In my sources of inspiration post I touched on the subject of found object art.
Or a more modern description is recycled metal art.
Aside from the nearly infinite creative possibilities, there are benefits to the environment as well.
The most obvious is saving metal from filling landfills.
One such artist posted a blog about it.
The artist is Lynn Hasselberger.
Might I say she really does good work with washers and motorcycle chains.
Reading her bio about how she was inspired by her dumpster diving mom and her workaholic father was interesting to say the least.
Personally, my favorite was the votive candle holder.
Truly inspirational people like Lynn illustrate that life is for living and not surviving.
Another artist, realizing that many gardeners are environmentally conscious, makes garden art from scrap metal.
Andrew Chase makes incredible mechanical sculptures of giraffes, elephants and robots from recycled auto and plumbing parts.
In Haiti there is a growing trend of using old oil drums for sculptures.
They are flattened and worked on by the use of the most rudimentary tools like hammers, chisels and saws.
These works are catching attention around the world and are increasingly sought after.
Recycled metal art has a special place in the garden.
This especially true with rusty steel.
The natural brownish red color of weathered steel contributes a solid "earthy" ambience to the garden.
This is a bit of irony since many natural iron ores mined are of the red/brown oxide.
Copper, although considerably more expensive and hard to find as scrap, lends to the garden the ability to form beautiful green and blue patinas.
As you can see there are so many ways to obtain metals, one only needs to facilitate the creative intuition to use the metals to make masterpieces.