Good-Bye, My Friend

At age 10, I was captivated by dinosaurs made out of car parts. These dinosaurs were brightly colored and BIG! I was enchanted by the pieces and by the artist, Jim Gary. Jim was a soft-spoken man who always laughed at having failed high school art class because he had no sense of color, yet he made his living for decades by making ART!

I was audacious enough to ask if he would come to my school, and Mr. Gary complied. I later found out that this became a fairly regular thing for him to do. Over the years, at various demonstrations, he made some small items which he gave to me. Two that stay in my mind are a flower made of sheet copper, a washer, and welding rod; and an owl of machine nuts and sheet metal. These were small, unpainted, unsigned pieces.


When I got older, I purchased one of his smaller pieces, a small rake-tailed bird. He also gave me an ant made of rocker arms. (I hope I identified the part correctly.) And, when running into him at a show with my son, gave us a bug made from silverware. (I will post pictures of these pieces here shortly.)

Gary's large pieces featured prominently in several movies, but the one I remember best was Howard the Duck. Unfortunately, I could find no web postings of his sculpture in movie stills. During the 1970's, there was also a special magic in recycling in an unexpected fashion. After all, to a great extent, that's what Jim Gary did.


A nice article can be found at the Lowe's Motor Speedway website here. The Bergen Musueum of Art and Science has a roadrunner sculpture in their collection and posted on the web. An interview with a couple of shots including one of his significant early works, Universal Woman, can be found here. Two good photo sites showing some of his larger works can be found here and here.

His obituary from the Asbury Park Press can be found here. Mr. Gary's website can be found here, and details on a fund to distribute his works to interested museums can be found here.

The "Jim And Friend" picture above was copied from Jim Gary's website. I am hopeful that my using it will not be regarded as an issue. If it is, please contact me and I will remove it.