Sculptor Gives New Meaning to 'Plastic Arts'

Lots of sculptors these days use blowtorches and create their works in hard steel. Jerry Ross Barrish uses a glue gun and makes his art from discarded plastic. And the art is something to behold.

Not that Barrish has always considered himself an artist. When he showed Wired.com around his studio recently, he admitted it's been a long path.

Barrish never did art as a child, never even worked with tools. He explains, "I started to do more-traditional sculpture at SFAI [San Francisco Art Institute] and changed my major to filmmaking. For 15 years I made films; in 1986 I got a grant to live in Berlin. Made my last film in 1989, and that was the same year I made my first sculpture out of plastic that I found in front of my house."

He saw garbage on the beach in Pacifica, California, and thought he would make a Christmas tree out of the plastic. So he started to accumulate materials for the Christmas tree. "I started to see things in the materials, making small collages from different materials and adding them to the tree."

Barrish describes his work as building a whole dinosaur from the evidence of a single vertebra. Bits and pieces of material trigger an artistic vision of what the final piece will be.

Blue Parrot Cafe (left) is life-size and, in Barrish's inimitable way, lifelike.

Barrish says his work is a constant learning curve.

"I hadn't seen anyone do this before. I was still learning about glues, what materials hold up, what plastics are better than others. It's been a 25-year learning process."

"I use a 3M industrial hot-glue gun, and on the larger pieces to reinforce the glue I will use screws. I melt the plastic using a tool they use to remove wallpaper."

Barrish has only made minor changes to the way he creates his work. When he started working, he recalls that he "wouldn't cut, bend or tape. Now I do all those things. Eliminated all those self-imposed restrictions."

"Deciding if it has a face is a big decision to make. You can't make a Mona Lisa with out a face. If I make Rodin's, The Thinker, it doesn't need a face.

"If I put a face on Marlene Dietrich, it becomes a portrait; if I take the face off, it becomes the essence of Marlene Dietrich. I always prefer the essence."

"In the art world, I'm a total failure because everyone likes the work. 'If they like it, it can't be any good.' It's always been well received."

Barrish's work has appeared in 20 solo and 32 group shows and is housed in the permanent collections of more than a dozen art museums around the country.

"I'm inspired by the work; I love my work. It's magical to me. I'll sit in my studio, start going through the materials and have an idea. The first 10 years of working with these materials, the work was inspired by what I found. After 10 years, I started to set aside materials for preconceived ideas."

Barrish picks up all this stuff from the beach outside his house and from anywhere else that plastic junk is strewn and accumulates in the modern industrial economy.

Barrish named this life-size sculpture Red and Yellow Quartet. "I study musicians and their instruments, and try and capture their movement and body language."

"It doesn't take me very long to make a piece when I have all the elements. It comes together very quickly. But they are some pieces that take longer. It took me 10 years to figure out the concept and how to make The Last Supper. Once I figured it out, it took three days to put it together."

The figures are about 10 inches high.

On using different materials, Barrish says, "Friends of mine try and give me advice. But I do what I do. No one loves this work more than me, and I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I don't see myself changing too much."

Don Quixote (center) evolved over time. "First I made the horse, then added the rider two years later, then added a hat 10 years later, and it became Don Quixote."

The completed figure is about 18 inches high.

"I have an original voice. You don't have to like my work, but you don't mistake my work for another's. The great artists have a signatory voice. Even after 25 years I still don't see people using the materials I use."