From In Business Magazine
November/December 2000, Page 13
ecoshopping list
Kitchen Utensils Reborn As Art
Jim Opasik uses forks, pans and other discarded items to make sculptures fit for art aficionados and museums.
Dave Block
AT FIRST glance, Jim Opasik’s artworks not only earn immediate notice for their beauty and levity, but also evoke a feeling that something strikingly unusual is involved. The initial impression soon gives way to a feeling almost of being delightfully tricked — the sculptures are made primarily from common kitchen utensils. For the past decade, Opasik has been supplementing items like recycled pots and spoons with used consumer products outside the kitchen to give them new life as sculptures of insects, animals and people.
“All of this material was used by people for their enjoyment — preparing meals or serving people at dinnertime, lunchtime and special occasions,” he says. “At some point, they get rid of the item because it lost its usefulness to them. Then I take it and turn it into something that allows people to enjoy it again — visually.”
OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM
Opasik learned how to convert imagination into art a quarter-century ago by taking classes at the Schuler School of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. He studied anatomy and turned out clay busts and statues. Yearning to surpass normalcy, he changed his media, laminating together materials like wood, Plexiglas and foam into sandwiches from which he cut representations of ballet dancers. In his next phase, he created dancing silhouettes from wire. What followed was a baseball team made from wire filled in with spray foam insulation etched out with acid to achieve a texture between stucco and Swiss cheese. With the Major League Baseball All-Star Game played in Baltimore that year, he sold every piece in the collection except the catcher. That success and the ease of working with the material left Opasik pondering for 16 months about whether to move on to another medium that would make his art even more unique. He finally made his move in 1990.
“The reason I decided on kitchen utensils is because they contain many fascinating shapes and textures already,” says Opasik. “And I firmly believe in recycling, which is why I won’t let myself use anything new. Going out and trying to find stuff is a lot of fun. I’m always at thrift stores, sidewalk sales and flea markets. I occasionally go to an estate sale, but those are hard to make because they usually are at odd times in the middle of the week.”
One of the main challenges is to join together dissimilar materials like aluminum, brass, copper and stainless steel. Opasik employs a mixed inert gas welder that operates almost like a glue gun. A stainless steel wire feeds from the tip of the gun and is surrounded by carbon dioxide and argon. The welder can precisely control the heat of the wire so that material with a low melting point is not ruined. Opasik sometimes uses threaded rod bolts or other soldering variations.
INSPIRING UTENSILS
Object shapes often inspire Opasik’s art. On one of his nearly daily trips to Goodwill, for his example, an aluminum water pitcher seized his attention. “I looked at it, turned it upside-down, and thought, ‘what a great duck!’” he recalls. “The head is bulbous and the spout of the pitcher comes out to form the top beak. I cut two holes for eyes and used the tops of salt shakers for the pupils. A copper pot lid is on the top of the head for a hat, and for the lower beak, I used an asparagus serving tray. It doesn’t look like a real duck — it looks more like Donald Duck, so I called it ‘Art Ducko.’ It’s with a collector in Florida.”
In other cases, the sculptor has a figure in mind and searches for the best components. “Once I started out wanting to make a snake and didn’t know what material to use,” he recalls. “After studying photographs of snakes for months, especially close up, I was struck by the tiny scales, and it popped into my head that when you overlap spoons, it’s exactly like the scales of a snake. I cut the handles off and started at the tail with really small spoons. As I reached the center, I used larger ones. As I got toward the head, the spoons came down again in size.” Once he finished the body, Opasik hit a roadblock — what would he use to fashion the head? Careful thinking brought to mind a variation on his theme: larger spoons used for stirring a pot on a stove. He dubbed the work “Soupentine.”
Exaggeration characterizes selected elements in Opasik’s work to highlight body features. The wolf of his “Matriarch” sculpture is in stalking position, with head bowed and front feet poised to pounce on prey. “I made it three times lifesize because I wanted it to be stark looking,” the artist says. “Certain areas of the wolf are not solid and I purposely exaggerated the ribs, which are made from turkey serving trays. The animal looks like it’s starving and wants to get food. Her back is made from cut up grease catchers that were around stove burners, her tail from handles of forks and spoons, and her loins from various pot lids...A lot of forks are around the face to simulate fur. The head is mostly forks, but underlying the structure are stainless steel pots and mixing bowls. I’m keeping the wolf in my backyard because I want to weather it and develop a patina. Then I’ll cover it with a marine epoxy clear coat to deepen the rust tone and stop the patina from changing.”
Opasik does not repeat his creations. When he wanted to create another duck, he took his influence from the O.J. Simpson trial. He was disturbed by pictures of Nicole Brown Simpson’s battered face and the images of other abused women that he subsequently studied. “I made this duck and used a certain patina to blacken the left eye and bloody the right side of the beak,” he says. “The duck has a phone up to its ear that has ‘911’ engraved on it. I call that one ‘Battered Duck.’”
The sculptures are displayed and sold through art galleries and shows. For example, the Huntsville Museum of Art in Alabama purchased “Rare Please,” a lion’s head made primarily from cheese graters and stainless steel mixing bowls, with teeth from the handles of spatulas and a food processor. The piece is stationed at the entrance to the museum’s new children’s wing. Opasik’s “Pan-A-Phant,” an elephant head made from kitchen utensils and pans, is in Transformations, a traveling exhibit of art made from discarded objects. His latest large-scale work, an eight-foot seahorse, was displayed at the Baltimore National Aquarium in November and will return there in February. It consists of 82 cheese graters and 1,200 fork and spoon handles as the body, crystal antique doorknobs as eyes, serving platters as fins, strainers as the snout and a stainless steel Sterno can holder for the tip of the snout.
In 1997, Opasik attended the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, Maryland for the first time. He brought over 20 pieces, primarily insects made from silver service teapots and bowls, with golf club shafts for legs. “This is probably the largest craft show in the country, so I thought I’d give it a shot,” he says. “All you’re given is a space, so you have to build your own walls, shelves and lighting. You only have three days to do that. After setting up, I was thinking that I would never do this again...On the first day, after lunch, a wave of people started coming through and looking. I sold every piece that I had. After the second day, I wound up with 17 commissions. That’s when I said this is the only thing to do!”
Prices for Opasik’s works range from a $300 insect to the $20,000 “Rambo Lite,” a Rambouillet sheep commissioned by a Montana man for the entrance of his ranch. The stomach is made from a beer keg, the back legs from mercury vapor street lights, the front legs from corners of stainless steel kitchen sinks, the hooves from cookie molds and the fleece from giant strainers sliced into strips. Including research time, the piece took a year to complete.
Despite his success and passion for art, Opasik remains employed full-time as an electrical engineer. “The art world is cyclical,” he explains. “If there’s a strong economy, people will invest in art. If not, there is much less enthusiasm.” He does intend to make his recycled art a full-time career one day. “I have to work up the nerve. Maybe I should do a sculpture of myself. I could call it ‘Chicken,’” he jokes.
For more information contact Jim Opasik at (410) 788-6661.
BIOCYCLE | IN BUSINESS | COMPOST SCIENCE | HOME www.jgpress.com |