A Portfolio Recycled

Bicycle Art, Begining My 10th Year

2010-08-31T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this piece most of the summer, now the hard part, showing and promoting! I've tried many ways to market and show this type of work with only limited success. For this set, I put about everything I know into it. I think I've done some of my best work to date

Parts Collage Table & Stools

Overhead View

Previews - Coming Attractions

2010-08-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

First up is a part of the two furniture groups I've been working on. The piece below is a seat for a bar stool. It is three symmetrical layers of brake arms. These are parts from the brake cluster on the front or back wheels. I weld them together in three layers and they make a seat that is no less comfortable than any wooden stool top!

The view below is the underside, although either side could be the top!

The bag below is the first of the full size leather bags I'm making!

Spring Auction Season!

2010-06-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

Spring has been Auction time, a time to help some good organizations! The Lunch Box in the following post was bid up to $725.00 for the benefit of BICAS and Ballet Tucson. It was a fun afternoon at La Encantata Shopping Plaza with a nice lunch and Mimosas. It was fun to see my piece bid on by so many people. It was the highest bid piece that was an actual "lunch box" , and other pieces went for even more. The day seemed like a success for the benefactors and that's what mattered most! The next auction was to benefit a great place (where I do my screen printing, by the why) that has had some issues with the space in which it operates. It's called the Gloo Factory and has been printing all types of shirts, stickers, signs, buttons for many of the great local non-profits, artists & arts organizations, political campaigns and all kinds of things I'm probably overlooking, for years, and Dwight (who runs things) may lose his space and I contributed two handbags for the "SAVE THE GLOO FACTORY" benefit auction. After that I donated a Gear Clock to the KXCI Online Auction. The clocks continue to sell, slowly but surely, for almost 10 years now! As summer approaches, I'm making a collaborative piece that's first rate art furniture and quite unique. Photos coming soon!

Tucson Urban Picnic 2010

2010-03-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I made for the 2010 Tucson Urban Picnic. The event is on April 23, 2010 at the La En Cantata Shopping Center. Tickets are a mere $45.00 with proceeds going to Tucson Ballet and B.I.C.A.S. (10% of the total). Although I made a similar piece in 2004 (highest bid piece that year!), this piece is a little different. This years piece has a carbon fiber handle ($$$ in bike culture) and four of the six sides of this piece were made as one! The previous piece (from 2004, scroll down for images), was 6 different panels fitted together. This year, I included keys on every side ( I think) and a better fastening device (store bought, along with the hinge). I also tried to incorporate tools in this years entry. Who knew that people actually collected art lunch boxes, or that there were Urban Picnics all over the country!

Side view with key and wrench!

Other side has 7/16 wrench!

Bottom has a sealed (possibly) skateboard bearing!

Top view show brake levers on lid and closure (no cotter pin!)!

View inside the box!

First side constructed is the last picture!

El Groupo Youth Cycling Trailer

2010-03-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

This is a trailer that I've been working on since late January. It's for a Tucson based youth cycling group. It still lacks bike mounting hardware and a few minor details, but this is pretty much complete. These young men and women are really dedicated and I wish there was something like this around when I was their ages. And they're good! They win races and they have support from a lot of great people in the Tucson area, and there are a number of people, like myself, who donate time and effort and help this "groupo" get to the next level. I thoroughly believe that you have to show young people the attention to detail it takes to make it to the next level, in whatever you do, and instilling that pride in a job well done is a quality that isn't easily learned. You have to want it!

The trailer has independent suspension, not a thru axle. It will work great for getting to mountain bike races as well looking good when they arrive!

Gear welded on to back of fender.

Having owned a trailer before, I figured that the handlebar would be helpful, the bike gear adds style points! We wanted to have the bike parts be chrome, but, the powder coater said the chrome may bubble under the high heat it takes to bake the finish.

The tail lights are made from steel cranks and brake parts!

Dark blue and yellow are the team colors, BTW!

The B.I.C.A.S. Clock

2010-03-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

This piece was made in 2004 and hung on the wall next to the door for a number of years. A little while back it fell or was knocked off the wall somehow and it needed repaired. I added a new bottom cluster to the piece and did some touch up painting and it's back on display in the newly redone B.I.C.A.S. Gallery! The chain ring on the top of this piece is a vintage skip tooth one that I found and had plated. The main piece is the back side of a chain guard. The bottom is a symmetrical gear cluster with a lock ring and a bearing for detail.

Chrome piece inside the chain ring is from a spoke guard and had plastic around it. The slender piece under the chain ring with the two bearings is from the front of the chain guard.

