ArtBuzz

Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 48

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Mixed Up Blues: Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 48, 2008 plywood, primer, blue bottle caps, becks bottle caps, recycled roofing copper 13" H x 48" W x 2.5" D
This fish is made from a mixed palette of blue bottle caps with a white face of Becks caps. The plywood is primed with two layers of Kilz primer and can be hung outdoors (but the caps may fade if you hang it in direct sunlight). The fins and tale are cut from recycled roofing copper. Click here to view a video tutorial of how I create my mosaic bottle cap sculptures.
	Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 48: $500 Including UPS Ground shipping*
	*Shipping: Price includes shipping for US orders and Canada, excluding Alaska and Hawaii (please call or email for rates to AK and HI). For International Orders please see FAQ here.

Bottle Cap Mosaic Fish No. 47

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Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 47, 2008 plywood, primer, Bud Light, Heineken and Becks bottle caps, recycled car body metal 17" H x 49" W x 2.5" D
This fish is made from Bud Light, Heineken and Becks bottle caps. The plywood is primed with two layers of Kilz primer and can be hung outdoors (but the caps may fade if you hang it in direct sunlight). The fins and tale are cut from an old car, circa 1950s I think… I don't know what kind of car it was. Click here to view a video tutorial of how I create my mosaic bottle cap sculptures.
	Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 48: SOLD. Commission a similar fish for $500 Including UPS Ground shipping*
	*Shipping: Price includes shipping for US orders and Canada, excluding Alaska and Hawaii (please call or email for rates to AK and HI). For International Orders please see FAQ here.

Bottle Cap Mosaic Fish No. 46

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Silvertone: Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 46, 2008 plywood, primer, Bud Light bottle caps, recycled car body metal 13" H x 44" W x 2.5" D
This fish is made from Bud Light blue and silver bottle caps. The plywood is primed with two layers of Kilz primer and can be hung outdoors (but the caps may fade if you hang it in direct sunlight). The fins and tale are cut from an old car, circa 1960s I think… I don't know what kind of car it was. Click here to view a video tutorial of how I create my mosaic bottle cap sculptures.
	Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 46: $500 Including UPS Ground shipping*
	*Shipping: Price includes shipping for US orders and Canada, excluding Alaska and Hawaii (please call or email for rates to AK and HI). For International Orders please see FAQ here.

Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 45

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Mixed Up Blues: Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 45, 2008 plywood, primer, Labatt Blue and Michelob Ultra bottle caps, recycled roofing copper 19" H x 49" W x 2.5" D
This fish is made from Labatt Blue and Michelob Ultra bottle caps. The plywood is primed with two layers of Kilz primer and can be hung outdoors (but the caps may fade if you hang it in direct sunlight). The fins and tale are cut from recycled roofing copper. Click here to view a video tutorial of how I create my mosaic bottle cap sculptures.
	Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 45: $500 Including UPS Ground shipping*
	*Shipping: Price includes shipping for US orders and Canada, excluding Alaska and Hawaii (please call or email for rates to AK and HI). For International Orders please see FAQ here.

Bottle Cap Mosaic Fish No. 44

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Mixed Up Blues: Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 44, 2008 plywood, primer, Coca Cola, Becks and Harpoon bottle caps, recycled car body metal 12.5 " H x 44" W x 2.5" D
This fish is made from Coca Cola, Becks and Harpoon bottle caps. The plywood is primed with two layers of Kilz primer and can be hung outdoors (but the caps may fade if you hang it in direct sunlight). The fins and tale are cut from an old car, circa 1950s I think… I don't know what kind of car it was. Click here to view a video tutorial of how I create my mosaic bottle cap sculptures.
	Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 48: $500 Including UPS Ground shipping*
	*Shipping: Price includes shipping for US orders and Canada, excluding Alaska and Hawaii (please call or email for rates to AK and HI). For International Orders please see FAQ here.

The 3 Little Pigs: A Story in Steel

3 Little Pigs Story in Steel, 2006 Recycled steel, 14" H x 26" W x 6" D Collaboration with Mya Smith Buy it at Checkered House Gallery
My daughter Mya is interested in making comics and she's pretty amazing at it…draws and writes very well. So when she came out this summer, I thought it would be cool to collaborate on some narrative steel sculptures together. She picked the stories, and  decided how to lay out the image so that it would carry a narrative without words. I did the cutting and welding and offered a wee bit of editorial assistance in the few places where I thought the image or flow of the story could be stronger. Even though we worked pretty closely together on these, I think Mya could have done them alone if she wasn't a little bit afraid of the sparks in the shop. The house is made from an old refrigerator drawer and the rest is recycled steel plate. The wind from the wolf's mouth is copper plated welding rod. The plants are scrap left over from cutting out the flames on the Pot-deFeu recycled grills. This piece sold to Checkered House Gallery the minute Tess saw it. But that's okay… you can buy it from the gallery if you hurry. I don't expect it will last too long.
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Folk Art Style Aluminum + Copper Fish Sign

Aluminum + Copper Fish Sign, 2005 Recycled Aluminum, copper and plywood. 51" H x 96" W x 1" D
Purchase Aluminum + Copper Fish Sign for $850 ($750 plus $100 S+H).
This was originally going to be a sign for the studio…  I got this far with it and decided that I liked it better as art. I made it before I had a plasma cutter, so the whole thing was done with shears and a jigsaw. I especially like the way that the copper fin near the gills came out all ripply and dimensional. I had intended it to lay flatter, but the copper got all bent up while I was cutting it and actually looked much better that way. It's pretty common that the best features of a piece will be the mistakes… I could certainly have flattened it out the way I had intended it to be, but so often what makes art be art is seeing the benefit of an error before you correct and having the sense to leave it in.

