The interior of Paul Loughridge’s home is handsomely decorated
with more than a dozen sculptures he created from seemingly
disorganized piles of unwanted and long-unused gadgets, electronics
parts, sports equipment, tools and toys found behind closed garage
doors.
The interior of Paul Loughridge’s home is handsomely decorated with more than a dozen sculptures he created from seemingly disorganized piles of unwanted and long-unused gadgets, electronics parts, sports equipment, tools and toys found behind closed garage doors.
A piece he has duplicated more than once due to demand from college students who enjoy “Star Wars” he calls “Beer2-D2,” and resembles the lovable character with a similar name from the film trilogy. The stationary robot is made of a Heineken mini-keg with an upside-down tractor headlight on top to serve as the subject’s rounded head, with legs made of unidentified metal pieces that once belonged to a less exciting, more utilitarian device that the artist could likely identify.
Greeting visitors by the front door is “Moto Man,” another robot whose body is an old speaker from a drive-in movie theater, whose head is made of a glass filter from a pneumatic pump, and whose arms are door handles attached (at the “elbows”) to wrenches.
Loughridge, 53, a resident of west Morgan Hill, has produced about 300 similar sculptures in the last three years, when he began composing art in earnest. His work has gained relative notoriety in a short period of time, as it is now exhibited across the country, in shows and galleries in Boston and New York, as well as Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
The Morgan Hill Public Library has a permanent collection of Loughridge’s works displayed inside. And Saturday is “Robot Day” at the library, when the winners of a year-long contest to name the sculptures there will be announced. A celebration of the second anniversary of the opening of the new facility, Robot Day will also feature Loughridge himself discussing his work with children and their parents, and lead a workshop on how to make robot sculptures using recyclable household materials.
“The robots were unveiled last year for the first anniversary of the opening of the library, but they never had names,” said Carol O’Hare, president of the Friends of the Morgan Hill Library. “We decided to make a big event out of it, commemorating the second year of the new library.”
Loughridge makes his sculptures out of discarded parts of “vintage” appliances, recyclable trash, and discarded tools. He finds most of his media at garage sales and flea markets.
“I look for anything that looks old and has a nice patina,” Loughridge said. “It’s got to be metal. The more vintage, the better.”
One afternoon in his garage, pulling random pieces of a pile of materials, he demonstrated how an old bicycle part could become a fish, and how an antique camping flashlight could turn into a dog.
His garage is littered with old license plates, lanterns, part of an espresso machine, flashlights, spatulas, an old ice crusher that is operated by a hand crank, golf clubs, an Electrolux vacuum cleaner that is about 50 years old, an aluminum globe, some kind of electronic gauge, and countless items covering layers of similar material that will eventually be disassembled and rearranged to become Loughridge’s artistic creations.
He uses nuts, bolts and washers to fit all the pieces together, with no welding, adhesive, or painting. The finished pieces don’t usually have moving parts or become functioning robots, but they “look cool,” Loughridge said.
He has completed some pieces in a couple of hours, while more complex works, such as a 5-foot-tall robot he made for a games convention in San Francisco, have taken him up to a week.
“I’m a gearhead. I can fix stuff,” Loughridge said when asked how he came up with the idea to make sculptures out of what would otherwise turn into trash. He used to work on motorcycles, plus he has worked as a digital graphic designer. “Everything is visual for me.”
His art turned into something between a hobby and a vocation when he gained the time after being laid off from Hewlett-Packard about three years ago.
“I just got cranking in the garage,” Loughridge said. “It’s therapeutic.”
Not all Loughridge’s pieces are robots. In his living room is a miniature airplane made out of a kitchen scale and a drill handle. He also has a “Swiss army knife suitcase,” a piece of luggage on a rolling baseball bat stand, with a skateboard, canoe paddle, tennis racket and other outdoor sports equipment protruding around the outside of the suitcase.
Loughridge is looking forward to Robot Day.
“I’m a creative person, and I love getting up in front of people to talk about my art. So it’s a wonderful opportunity for me,” he said.