The Art of Engineering a Science Project

2010-02-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

My year has started off with a few community service projects for BICAS. The first is with a Jr. High student (St. Michael's, Tucson) named Max. Max wanted to make a bike with a fan powered sail! Even though I'm pretty good at design on the fly, I'm not able to defy physics, do the impossible, or send off a kid with something that will surely cause an accident or injury. That said, we talked out the options and decided to make a land yahat, sand sailer, blow cart, or whatever you want to call a 3 wheeled sail powered vehicle. To keep the thing light, we opted for state of the art, used metal bed headboard, for the frame. For the seat, a old Prop 201 metal sign. The bmx bike frame welded to the front for steering has a fork for a 26" rim on the front with a working v-brake. The rear wheels are 20" rims with 2 rear triangles from old bmx bikes. The steering is rope assisted by derailers made into pulleys and a couple of store bought pulleys. The mast is a headset and solid steel schwinn fork and headset assembly in a little different configuration than intended (!), with a derailer pulley to hoist the sail. The sail (black, gray, and white camo) is 5 1/2' tall x 3' on the bottom and grommeted. The mast is able to swing from side to side without hitting the rider. We decided to not make the sail larger because of the wheel size being much larger than most of these types of designs. It should go way fast enough for a 15 year old on a windy day, in an empty parking lot! This is the first project I'm aware of that has been done at BICAS for a student science project for a school science fair. I hope it's something that can be done on a regular basis with all kinds of different things that students dream up!

ETSY STORE NOW OPEN!

2009-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

It only has a few items so far. In the next couple of weeks there will be more!
The URL is www.enclaveonline.etsy.com .

New for 2010 ~ Leather Clutch

2009-12-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

I'd like to thank all the sites that linked or wrote up my site: Wired.com,

Urban Velo.com., DrunkCyclist.com, & TucsonBikeLawyer.com!

Origins

I moved to Tucson in September 2001, I had been there before, with a band I was in, in the 90's. I really liked the downtown area and I noticed the bike culture and art scene. I started hanging around BICAS in October of that year and one day I was asked if I wanted to try and make something for their art auction. I gave it a some thought and decided I'd try to make a clock. I picked out some gears and figured out how I wanted them to be arranged and Alan Reilly ( former BICAS director) welded them together. It sold at the auction for $38.00. I was hooked enough to start thinking about all the different things I might be able to come up with.

First piece from 2001 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

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The first pieces I made were mainly wall pieces. I didn't know how to weld when I first started making recycled art and I did a lot of work with a two part epoxy that bonds metal ( J B Weld ). The first wall pieces were building blocks for the parts collage pieces I would do in a few years.

2002 B.I.C.A.S. Spring Art Show*

This is one of the first frames I made, actually 3rd if my memory is correct. It started as a wood frame which I gutted and then glued spokes in for a matte. After that I glued ball bearings, cable housings, and rusted chain on to the wood. The photo is one of my own of a road going off into the distance and mountains as the horizon (one of the few images I can draw without tracing). The technique is interesting. I glue the photo to 1/4" foam board and then glue a piece of glass on the photo. After that a matte is glued on top of the glass making a "matte on glass photo".

*The photo is a scanned paper photo that is slightly out of focus.

This Wall Mirror is probably my favorite early frame. Not much to it, just a wood frame, spokes, reflectors, and a mirror. The simplicity and the elegance made me feel like I was on to something, however, there aren't that many equal square frames at thrift stores, I came to find out. And that's kind of required for this piece.

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This is the first lamp I ever made (2002). It was made of spokes and gears and it was completely glued together with J B Weld. It didn't last long....

But as far as style points and originality, it's the starting point!

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COMING SOON! A NEW ONLINE STORE ON ETSY.COM!

recycled sculpture

2009-05-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

silver lock fish

this piece was for the 2008 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

this piece is made from u-locks, dropouts, flattened fenders, fork ends & seat springs

with a marble eye

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roadrunner

this piece was for the 2006 B.I.C.A.S Art Auction

body is large seat springs, legs of u-locks, flattened fenders, headset wedge

and a few other parts

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saguaro

this piece was in the 2007 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

the saguaro is kickstands, gears, forks, handlebars & spokes woven through the piece

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spinning flowers

this was a commission piece i made in 2006

interactive garden art

each flower is on a working cassette/free wheel and spins in one direction

this flower is brake arms ~ chain ring ~ seat spring

this flower is brake springs ~ gears ~ headset cup

this flower is spokes ~ chain guard ~ seat rail ends

this flower is fenders & gears ~ brake arm pieces

the art of function

2009-04-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

The first piece of recycled art i ever made was a clock

since 2001 i've made many different types of clocks that have been available to the public at events like the B.I.C.A.S. Art Auctions & GABA Bike Swap meets in Tucson, Az.

