John T Unger Artist's Portfolio

Mosaic Bear for the American Red Cross

Free Spirit, Mosaic Bear 2005 Ceramic tile over fiberglass. Exact dimensions unknown: Your basic life-size bear Private Collection

Free Spirit was created for the 2005 fundraiser Great Northern Hunt for Bearable Art organized by The American Red Cross of Northern Lower Michigan. An anonymous donor sponsored one of the bears and specifically requested that I mosaic it. I couldn't get anyone to spill the beans as to  this mystery benefactor's identity, but I'd like to thank them here for picking up the tab on my entry to the outdoor art project.  The life-size fiberglass bears are based on a sculpture by Glen McCune commissioned by the Red Cross as a follow-up to their 2003 Fish-In, which featured over 50 outdoor fish sculptures and raised more than $300,000 for local Red Cross services. If you're curious how long it takes to cover such a large sculpture in tile, you can follow along with the more or less daily blog posts I posted while working on the project: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven, Day Nine + Ten, Day Eleven + Twelve, The Auction! As shown below, my bear was chosen to greet everyone as they first came in to the auction tent.

 

Tags: art, mosaic, fish, whale, glass mosaic, tropical fish, fishing

Little Red Riding Hood Narrative Sculpture

Little Red Riding Hood Narrative Sculpture, 2006 Recycled steel, 8.75" H x 20.25" W x 10" D Collaboration with Mya Smith
Purchase Little Red Riding Hood for $230 ($200 plus $30 S+H).
Little Red Riding Hood is a narrative sculpture that my daughter Mya and I collaborated on. The drawing is hers, the cutting and welding I did. I love the way that she used the tree and the headboard to separate the story into three panels with three scenes. This one was almost the end of the process, because I made her re-draw the woodcutter about 12 times to get more of a dynamic swing to his axe… she was really frustrated by that, but in the end we both felt the results were worth it.
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, folkart, comics, metal, fairytale, narrative, sculpture

3 Billy Goats Gruff Narrative Sculpture

3 Billy Goats Gruff Narrative Sculpture, 2006 Recycled steel 11.5" H x 18" W x 6.25" D Collaboration with Mya Smith Custom Order Item

Three Billy Goats Gruff was the first drawing my daughter Mya did for our collaborative series of narrative sculptures. Although I was totally blown away by the 3 Little Pigs sculpture, the Billygoats piece is probably my favorite. It's the one I kept for myself. I'm impressed with the way she used negative space in the drawing, and by the way the bridge is used as a framing element for the story… In all the narrative works we did together, she was able to find ways to make the scenery frame the story panels without resorting to artificially dividing the scenes. Her drawing of Little Red Riding Hood was probably the best example of this.

 

Tags: art, folkart, comics, metal, fairytale, narrative, sculpture

Sad Bunny Sculpture

Sad Bunny, 2006 Recycled steel, 17.5" H x 18" W x 6" D Collaboration with Mya Smith
Purchase Sad Bunny for $180 ($150 plus $30 S+H).
Sad Bunny is a collaboration I did with my daughter Mya, one of many sculptures we did this summer using her drawings and my welding and cutting chops. If you click on the lefthand thumbnail below you'll see what I think is the coolest feature of this piece: the bunny's shadow has a totally different expression on his face… an angry, evil expression. Of course, you have to get the angle of the light just right to reproduce it, but I think it's kind of a cool hidden allegory. Most of the mean people I've met in life were hurt themselves at some point (I mean, true enough to be trite, right?). But having the sad bunny's shadow take on an evil persona is awesome. I should really build a lightbox around it that forces the shadow to the correct angle, but I like the piece as it stands. The steel is recycled plate from the scrapyard, and the plants are bits left over from cutting out the flames on the Pot-deFeu recycled grills.
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, folkart, comics, metal, fairytale, narrative, sculpture

