Recylced Art: Ptolemy Erlington’s Hubcap Creatures
We saw this guy featured on StumbleUpon (you can see some really cool stuff there) recently. He’s doing some fun and unique work. We’ve all seen the hubcaps laying on the side of the road and on the shoulder of the highway. Potholes and bumps lead to piles of those forgotten car parts littering the side of the road. Most of us normal folks would just leave them there. However, if you’re brilliant and creative enough, you might just be the type of artist who can look at this forgotten garbage cluttering the streets as an opportunity – meet Ptolemy Elrington.
Ptolemy Erlington, an artist currently living and working in the United Kingdom, finds these abandoned car pieces and recycles them by cleverly reshaping them into natural forms. His website, Hubcap Creatures features the sculptures of animals that he creates from these found materials. It’s amazing how he brings these old pieces of junk back to life in the forms of foxes, frogs, and fish. Since all of the hubcaps he uses are found, they are covered with scratches and scars that carry over and add character to his metal creatures. The viewer is encouraged to imagine just how each creature received his particular bumps and bruises. Each one had a life of its own before and is given new life in a new form, all of which makes them even more compelling and engaging.
We applaud Ptolemy’s ingenuity and his GREEN efforts. There is no doubt he is doing the planet a great service by taking some of its trash and turning into a world of beauty.
Ptolemy’s work has been displayed in London, Brighton, Haslemere, Rutland, Salsbury, Scotland, Barcelona, and Athens. He is available for commissioned work and sells mostly through his website. Give him a hollar, send him the old hubcaps off your first car that you’ve been saving for all these years, and see what he can create for you!