from left ~ disc brake with gears! hybrid clock /
industrial gear clock / full campy clock

around 2002 i started to come up with a clean style of clock
i don't typically mark my clocks but some of my signatures are the gear shaped washers in the center and painted red or black hands

Small clocks like this one are for sale on my ETSY site( enclaveonline.etsy.com ) and in the gallery at BICAS

( 44 W. 6th St. Tucson, Az. )

this is a built wheel clock / the gear that the clock is on is built into the wheel

psi 100

campy rim built wheel clock

this is a chain ring wall clock

this wall clock is a 12 hole motorcycle gear , a bicycle gear

and a vintage computer hard drive that make up the main elements of this clock

blue anodized motorcycle gear with a bmx chain ring

for this wall clock

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Tables

this is the first end table design

built wheel with bicycle frame tubing and bicycle rim legs

16" rim/tire and tube ~ 40 psi

glass or lexan top

height 19"

next design featured a motorcycle gear, this piece
has a bicycle chain ring and vintage gear base 20" rim / tire table top ~ glass or lexan top

center detail

i made this cafe size table with Kathy Eldred

i made the table and Kathy did the dragon mosaic on the top

26" rim/tire ~ solid tube

height 29"

blue dragon

Kathy did the glass work in the motorcycle brake rotor

main tube of the table has down tube shifters

this is an end table Kathy and i did together ~ smaller version of the previous piece

20" tire rim ~ solid tube ~ height 19"

two styles

mosaic top ~ built wheel w/dual oval panes

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handlebars & rims
This chair is on display in the gallery at BICAS

( 44 W. 6th St. Tucson, Az. )

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bicycle racks

i made this piece for the Empire Market on 9th st. (east of 4th ave., tucson) it was painted by Heather Wodrich /i also have bicycle racks in back of Rocco's Pizza (near e. broadway, tucson) & Wingspan (7th st. at 4th ave., tucson)

drop twist

u-locks descending

handlebars ~ hub
fire sprinkler tubing ~ tumbling ball ~ salvaged steel plate

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stratsophere plant holder
bicycle rims ~ bicycle gears ~ motorcycle chain ring

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commission from 2002

chain body ~ face door sculpture

crank arm & gear flag

i would tell you to go and see it but someone spray painted it white , yes that's right this piece would have rusted in certain places and not in others and looked so cool / at least i've got pictures

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i made this lunchbox for the 2004 Urban Picnic

closes with a cotter pin

flattened rim cigar box purse
i changed the chain to a more heavy duty one after these photos

black fabric lining

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this piece was designed by Ignacio Rosales
i made this and all of the coffeemakers for the 2004 & 2005 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auctions

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incense burner

hub ~ bent spokes

ball bearings ~ gears

headset cup ~ bottle cap

collaborations & wall art

2009-04-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

the first recycled art frames i made were actually clocks that i put in frames with vintage chrome chain guards for the clock face and a square of rusted chain around the edge / more gluing was involved to put things together and i was just learning to weld / but i put things together like that even after i learned to weld and i still glue some today but, for the most part , everything's welded / after a year of using images and trying to put them under glass, i met filmmaker / photographer John Sheedy / he came up with a way to glue photos on to metal and we set out to make 10 frames for photos he had of vintage bicycles / we ended up with nine total but had an issue with one piece that ended up becoming a painting / the following photos are all but one of the original eight / this group was originally shown at the 2004 B.I.C.A.S. art auction

PHOTOGRAPHS

autocycle

one of the few pieces i've kept for myself,

parts collage inside of flattened & mitered rims, on display at the gallery at BICAS

( 44 W. 6th St. Tucson, Az. )

in the garden
this piece was stolen from Brooklyn Pizza (tucson) while on display in their dining room / but what can you say ~ who can resist all the derailleur squares i cut up to make a square around the matte of spokes with the awesome garden photo ~ but , what can you do

fox's place

first heavy frame with old school cranks and hammered flat rims

olivia

perfect blurred photo and also a true built wheel to impress all you bike shop folk out there

each spoke is cut and tightened to hold the photo matte in place

murray monarch

classics

this frame is also a built wheel and there are holes drilled into the metal square behind the photo and each spoke is cut to size and tightened to hold the photo's metal canvas in place / this frame also has a tires that has a tube that needs to be pumped up with air every now and again

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this piece was made for the 2005 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

it's the first frame using rusted bicycle parts / sepia photo is a street scene from China

photo by Barbara Seyda

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on the move

this piece was in the 2005 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

photo by Christine Schneider

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Climbing Swine

This piece was started in 2002, completed in 2009. The photo is by Chris Espenola. The frame is wood with a matte on glass technique, flattened rims for the main matte. Chain pins surrond the photo! The piece was in 2009 B.I.C.A.S Art Auction.