The 3 Little Pigs: A Story in Steel

3 Little Pigs Story in Steel, 2006 Recycled steel, 14" H x 26" W x 6" D Collaboration with Mya Smith Buy it at Checkered House Gallery
My daughter Mya is interested in making comics and she's pretty amazing at it…draws and writes very well. So when she came out this summer, I thought it would be cool to collaborate on some narrative steel sculptures together. She picked the stories, and  decided how to lay out the image so that it would carry a narrative without words. I did the cutting and welding and offered a wee bit of editorial assistance in the few places where I thought the image or flow of the story could be stronger. Even though we worked pretty closely together on these, I think Mya could have done them alone if she wasn't a little bit afraid of the sparks in the shop. The house is made from an old refrigerator drawer and the rest is recycled steel plate. The wind from the wolf's mouth is copper plated welding rod. The plants are scrap left over from cutting out the flames on the Pot-deFeu recycled grills. This piece sold to Checkered House Gallery the minute Tess saw it. But that's okay… you can buy it from the gallery if you hurry. I don't expect it will last too long.
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, folkart, comics, metal, fairytale, narrative, sculpture

Collaborative Steel Sculptures

Sea Rider, 2006 Recycled steel 13" H x 17" W x 8" Collaboration with Mya Smith		Purchase   for $70 ($50 plus $20 S+H).
These sculptures are all done from drawings by my daughter Mya… she did most of the steel cutting herself on these, with a bit of help. She's not a big fan of the sparks. I do like the way she draws though! click thumbnails to view larger image.
		Gargoyle Recycled steel 14" H x 8" W x 3" Purchase   for $110 ($90 plus $20 S+H).
	Dragon Recycled steel 15" H x 7.5" W x 3.25" Private Collection
		Coyote Recycled steel 10" H x 9" W x 1.25" Purchase   for $45 ($30 plus $15 S+H).
	Seahorse Recycled steel 17" H x 6.25" W x 4.5" Purchase   for $50 ($30 plus $20 S+H).
		Unicorn Recycled steel 9" H x 9" W x 1.25" Purchase   for $45 ($30 plus $15 S+H).

 

Tags: art, folkart, comics, metal, fairytale, fantasy, sculpture

Recycled Metal Critters made from Cars

Fire-Breathing Dogzilla, 2006 Recycled steelfrom antique cars, rivets, bottle cap. 26" H x 33" W Custom Order Item
I've always been a sucker for fire breathing acts, and somehow, it just seemed like Dogzilla needed get in on some of that action. But then, I'm also the guy who makes his cat stand and walk on two legs to get her treats and, yeah, the guy that taught his daughter fire breathing last summer. More circus flavored art is in the works, I think. I really like the way this one came out. The work below are various examples of small wall hanging sculpture in recycled steel. I photographed them with pennies to give a sense of scale. click thumbnail to view larger image.
Little Mermaid 20" H x 24" W Custom Order Item
Blue Striped Bee 13.5" H x 17" W Custom Order Item
Dogs Chase Tails 9.5" H x 11" W Custom Order Item
Funky Alien 15.5" H x 10" W Custom Order Item
One Big Eye 15" H x 9" W Custom Order Item
Big Fish 9" H x 30.5" W Custom Order Item
Big Fish 24" H x 27" W Custom Order Item
Little Fish 10" H x 16" W Custom Order Item
Dogzilla 24" H x 28" W Custom Order Item
Alarmist Hedgehog 6.5" H x 13" W Custom Order Item
Happy Little Creature 7" H x 16" W Custom Order Item
Happy, Funky Bird 12.5" H x 9" W Custom Order Item
Seahorse dimensions unknown Custom Order Item
Mad Cat dimensions unknown Custom Order Item

 

Tags: art, sculpture, recycled, metal, garden, home, steel, funky, fun

Big Metal Fish Sign

Aluminum + Copper Fish Sign, 2005 Recycled Aluminum, copper and plywood. 51" H x 96" W x 1" D
Purchase Aluminum + Copper Fish Sign for $850 ($750 plus $100 S+H).
This was originally going to be a sign for the studio…  I got this far with it and decided that I liked it better as art. I made it before I had a plasma cutter, so the whole thing was done with shears and a jigsaw. I especially like the way that the copper fin near the gills came out all ripply and dimensional. I had intended it to lay flatter, but the copper got all bent up while I was cutting it and actually looked much better that way. It's pretty common that the best features of a piece will be the mistakes… I could certainly have flattened it out the way I had intended it to be, but so often what makes art be art is seeing the benefit of an error before you correct and having the sense to leave it in.

