John Chamberlain (sculptor) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you ever driven past a junkyard and marveled at piles of crushed cars stacked up? When a vehicle is no longer able to be driven, whether due to an accident or mechanical failure or something else, most of the time it’s taken to the scrap yard, where it’s crushed or used for parts for other cars. And if you’re like most people, you might see these piles of twisted metal and broken glass as nothing more than eyesores.

Some creative and industrious artists have seen more than a pile of scrap metal in old cars, though, and instead take artistic inspiration from them. Using car parts – from the muffler to the manifold – they have created whimsical, beautiful, and just plain awe-inspiring works of art. From roadsides to major museums, art made from old cars is becoming more common – and more advanced – all the time.

 Muffler Men

Chances are you have encountered these human-like pieces outside of auto repair shops or in sculpture gardens around the country. Made from welded together car parts, Muffler Men are a form of folk art that never fails to delight those who see them. Artists use car parts to create “people” performing various activities from hunting and fishing to painting a portrait.

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This is what I think about. I drew this on a post-it-note after about 36 hours’ sleep-dep. It shows very intricately the inner workings of my mind.

The valiant hero wearing a plumed helmet in the middle is my heart, battling furiously with the fearsome beast that towers over it: my desire. The two combatants are equally as intriguing as each other. The hero has three arms. One is piercing the demon, the other is defending an advancing limb from his foe, whilst the other reaches in earnest, and with grotesque distortion, towards the other feature of this piece: the bizarre city of haunted windows and leaning towers that hovers in the distance. The hero is my heart, and the demon/beast is my desire. My heart is, in this depiction, paradoxically desiring for the city in the distance, desiring to be elsewhere, whilst clearly piercing the flesh of the manifestation of that desire in the form of the demon. At the same time he clutches a limb of the demon of desire with all his might, holding it firm and steady, struggling for a way to escape, a way to get out, yet finding himself firmly fixed in the center with no way out. My heart is screaming “Desire, I must defeat you to reach my goal. Yet you are what stands in the way of what I desire.” You’ll admit this is a paradox. More so, the personification of desire in the beast is in fact piercing its own visage with a raked talon. Where the wound has struck the face is cracked and peeling, a sure sign of frailty. In fact the wound appears to have left the beast with only one eye, representing the short-sightedness of desire.

Why am I dwelling on this picture so much, and why do I attribute the aspects of heart and desire so?

It’s simple: tonight I have given in to my desires. The hero has lost, my heart has sunk. Yet the beer tastes so sweet, and I look forward to the all-encompassing embrace of oblivion that will follow this 6-pack. This picture has been locked away for a long time and I’m happy to share it with you, as, with a tear in my eye, I drain the last drop from something that is killing me, slowly, and surely. We are all manifestations of our Will. Make your next Choice the right one, and never, ever, ever regret.