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PAINTINGS

this piece was made for the 2004 B.I.C.A.S. art auction

painted by Gavin Troy

riding with the river

this piece was in the 2006 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

painted by Gavin Troy

baja

this piece was for the 2007 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction

painted by Gavin Troy

monsoon ride

this piece was in the 2008 B.I.C.A.S Art Auction

painted by Gavin Troy

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banderas de los muertos
this frame has an interesting history/ originally, this frame had a photo and was in the first group of frames with the other pieces i did with John Sheedy / the photo was damaged and there was no photo to replace it / when the 2005 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction came around, i asked Matt Cotton to paint a frame and he made a painting of a float that i pulled in the 2005 & 2006 All Souls Processions / i was the grim reaper and i pulled a long float with banners that had names of people who died that year / it's currently on display at BICAS

march of the creatures

this is a piece for the 2007 B.I.C.A.S. art auction / i really like the shape of this and how the handlebars turn into fork ends

painted by Matt Cotton

close up

also a All Souls Procession theme

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gates pass

the painting & frame is 26" X 26"

2009

Painted by Titus Castanza

On display at the gallery in BICAS

( 44 W. 6th St. Tucson, Az. )

gates catus

this is a catus on the hill on the south side of gates pass rd.

6" x 8" frame & 5lbs.

painted by Titus Castanza

On display in the gallery at BICAS

( 44 W. 6th St. Tucson, Az. )

derailleur

piece for the 2007 B.I.C.A.S art auction / this frame is mostly made of springs from seats & brakes and seat rail clamps

painted by Titus Castanza

close up

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eva

this one is one of my favorites from the 2005 B.I.C.A.S. Art Auction / the frame started life as a typical glass frame / i gut everything , then cut and glue all the spokes (on the bias [angled] , i might add!) what's hard to see is the frame detail , the edges are all covered in inner tubes and the edging where the spoke and tubes meet is cable housing ~ add a super cool painting of a girl wearing bicycle glasses and there you go!

painting by Chiara Caballero

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untitled

this piece is from the 2004 B.I.C.A.S art auction

painted by Lauren Maglanga

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ride at midnight

this piece is from the 2004 B.I.C.A.S. art auction

painted by Marilyn Volkman

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WALL ART

this piece is also from the 2004 B.I.C.A.S. art auction / almost everything you see here is a bicycle part , this is a great example of the earliest style of work i did when i first started making recycled art frames / the badge is from a vintage Raleigh and the face of the frame is covered in toe straps , spokes & bearings

resistance

this piece is from the 2004 B.I.C.A.S. art auction / this is a piece i make with a spoke cutting machine , 1/2 of a pressed hub , some paint , some metal , and a bearing

paisley shadows & polished metal (lighting)

2009-04-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

lamps , that's a good place to start... i seriously started making lamps in 2002 , but, it wasn't until the next year that they really started to gel / i had been trying many shade designs and then i started using perforated metals ! the first few lamps had shades of stainless steel and I really liked the effect but something was missing / soon enough , i started mixing things up and making some pretty interesting shades in a number of sizes

after a while , i came up with the idea that using two pieces of perforated steel a inch apart would make really good shadows (but only with a clear bulb) / and this is an idea that i used to make a lot of lamps for a number of years / some were sold locally at b.i.c.a.s. art auctions and some at retail locations and a few on the web

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nickle plated table lamp

this lamp is made of an automobile / motorcycle / & bicycle gear & parts, for the base / bicycle tubing and ceiling panel vents , all of the parts are then cleaned and or polished and plated welded and assembled

this lamp is on display in the gallery at BICAS

( 44 W. 6th St. tucson, Az. )
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this base includes a bicycle drum brake hub with bearings in the spoke holes for decoration

industrial pulley base
industrial gear / bicycle tubing / bicycle headset cup

side view of shade

industrial gears / bicycle tubing / headset cup

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recently (2009) , i've been making sconces out of u-locks this all came about when i started to get a steady supply of them and i thought i could come up with some interesting art deco looking designs / a friend said that he wanted some indoor and outdoor wall sconces and asked if i had any good ideas , and after a few days i came up with the what became the following photos

this view lets you get a look at the piece when it's daytime / this piece is made from u-locks , cut so that they are staggered and angle out as they rise up / behind the u-locks i did what i call parts collage / this is random bicycle parts welded in ways to fill some of the space and it creates some nice shadows as well / the light from the indoor sconce is directed upward

this is what it looks like with a clear bulb

owner prefers blue compact florescent

this is the outdoor version / a little more subtle and not angled / backing the u-locks are flattened fenders with a curved gear in between / the light from the outdoor sconce is directed downward

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~thanks for checking out my site~