Paul Loughridge’s assemblages recall the golden days of space age.
By Traci Vogel
Everyone, at one time or another, has looked at the junk in their garage and thought,
“I should do something with this.” Few have acted upon that impulse
as literally as Paul Loughridge, whose well-appointed Morgan Hill home is attached
to a garage strewn with parts of old blenders, bicycles, vacuum cleaners, and
defunct industrial equipment organized in what can only be called controlled chaos.
Or perhaps “creative chaos” would be a better term. After all, Loughridge
is an artist, although it’s not a word he uses comfortably. In fact, he
says, he doesn’t know what to call the objects he makes (“Space stuff?”
he suggests). Inspired by years of collecting toys from the ’50s and ’60s,
Loughridge assembles robots, ray guns, and rocket ships from scrap he finds at
flea markets and garage sales. There is no soldering or welding involved in the
process; Loughridge drills, grinds, and sands pieces to make them fit, and then
pop-rivets them into place. It’s part of the aesthetic, he explains: “If
you were to weld it, then it would be like working with clay or painting –
there would be no limits on it. You can weld anything to anything. This way, each
piece kind of dictates what you can and can’t do with it.”
Loughridge has other rules: No plastic (unless it’s part of an authentic,
vintage piece of scrap), no painting (although he will clean and polish parts),
and each piece has to be named after one of the parts that went into its making.
“I’m very deliberate,” Loughridge deadpans in front of carefully
labeled bins of bolts and bits. “I like to make the robots so people will
think, ‘How did you do that?’”
The aesthetic draws fans to Loughridge’s quirky, personable works. Since
he began a year ago, Loughridge has won a first prize (for his robot sculpture,
“HydroFlame”) at a Gallery Morgan Hill showcase, gotten 27,000 hits
on his Flickr page (flickr.com/photos/lockwasher), and sold a few pieces to eager
collectors. He creates his work under the name “Lockwasher,” a childhood
stand-in for his hard-to-pronounce last name.
The growing popularity keeps Loughridge busy. Sometimes a little too busy, says
his 11-year-old daughter Emma, who jokes, “He’ll be out here all day
– sometimes he won’t come in for dinner.”
If thinking of his robots, ray guns, and rocket ships as art is new to Loughridge,
so is pricing his work for sale. “When I started bringing it to trade shows
with me, and I actually sold a couple of pieces, I had no idea how to price it,”
he admits. “If I broke it down according to how many hours I worked on a
piece, I’m probably making five bucks an hour. But right now, I’m
selling the robots for about $200-$600 bucks apiece.”
Not bad for your own personal R2-D2, artistically interpreted. For more of Lockwasher’s work, visit lockwasherdesign.blogspot.com or
www.lockwasherdesign.com. Paul
Loughridge will also be showing at the Tapestry and Talent Festival in September.