 

Tags: art, folkart, garden, metal, outdoor, self taught, fish, trout, sign

Haitian Style Merman Sculpture

Haitian Style Merman, 2006 Recycled steel. 26" H x 8" W x 3.5" D
Purchase Haitian Style Merman Sculpture  for $90 ($70 plus $20 S+H).
This sculpture reminds me a lot of the graphic style used by Haitian artists who make cut steel art from 55 gallon drums. Which makes me really happy, since usually I can't even touch those cats for raw style. It's just one of those things that can't be faked. I got lucky on this one… it was a piece of steel that was left over from some other cut out pieces I was working on, and I could kind of see the design struggling to get out. So I made a few more cuts, emphasized a few things, threw in a little bit of detail, and there it was.

 

Tags: art, folkart, garden, metal, outdoor, self taught

Folk Art Mermaid Sculpture

A Mermaid  and her Fish, 2006 Recycled steel, 54" H x 37" W x .25" D Collection: Jerry's Sandwiches, Chicago, IL

Here's a bold, graphic sculpture made from recycled car steel… The corrugated steel in the background is not part of the piece, it's the wall of my office (familiar as the backdrop of many of my photos). This Mermaid is 54" tall by 37" wide. She's similar in style to Atlas: World Famous, but rather than being a free standing piece, the mermaid is wall hanging. A Mermaid  and her Fish Was puchased by Mark Bires to adorn the walls of Jerry's Sandwiches, 1045 W. Madison Street, Chicago IL. I hear they have amazing food, and I'll definitely be sampling their menu on my next trip to Chicago. Below is a detail image of this sculpture.

 

Tags: art, folkart, garden, metal, outdoor, self taught

Atlas World Famous Sculpture

Atlas: World Famous, 2006 Recycled steel, 75" H x 48" W x 12" D Buy this sculpture on my ArtBuzz Blog
Atlas: World Famous is the first large-scale sculpture I've made using antique steel to do collage. It's a lot of fun for me because it's a way to go back to my roots in the folk art/pop culture vernacular where I started my art career. The sculpture is 75" high x 48" wide x 12" deep, which means that Atlas himself is pretty much life-size. As you can see in the images below, the sculpture is two sided, with the image reversed on one side.
click thumbnail to view larger image.
Below is the image this sculpture is based on. It's one of my all-time faves… a couple years ago I did an Atlas mosaic in glass and bottle caps using the same image. The original is from the Mexican Loteria deck, a traditional game similar to Bingo. Teresa Villegas did a very cool updated version of the game which has now been published in in a handsome book. I highly recommend checking out her site devoted to the project, which provides a good deal of background on the game and images. You can also learn more by visiting this website from Boston University on the History of the Mexican Loteria Card Game.

 

Tags: art, folkart, garden, metal, outdoor, self taught

Keep Your Yard Evil Spirit Free with Bottle Trees

Bottle Trees, 2006 Recycled steel, glass dimensions variable Collection of the Artist
Bottle trees are a tradition I've always liked, and I've long meant to make one. There's a great site here that explains the history behind them, with a bunch of photos of traditional and newer versions. Back on Memorial Day weekend I decided it would be just the thing to add a little color to the yard. Not so much as something I would sell, but more to draw attention so people would, you know, notice, that there was an art studio by the side of the highway. Most of my art is invisible to people driving past at 70 mph because the rust finish just blends into the yard and trees… The bottle tree  definitely  caught people's eye, so I made a couple more…  I think  I may just make a whole forest grove of them. I'd be happy to make these as a custom order item. Drop me a line from the Contact page for pricing, etc.
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: abstract sculpture, art, folkart, garden, iron work, outdoor, outsider art, self taught, yard

Inquisitive Creature AKA Little Colossus

Inquisitive Creature (Little Colossus), 2005 Steel. 44" H x 50" W x 33.5" D
Purchase Inquisitive Creature for $1,600 ($1,200 plus $400 Fed Ex Freight).
Inquisitive Creature started out as a base  for Galaxy No. 3 but soon made it clear that it wanted to be it's own sculpture. There are some photos on the studio blog from before it was painted that show some of the cool tricks it can do with light and shadow. This is one of the pieces that has really taught me a lot about utilizing the space around a sculpture to extend the experience. Think of it kind of like audience participation… you have a show going on, invite the viewer to add their voice and come up with something deeper and richer as a result. The same kind of thing can be done by designing artwork that uses light, shadow, sound or other elements of the environment to reveal different things at different times. I also love the way it strikes the attitude of a spunky bulldog throwing it's chest out. My cat Mojo takes exactly that pose when she's deeply annoyed with me… while it was at the studio, I often jumped when I caught it in the corner of my eye because I thought it was a living creature that had snuck up on me! You might also like these adorable photos of children playing with the sculpture at the 2005 Alden Art Fair.
Inquisitive Creature Steel 44" H x 50" W x 33.5" D	Inquisitive Creature Steel 44" H x 50" W x 33.5" D	Inquisitive Creature Steel 44" H x 50" W x 33.5" D
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: abstract, abstract sculpture, art, garden, sculpture

