Guest Post by Bridget Pilloud

March 16th, 2010

Found Art Story

As long as I can remember, my dad has been making found art.  My dad finds bits of metal and old things in dumpsters, junkyards and garage sales, and then he turns them into art.

When I was a kid, my nightlight was a 3-foot tall robot whose previous incarnation was as a parking meter. The only signs of his past life were the dome of his head, and a tell tale “Duncan Meter” embossed on his chest.

I like that my dad does this, because he takes things with stories that are seemingly over and turns them into things with new stories to tell.

Take his "Pig on a Pedestal," for example.It's a pig now. But prior to its porcine days, it was a faucet and a pipe.

I asked my dad, Earl about his process. He told me that he keeps his eye out for things, but he has no preconceived notion about what he wants to build next. Something interesting catches his eye and then he turns it over in his hand, and the next thing you know, he's turned it into a woman, or a pair of dancing figures or the six-foot-long steel earthworm that graces my mother's garden.

Perhaps this is how life is. When a story has played out in our lives, we have no idea, we have no preconceived notion about how something once functional, perhaps something we've thrown away can become new, can become a new story for us. We can be our own trash to treasure. We are mutable and transcendent.

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Bridget Pilloud is the woo-woo badass intuitive guidance counselor over at http://www.bridgetpilloud.com. She teaches people how to tap into their intuition. Her first book, the little book of Bridget is in the works. Follow her on twitter here: @intuitivebridge. You can follow Bridget's dad on twitter too: @earldepearl . Perhaps someday he will tweet something.

8 Responses

Bridget – I love your Dad’s creations & the idea that “We can be our own trash to treasure.”

Great post – thank you for sharing.
Kat

Wonderful! My son is ready to learn to weld…he will love seeing Bridget’s father’s work:)

And Bridget….your badass woo woo is capturing my interest!

We can choose what we want to save from our past and turn it into whatever we want–what a great idea! Useless to important. Yes, it’s such a perfect idea!

Thanks for the kind comments!

I would love it if my dad would start a blog sharing his work with the world. Especially if he did a picture by picture play by play of his creative process.

I barely skimmed the surface of how creative he is, and how interesting his process for developing his found art.

What a lovely post. It reminded me of my Dad and how he could never drive by stuff sitting on the ground without stopping and rescuing it. I think I’m the same way. My attic gives testimony to that.

I would love to win this. Strapped with finances, helping parents. Also it would be a great respite from caregiving.

Great post and I love your Dad’s creations.

You’re so lucky to have such a great dad! I love how you appreciate his artistic gift, and also how you got global with it, giving us a lesson we all will be better for remembering.

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