Scavenging

Kentucky Beachcomber

We got a note yesterday from Albertus Gorman, who makes art from stuff he scavenges along the Ohio River near his Louisville, Kentucky home. To create whimsical sculptures, he mixes natural elements (sticks chewed by beavers are a favorite, he says) with human detritus such as household utensils, fishing gear, car parts, toys and (another favorite) plastic food. Anyone who lives near water knows that styrofoam is a virtual shoreline plague. Making the most of it, Gorman repurposes the white junk into dreamy figures resembling snowmen and ghosts. Scouring what he calls “the river’s scrap heap,” he has also assembled intriguing collections of found paintings, found fishing lures, found plastic food and found plastic toys.

“I have always been good at finding things and have thought that objects have an uncanny way of calling me,” Gorman writes. “I’ll just be walking along and for whatever reason I’ll look down at that moment and there will be something interesting to pick up. I always find stuff when I go to the river, which is a big part of the fun.”