Unknown Scavenger, 2023

18in. x 12in. x 12in.

4 years of chewed double mint gum, excavated glass eyes from ruined Lauscha-Mueller factory, plaster skull portion found on street, porcelain teeth veneers from neighborhood supplier, copper refrigerant tubing left on doorstep by an unknown scrap metal collector I met while collecting discarded air-conditioning units and refrigerators, copper plumbing fittings, copper jewelry wire, reclaimed electrical wire, plumbing solder from industrial manufacturer liquidation auction, aluminum stock from machine shop liquidation auction, hose clamps, machine screws, wood screws

(see expanded material list and description at bottom of page)

Unknown Scavenger, 2023

25in. x 16in. x 10in.

i. 4 years of chewed double mint gum (2017-2021)(Providence, RI & Queens, NY)

ii. “excavated vintage human glass eyes age 1890 Lauscha Mueller – Uri German A 3800” purchased from “sir_flacon” who notes “they where (sic) found while digging in factory yard ruins in Limbach in Thuringia Germany” (Nürnberg, Germany)

iii. plaster skull portion found on Linden Street in front of Miss Cherry Delight’s apartment (Ridgewood, Queens, NY)

iv. “1 box Alloy Pin Porcelain Teeth Material Colors Shade A3 24# full set” from denta_24h (ZhengZhou, Henan, China)

v. copper refrigerant tubing salvaged from discarded air-conditioning units and refrigerators found on street (Ridgewood, Queens, NY) (tagged, CFCs recovered)

vi. copper plumbing fittings purchased from used parts reseller on eBay from user tinman5711 (Plainfield, IL), 608scorpio159 (Winona, MN), electronics_plus (Hingham, MA)

vii. copper jewelry wire from closeout wholesale dealer ‘Wolf E Myrow’ (Providence, RI) and reclaimed from discarded electrical wire from dumpster (Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY)

viii. plumbing solder from industrial manufacturer liquidation auction (Taunton, MA)

ix. aluminum stock purchased in bulk at auction from machine shop closing inventory liquidation (Englewood, NJ)

x. “1/2- 1-¼ in. Stainless Steel Hose Clamps” purchased from Home Depot (Maspeth, Queens, NY)

xi. “10-24 1.25-inch 18-8 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screws” purchased from Grainger (Maspeth, Queens, NY)

xii. stainless steel wood screws (origin unknown)

Note: Air conditioning units and refrigerators are very hard to throw away in New York City. They are full of freon and CFCs, which are pretty heavily regulated to protect the ozone layer. If you want to throw one out in the city, you have to call the department of sanitation who will send a technician out to correctly drain the freon without releasing any, and then tag it with a sticker saying its okay to discard, and then you can call the city to pick it up off the street in front of your building. If a unit is found in front of a building without a tag, that building gets a fine, even if it isn’t theirs. Because of these regulations, you will often find discarded fridges and AC units in alleys, in front of empty lots, under the BQE, or other no man’s lands in the city. They are also filled with lots of valuable copper, are great targets for metal scrapping. For the last four years, I would collect these units and bring them back to the studio to salvage the copper tubing to use in sculpture, after removing the freon from the system (which I learned from tutorials online). Once I spotted a unit on the street and doubled back to pick it up. By the time I got to it, there was someone else going for it as well. He asked me if I was trying to scrap it as well, and I told him I was, but that I was trying to use it as material, not for trade it in for cash, and that he should take it all. I tried to leave, but he was pretty insistent that I take the parts that he couldn’t use. He really wanted to share it, so we walked to my studio where I had the tools to take it apart. We talked about his family in the Bronx and I told him about the sculpture I was making. He took the clean copper, and I took the steel and radiator fins. I never saw him again, but ever since then I would occasionally find pieces of scrap metal left neatly at my studio doorsteps. They were always from the less scrapable parts of appliances, and I believe they were left by this man who continued to collect scrap in the neighborhood. I never got his name. This work is a portrait of him. It is made from scrap copper that he left and from other appliances left in the neighborhood, as well as a fragment of a plaster skull left out on our block by Miss Cherry Delight, and chewed double mint gum, applied a few pieces a day over the course of 4 years.