The Vista Project: Open Source Public Art Sculpture

The Vista Project, Open Source Public Art Sculpture, 2005 Steel. 36" H x 24" W x 8" D Open Public Art Project (for details, email me)
Vistas is a series of identical sculptures designed for installation in a site-specific context in multiple locations. The iconic steel window sculptures are intended to frame unconventionally beautiful scenery—views specific to the character of a place but unlikely to show up on a postcard. Examples of such sites might include a panorama of historically significant buildings, parks or gardens, a naturally occurring landmark or even an interesting shadow visible once a day. Vista windows call attention to unexpected beauty in the same way that a landscape photographer chooses where to stand and shoot. The windows are finished in brightly colored powder coat enamels to increase visibility and give them a friendly and inviting appearance. Powder coat enamels are environmentally friendly and are among the most durable finishes available for outdoor work. For safety, no glass is used. The photos below are of a prototype version that I tested out one day in Chicago. It gets the idea across a bit, I think, but I feel the piece would ultimately be more successful as a group project where sites were nominated by people who wanted to mark their favorite places. The day that I was doing the photo shoot, I'd been gone from Chicago long enough that some of the places I would have marked had changed and others had slipped my recollection… So I was wandering about trying to find examples of the kind of neglected beauty I had in mind, rather than calling attention to spots I knew were there. More information on the project is available on the studio blog: Vista Project Details/Design Specs.
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, culture, design, metal, outdoor, pop culture, public art, sculpture

Stone and Steel Figurative Sculptures

Big Horse Pull Toy, 2003 Recycled steel, granite   38" x 51.75" x 16.5" Buy it at my ArtBuzz Blog
Ever since I made Big Horse Pull-Toy, I've been meaning to create more "sculpture on wheels." It's a very simple way to play with movement in a piece, but I like the idea of a sculpture that's easy to move around to different locations. There's an appeal, to my mind, in the idea of making sculpture less monumental and more intimate by allowing it the feedom to roam about. I also like the idea of being able to redesign a landscape or garden in the same way that one might move the furniture around in the living room. One might change the accents around as the seasons change, or maybe just mix things up now and then to keep them fresh. The figures below are one-of-a-kind pieces inspired by, and built around,  stone shapes that catch my eye from the cast-away pile at a local stone vendor's. Because the stone is polished on one side only, the back is decorated with copper.
Little Miss Exuberance, 2003 Steel, Granite, Copper 74" x 27" x 12" Buy Her at Artbuzz	Akimbo, 2003 Steel, Granite, Copper 80" x 38.5" x 12" Private Collection	Akimbo,detail	Akimbo,detail	Lookout, 2003 Granite, Steel 35" x 24" x 12" Private Collection
Signal, 2003 Steel, Granite, Copper 61" x 27" x 12" Private Collection	Signal, detail	Sentinal, 2002 Granite, Steel 32" x 40" x 8" Private Collection	Curious Child, 2002 Granite, Steel 36" x 34" x 8" Buy Him at Artbuzz	Lightning Moon Man, 2003 Steel, vitreous glass 20" x 16" x 7.5" Private Collection
click thumbnail to view larger image.

 

Tags: art, dance, garden, granite, metal, puppy, sculpture, stone sculpture, yard

Petroglyph Steel Sculpture

Petroglyph Sculpture, 2002 recycled steel. dimensions unknown Private Collection

This is a simple yard sculpture in steel that I did while playing with the idea of lines and planes. I keep meaning to do more pieces in a similar style, and no doubt I will one day. It would be kind of fun to do a whole series of work like this as a relief mural or fence… I'd love to see what it would look like to encircle a garden with figures like this. If you like that idea too, give me a shout from the contact page.

 

  Tags: art, folkart, funky, garden, metal, outsider art, yard