Scavenging

Hubcap Gallery

1,041 rusty old hubcaps are being transformed into “canvases” by 1,041 different artists, thanks to Ken Marquis and his Landfill Art project. Some use oil paint or acrylic paint, but others weld or glue or screw stuff onto the caps, weave onto the caps and carve the caps to make sculptures. (A painted example by Sarah Aslakson is depicted at left.)

“I have found that the fine artists I have worked with on this project do not even flinch when looking at this white round disc of metal canvas,” writes Pennsylvania art-and-frame-shop owner Marquis, who bought a load of rusty caps last August. “And why should they. Artists from the beginning of time have used cave walls — Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain — walls of pyramids (Egyptians) animal skins (American Indians), etc. as their canvas. In addition, as a gallery owner for over thirty years, I maintain that artists, generally speaking, are more ecologically in touch and environmentally aware. Perhaps that is the reason forty-one artists readily accepted the challenge and embraced the project.

“Although the project is in its infancy (I hope to have it completed by 2012), it will evolve from a simple idea of taking forty-one old rusted hub caps and creating forty-one pieces of great art. The second phase has already started with the acquisition of one thousand additional (1,000) rusted hub caps which will be turned into cleaned and primed ‘metal canvases,'” Marquis explains.

“The third phase will involve publishing a book on the project showcasing all one thousand forty one (1,041) completed ‘metal canvases.’ The fourth and final phase will involve choosing 200 metal canvases that adequately represent the project and create a traveling show. The book and traveling show will publically portray the global art community’s effort to positively impact the environment through repurposing previous metal waste into great landfill art.”