Junky Art...

     Florence Avenue in Sebastopol is home to a crazy assortment of fanciful characters. Nearly every front yard along this quiet residential street is host to a whimsical piece of metal sculpture created by Patrick Amiot out of odds and ends of metal junk. This neighborhood is, in fact, Amiot's home, too. His yard is filled to overflowing with metal characters, while other yards each showcase a solitary favorite.
     In the vast majority of neighborhoods this could never happen. In modern suburban areas, neighbors might have complained about the "junk" and turned their backs on this idea and its perpetrator. Homeowners Associations around the country have CC&Rs that would literally outlaw such playful beauty. But not this small town's residents. They embraced their hometown artist and his quirky creations by joining him in displaying his happy art.
     Firemen in yellow hats and their black-and-white spotted dogs hang out the windows of a red fire truck. An old fashioned milkman delivers his bottles to one house. Plates piled with noodles balance in the arms of a diner waitress in her apron. A bikini-clad surfer girl rides a breaking wave on her surfboard, while a statuesque soccer player kicks his ball across a green lawn. A voluptuous mermaid reclines smiling in an ivy bed. The Mad Hatter holding a tea tray stands next door to a scampering White Rabbit checking the time. A menagerie of dogs and chickens adorn cars and trucks made from a miscellaneous collection of crazy parts and pieces one might find at the dump.

      Amiot makes all this metal and plastic trash come radiantly alive with personality and energy. The sculptures seem to be only momentarily frozen in mid-stride, mid-dash, mid-sentence. Their eyes, made of turn signals, pie tins, and mirrors, sparkle, and their faces smile with genuine delight. Arms and legs, created from kitchen utensils, vacuum cleaner attachments, and old hand tools, gesture and stride. Vacuum cleaner tanks, buckets, funnels, engine parts, and toasters contribute to bodies and heads. Vehicles are constructed from lawn mowers parts and yard tools, pots and pans, children's toy parts, and more.
     My son, Dean, and I visited Sebastopol, 50 miles north of San Francisco, in the wine country of Sonoma County, on our way towards Thanksgiving festivities last fall, after each spending some restful days at the coast. We strolled up one side of the Street of Art and down the other, stopping to point and laugh aloud at each yard. We scrutinized each piece, attempting to identify the disguised components, and picking our favorites. Dean took numerous photos along the way. (The pictures shown here are both his.)
     On our way out of town, we were surprised to see more large pieces of Amiot's junk sculptures about town, dotting our path, like the whole town has adopted Amiot as their "favorite son." We stopped to do a bit of wine tasting in neighboring Glen Ellen, at BR Cohn Winery, and were pleasantly surprised to be greeted at the entrance by four more of Amiot's objects d'art, four "classic cars" with canine drivers.
     What a joy to stumble upon such happy artistic expressions! We had an hour or more during which we were lost in time and space, laughing and chatting, being inspired and delighted by whimsy and creativity. Now that's fun! Florence Avenue enthusiastically brings to life the axiom, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

"I'm a junk artist and I think that's really my job is to let my feelings go with the junk." said Amiot. "The way it started was that I had this desire to do something other than my clay, so I decided to make this giant fisherman. I just put it right in front of the house and figured, well, if there was a city ordinance that tells me to take it away, that'll be fine. To my amazement, people actually enjoyed looking at it. People slowed down and waved. So that was the beginning, and then came another one, and they eventually started to go onto other people's front yards -- on my street, of course -- and then after six months I sold my first one." -- Patrick Amiot in an interview with "Spark" and KQED