Many of us have great stories about the different and unique ways we or others have reused things. The following case involves the ingenious reuse of countless numbers of a single type of common item—wrenches.
One of our TRP advisors forwarded to me a series of photos of sculptures made from nothing but wrenches. I suspect it was one of those “Can you believe this?” items making rounds on the web. The artist is John Piccoli of Victoria, Australia. Locally, he is known as “The Spanner Man.” Spanner is the British and Australian word for what Americans call a monkey wrench.
Thirty years ago Piccoli began making small garden sculptures from wrenches he had collected. Today he is creating large statues and garden art pieces that qualify for museums. Piccoli’s art appears in many galleries around Australia, including Melbourne, Sydney and St. Kilda. The popularity of his works and the quantity of wrenches needed eventually compelled Piccoli to purchase as well as collect them.
