Thursday, February 10, 2011

Landfill Art Project

"All American Diner" ©2011 St.Hilaire Nelson

My hubcap project is finally complete! In addition to the old hubcap that Ken from Landfill Art sent me, I also purchased vintage silverware on eBay to further the diner feel. I also repurposed some old Scrabble tiles and much of the papers used in the collage are found papers.

The gingham blue and white background was inspired by the uniforms of the actresses in the film "The Waitress" which is one of my all time favorites and was behind much of the inspiration on the project.

I sent Ken from Landfill Art a photo of my piece this week and told him it was on the way and his response was "Elizabeth, your art project is just super!" That made me feel great, since he's already got an amazing gallery of hubcaps on his website.

My husband had to come to the rescue when it came to drilling holes in both the hubcap and the silverware. My skills with power tools are lacking, I made it through three spoons, but then the drill bit started jumping around and I could not get any more to work. Doug broke several bits drilling through the knife blades, he informed me that they are stainless steel and quite resilient! You can see the whole gallery of in-progress images on my Facebook Fan Page photo album.

Doug is also the photographer of all my artwork, 2-D and 3-D, I'd never have such a nice presentation without his help. He shot this photo on a nice black background so as to highlight the shiny silver. My mother was in town while I worked on this, she was the one who suggested I polish the silver so that it would look better!

6 comments:

  1. I assume this was a commission?
    I can see this would make a pretty interesting series too since you like to work in series. I hope you'll talk about getting started on a series when you come to Leesburg.
    I loved the silverware idea. I am a big flea market and garage sale find buff and that sort of stuff pops up often but you have to have the "eyes" to see it in a different light. When I have my "collage" art eyes on, even the hardware store starts looking like an art shop!
    I really liked this piece.

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  2. Ginny, it's part of the Landfill Art Project, check out their link! I'm glad you like the piece, it was hard to work on the hubcap, I don't think I'll make a habit of it!

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  3. I love this piece. I am a huge fan of diner's or more precisely diner art. This one is perfect.

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  4. I really think this piece is so different and I bet was fun to make even thought the hubcap was a toughie. Thanks for posting.

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  5. Hi Elizabeth!!
    Love this piece!! We had talked briefly awile back about your coming to Fredericksburg VA to our gallery to do some workshops. I still want to pursue that and need to know what year you are currently booking for!! Sorry to drop out of sight there- major family health issues!!

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