think that a lot of people produce things are beautiful and artistic, even if they aren’t necessarily “artists“. And as for myself, I consider myself, like Jacque, a hobby artist.

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