Industrial Surplus Fun

Last weekend Cathy and I went on a little art adventure. We headed off to Zygote Press to view the current exhibit RAISED VOICES: ARTISTS' BOOKS FOR TROUBLED TIMES. The show featured a variety of amazing handmade books that we were able to pick up and read. While we were there we discovered an artist open studio event going on in the neighborhood, so we took the opportunity to visit three artist studios located in the building next door. That was a nice, unexpected bonus.

Before going to Zygote Press we decided to check out an industrial surplus warehouse that I had seen featured on the local news. I'm always on the lookout for anything weird and unusual that can be used in art and this seemed like just the place. Holy Dooley! The place was HUGE and had the most bizarre stuff. I had no idea what most of it was--but it sure looked cool. Most items are sold by the lot so you can't just buy a little bit of this or that. But the longer the stuff is there, the cheaper it gets.

Here is mini-Arthur (our official field trip mascot) checking out a piece of surplus. I love the greasy grunginess of the control panel and all the type and numbers.

We managed to find a boxed lot of electric motor laminations that had been there for a couple of months. Of course, we didn't know that's what they were until we got home and I googled the company on the box labels. Until then they were just really cool little metal thingees. This is what we bought for $5!

This is what they look like out of the boxes and scanned. We're cooking up some ideas for what we can do with them. Stay tuned, I'm sure you'll be seeing them again.

I was so excited about our find that I did a journal page about it.