Who Was the Famous Metal Yard Art Artist From Illinois
This past Christmas, Tammy Lee received a big box of rust-covered fleck metal from her granddaughter. "How many women get a box of rusty junk and remember it is super cool?" Tammy asks with a laugh. To her, the box wasn't total of junk. It was full of art supplies.
Tammy, owner of Junkyard Art by Tam-I-Am, takes erstwhile hand tools, farm implement parts and other discarded metal items and turns them into sculptures. Pieces include tractors, snails, dancers, owls and then much more – all made of fleck metal.
"People like the thought of taking something that has seen its lifespan and headed for a landfill or scrapyard and seeing it turned into something useful and artsy they tin enjoy," Tammy says.
Before becoming a total-fourth dimension artist, Tammy worked as a freelance court reporter where she recorded depositions. "I really did dearest that chore," she says. "It gave me a lot of freedom, and it was a good paying job."
Then several years agone, Tammy injured her back. "It got and then bad, I couldn't do anything," Tammy explains. "I was pretty much limited to bed and had to have surgery." At the time, she was a fitness vitrify, ran 5Ks and wasn't the type to sit effectually.
"While waiting to take surgery, I was looking at Pinterest, and I saw something absurd made from old junk," Tammy recalls. "I mentioned it to my married man … the side by side thing I knew, on ane of our trips to my doctor, he said, 'Let's terminate in this store.' He bought me a petty welder, brought me out to the shop and gave me my first lesson."
Living on a subcontract south of Fairfield on Wayne-White Counties Electric Cooperative lines, Tammy says at that place was a lot of old junk laying around that she could tinker with. "I was horrible [at first], but it really took off from there," she says. "I posted a few pictures of things I made on my Facebook page that I thought were kind of cool … and people started asking me, 'Are yous going to kickoff selling?'"
As her welding skills improved, she decided to start a business page on Facebook, where she does the bulk of her business. "It has really helped me get my name out there – not only locally, just I exercise have followers from around the world," Tammy says. She also utilizes Instagram, Snapchat and has quite the post-obit on TikTok.
"When I started posting videos on TikTok, which I notwithstanding tin can't believe I had the guts to practice, I was scared I would get a lot of negative feedback," Tammy says. "There's some mean people out in the world, especially when they can exist bearding, but I have had very positive remarks."
In May 2020, Tammy decided to leave her career to become a full-fourth dimension artist. "It had gotten to a point where I was miserable in my job," Tammy says. "All I could retrieve virtually was how much I wanted to be in my store. I decided life is likewise short to not exist happy, and I took the gamble of quitting my task. It ended upwards working really well for me."
She idea doing art full time would help her keep up with orders, but it didn't work out that way. She got even busier, which surprised her, especially during the pandemic. She created more than 700 pieces in 2020, and by Christmas, she was running low
on inventory.
Concluding year, all but two of her shows were canceled, so she did the bulk of her sales online and in her metal workshop, which was open past appointment and on Saturdays late in the year. She also does special orders, creating memorial pieces after someone'south loved one has passed. Families will bring in buckets of old tools, and she volition create a slice to call back them past. "I actually honey to do information technology," she says.
Her workshop is total of junk, but it'south organized. "I can discover what I need when I need it," Tammy says. "I do have a lot of what I call art supplies … I have a fiddling chip of a hoarding problem. I cannot refuse pieces I know I can use when I'm out junking."
Tammy says she has e'er had an imagination. "When I was young, my imagination got me in problem. Now it makes me coin, which is kind of dainty. When I'thou out junking and looking at pieces, that's how I know pieces that I want. I volition look at it and something pops out at me … similar a caput of an animal. My mind works different than a lot of people."
More than than 90 percent of her fine art supplies are purchased. "People assume that I go all my stuff for costless," Tammy says. "While some people practice bring me buckets of stuff, and I love that, I do pay for most of my art supplies."
On average, Tammy spends an hour and a half to 4 hours on a sculpture with the bulk of the time spent cleaning rather than constructing information technology. Most of the fine art supplies are covered in rust, then one helpful tool she uses is a concrete mixer. She throws in sand and her art supplies and lets information technology run. After several hours of tumbling in the mixer, the rust comes off.
Then she spends a lot of time cleaning up the sculptures after beingness put together. "When yous weld, it leaves backside an ugly stop that I clean up. The bulk of my sculptures are coated with polyurethane then they can exist protected." This can be fourth dimension consuming because of all the parts that make upwards each sculpture.
"I spend a lot of time muddied. It's ridiculous. I call up some people think I'm joking when I mail service a picture of my dirty confront, but information technology is filthy work," Tammy says. "My hands frequently look like a mechanic'south easily. It is just part of it." She wears protective equipment including gloves, a heavy leather smock and her signature red and white polka dot welding hood.
"I still consider myself a newbie," Tammy says. "People oftentimes think I have been welding for years, but I oasis't. There's a lot I don't know about welding and I desire to learn."
Learn More than
Junkyard Art by Tam-I-Am
By appointment only
1769 County Road 300 North
Barnhill, Illinois 62809
Telephone
618-516-1475
Facebook
Junkyard Art by Tam-I-Am
Instagram
@tam_i__am
TikTok
@tam_i__am
Snapchat
@tamiam64
Club online via Facebook
Source: https://icl.coop/transforming-metal-junk-into-art/
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