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Wow Place #264: Junk Art Street, Sebastopol, CA
What do Batman, Babe Ruth and Godzilla have in common? On the face of it, very little — apart from a certain talent for disruption. However, one place they DO come together is Florence Avenue in the small, northern California town of Sebastopol, thanks to the prolific, local junk artist, Patrick Amiot.
To say Amiot’s art is “fanciful” doesn’t begin to describe it. As you walk through Sebastopol, and particularly on Florence Ave, you’re greeted by characters from the Wizard of Oz, giant hoot owls, a manic garden gnome and a fireman. Nearly everwhere you look, there’s an arresting sculpture: a rocket ship, a group of crows at a bar (a “Crow Bar”), the Mandalorian, a taco truck, a mermaid, Humpty Dumpty, a ski lift and Jerry Garcia. All told, there are over 170 of Amiot’s works in Sebastopol, 25 of which are on Florence Street, displayed in front of the artist’s house as well as on his neighbor’s lawns. Each of them is created from junkyard objects.
Walk a few houses and you’ll find a surfer riding an ironing board across a wave made from a Volkswagen car hood…a lady in a garden wearing a hat made from a battered washtub…a fisherman constructed from 1,000 can lids. Half the fun of viewing Amiot’s works is looking at the details – the old screws and rivets, the painted CD rom discs, the used fire extinguishers — artfully assembled by the artist and then painted by his wife, Brigitte Laurent.
Once a ceramicist living in Montreal, Amiot and his wife road tripped to California in 1997. Says the artist: “I always had this desire to do things out of objects, but I just couldn’t imagine making a living out of it. I still can’t. It’s one of those things when you think of something but tell yourself, ‘This would just be too good to be true.’”
So why junk? Why seek inspiration (and sculpting material) from junkyards, flea markets, and old car parts?
Amiot: “When a hubcap has traveled on a truck for millions of miles, and has seen the prairies in the winter and the hot summer asphalt, when it’s done traveling with that truck and finds itself in the scrap yard and I find it, I kind of like to use that. This hubcap, or whatever piece of metal, from the day it was manufactured until now, has an important history. And I like to think the spirit of all these things lived incredible lives. If they could talk to you, they could tell amazing stories. That’s something I don’t want to hide.”
Walking on Florence Avenue is an utterly delightful experience. Not only are Amiot’s works clever, creative and rather beautiful, they are eminently playful. On one yard you find the three little pigs crammed into the cab of a pick up truck, with the words “Three Little Pigs Construction Company” written on the door. On another you find a giant-sized Wicked Witch of the West, speeding along on her broomsticks, smiling maniacally with her white, broken teeth. On still another, you stumble upon the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit, no doubt on their way to Amiot’s house for a bonkers tea party.
Florence Avenue is a feast for art and non-art lovers alike – a chance to pay tribute to the Caped Crusader, Gojira, and the Bambino while paying nary a penny for admission. It’s unique, it’s inspiring, it’s Wow.
(What I like about Amiot’s artwork is the way it brings together so many used parts and unifies them into a whole. It strikes me that we’re all like this. We’re all junkyard art. We’ve all experienced so many broken moments in our lives. The temptation is to discard the garbage, to put our bad experiences behind us. But the “junk” makes us who we are. It defines us. The trick is how to integrate ALL our experiences – particularly the hard ones — and to give it a new coat of paint. We are all pieces of art. Why not stand proudly on the lawns of our lives and strut our stuff!)