Monday, June 13, 2011

Nail crap together and call it art

I thought I would give you a tour of my basement where all the crap I own is stored.  Within the last year or two I moved 6,000 mystery novels out of my basement to make room for my new obsession, buying stuff making art!

I do have to admit that a huge part of the fun of being a found object artist is finding the stuff.  I now hunt relentlessly through estate sales, flea markets and auctions for stuff.  And then I buy more stuff.  Seriously, some day I will use all this stuff for something, I promise.


Here is the view to the west where I have my Wall of Weird, or most of the art that I have made.  I mounted this pegboard specifically for this and also use the stairway down to the basement as a self-aggrandizing gallery of my ego.


Here is the view to the south showing my work table, saw and the best thing I ever got at a rummage sale for $30--a working drill press!!!!


This is the view to the east which shows a portion of the crap that now fills my basement to the rafters.  Before you ask, the underwear is a gift from my mother's travels down south:  they are a hillbilly briefcase.



Here is a view to the north showing storage for more of my art and, well--more crap.  This is the end of the basement that is filled with every kind of container you can imagine in my (so far) failed attempt to do a Joseph Cornell inspired work. 



Excess is an occurrence and Denice has convinced me that at this time in my life I may have enough typewriters.  P. S.:  The reason there are so many here is that the act of taking one apart, which initially seemed so appealing, now strikes fear into my heart. 


While I tried to put things where they belong (after all, I am a librarian), occasionally things begin to look like a natural disaster has struck.  Today was cleaning day and after these photos all was set right (yeah, right). 



So, here is the punch line for today's post.  This weekend I went to an estate sale in Racine, WI, where I could not resist buying eight 2' tall pink letters for $1.00.  I mean, c'mon, they were a buck.  So when I got home and proudly showed them to Denice, she asked what they spelled.  I laid them out on the basement floor and discovered a name for my man cave:


Yes, I am the King of Junk and you have just been to my Crapitol.

10 comments:

  1. I have way more books than you do!

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  2. Crapitol! I love it!!! Thanks for the tour, Gary.

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  3. you might just have more crap than me-or at least better storage of it-glad you explained the underwear!

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  4. So, here is your challenge for the day. The only other letter I bought was an S so either that means that there are many CRAPITOLS or this combination of letters spells something else. I suck at these games so who can tell me if this actually spells something else.

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  5. well it's about time you got yourself a blog!
    Congrats and know you are not alone.... I too have too much stuff.

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  6. Oh my, how the mighty have fallen... the books were a much better choice.

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  7. Gary, your basement is fantastic - a veritable playland for artists. And if you ever get bored of "crapitol" you can always have the "tropicals" (yep, I love anagrams...) You can do a lot with those letters!

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  8. Some day (when hell freezes over), my workspace will be this organized.... :D

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