Haitian Style Merman Recycled Steel Sculpture

Haitian Style Merman, 2006 Recycled steel. 26" H x 8" W x 3.5" D

SOLD

This sculpture reminds me a lot of the graphic style used by Haitian artists who make cut steel art from 55 gallon drums. Which makes me really happy, since usually I can't even touch those cats for raw style. It's just one of those things that can't be faked. I got lucky on this one… it was a piece of steel that was left over from some other cut out pieces I was working on, and I could kind of see the design struggling to get out. So I made a few more cuts, emphasized a few things, threw in a little bit of detail, and there it was.

Fish Art: Recycled Bottle Cap Mosaics

 

Bottle Cap Mosaics on Display at Vale Craft Gallery

 

Bottle caps have long had a place in the folk art tradition as a decorative element. Usually, they are deployed more as a texture, willy nilly without sorting for color. My  own bottle cap mosaics were initially inspired by  Haitian ritual flags, in which detailed images are realized entirely through the use of sequins. The first bottle cap pieces I did were large mosaics  combining  bottle caps with vitreous glass tile. Each cap is sorted by brand or color, washed, dried, punched, partially crimped and finally nailed in overlapping scales to create a feeling of depth, light and shadow. Decorative nail heads emulate the texture of seed beads often used to reinforce the sequins on flags. 

What I like most about making the smaller fish mosaics is that the overlapping texture of the caps does such a good job of representing scales.These fish have been one of my big sellers… I don't make a lot of them, because they're far too labor intensive to actually be profitable but I love the look of them. Typically sell out almost as soon as they appear. I am willing to do custom fish in this style, either by brand, color or shape, whatever, ah, floats your boat. If you'd like to commission a fish just drop me an email from the contact page and let me know what you're thinking. If one of the fish below tickles your fancy, I suggest calling the appropriate gallery A.S.A.P. These really do swim off to new homes pretty quickly.

 

Bottle Cap Mosaics at Vale Craft Gallery
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availability	SOLD . Email me if you are interested in commissioning a fish in this style. Reproductions will vary, but will be as close as possible. Made to order in 2-4 weeks.

 

Bottle Cap Mosaics Available From Mixed Elements Gallery
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availability	SOLD . Email me if you are interested in commissioning a fish in this style. Reproductions will vary, but will be as close as possible. Made to order in 2-4 weeks.

 

Bottle Cap Mosaics at Checkered House Gallery
click thumbnail to view larger images.
availability	SOLD . Email me if you are interested in commissioning a fish in this style. Reproductions will vary, but will be as close as possible. Made to order in 2-4 weeks.

Atlas World Famous A New Sculpture

Atlas: World Famous, Cut Steel Sculpture
	Atlas: World Famous 75" high x 48" wide x 12" deep $2,800.00 plus shipping costs
medium	100% Recycled Steel from antique cars and factory scrap.
availability	Unique piece, act quick!
price	$2,800.00
S&H	Item ships FedEx Freight. Shipping is NOT included in price! Please call 231.584.2710 or email me for a shipping quote.

Atlas: World Famous is my first large-scale sculpture made using the newly operational plasma cutter to create metal "collage." I'm really digging it… I have plans to do a whole series of similar work based on carnival banners, circus posters, and other pop-culture type images. This is a lot of fun for me because it's a way to go back to my roots in the folk art/pop culture vernacular where I started my art career. I love colorful sculpture and bold graphics, and I really wanted to make some big work for the yard that would be more visible as people go whizzing by on the highway at 60 mph.

The sculpture is 75" high x 48" wide x 12" deep, which means that Atlas himself is pretty much life-size. I'll try to get some pics of me next to it for scale when I have someone handy to shoot the photos. As you can see in the images below, the sculpture is two sided, with the image reversed on one side. Click on the images to enlarge.

 

       

 

Below is the image this sculpture is based on. It's one of my all-time faves… I did an Atlas mosaic in glass and bottle caps a couple years ago, using the same image. The original is from the Mexican Loteria deck, a traditional game similar to Bingo. Teresa Villegas did a very cool updated version of the game which has now been published in in a handsome book. I highly recommend checking out her site devoted to the project, which provides a good deal of background on the game and images. You can also learn more by visiting this website from Boston University on the History of the Mexican Loteria Card Game.