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Earthwatch
Junk Redefined
by Lynn O’Neill
If it’s true what they say about poets and artists being on the forefront of progressive revolution, then artist, thinker and layperson researcher Kirk Gilliam is already a hero of the people. It’s no coincidence that Gilliam is exhibiting his work and a bit of worldview—in the form of his mesmerizing found-art sculptures—at Nature’s Express in San Diego, a restaurant known for cutting-edge, plant-based, organic food (with drive-thru!).
“People ask me if it’s extreme that I’m a vegan and I say, ‘Isn’t it extreme to eat a hamburger with parts from 20-30 different cows in one serving?’” He believes in eating a diet that is in harmony with the laws of nature. “When we eat the highest quality foods, we become higher quality people.”
Simple and true.
At Nature’s Express, it’s all about voting with your forks while satisfying your cultural cravings.
I like how Gilliam thinks and I’ve got to love someone who tells me, “I once made a rib out of a mini-muffler.” So, I’m listening…and looking…and intrigued by what I see while my boyfriend and I are enjoying a damn good vegan lunch. Every bite brings a smile to our faces. Every glance at the art makes us curious.
Gilliam’s sculptures are made up of a fabulous but composed mish-mash of assembled plumbing gizmos, conduit, rollerblade wheels, nozzles, wood…(the list is long). The viewer will have a ball spying all of the components that went into each creation. Gilliam calls them “3D Rorschach Tests.”
To wit: The pleasantly humanoid Visitor from Planet Toast stares at you from the corner. He looks confident and no wonder; “he” took first place this year at the San Diego Fair for recycled art.
All of the pieces are constructed out of redefined parts that could have certainly managed the plumbing or held the walls together of a North Park Craftsman and yet here they are, transformed and rearranged into cohesive sculptures—perhaps a messenger from the future or a giant bug from the artist’s imagination. The more you look, the more you see, which is a credo of Gilliam’s life and art: Reuse what’s already available to you, see things around you in a new way; put your feelers out and be a good steward of the planet. Indeed. If you didn’t know that a miniature muffler could be reconfigured into a rib for a sculpted creature, then you might not have known that vegan food could be so delicious. Funny, how the world works sometimes.
Gilliam also believes that we humans need to tune in more acutely to our surroundings. When we are receptive to nature—when we are quiet and observant—we are more in balance. We can then receive messages from the universe about what we need individually and collectively.
The artist believes in purposeful intent. He says that there is intelligence in all things. 
Taking it a step further, we can start with the food we eat and make mindful choices.
“Our actions as individuals count; even our thoughts and feelings contribute to peace or chaos,” Gilliam says. He goes on, “By becoming quiet—working at night can help facilitate this—and being organized, you can infuse spirit into matter. Answers will be revealed. There are myriad ways of receiving input from the great omnipotent oneness. All the problems we face can be solved by listening to the signals coming at us.”
Another piece, H. pylori, which was inspired by Gilliam’s dog, is crafted from hand-carved wood and recycled materials that include plumbing parts, electrical materials and miscellaneous found objects. You will notice plenty of whimsy and subtle nods to fellow San Diegan, Dr. Seuss, in many of his pieces. Gilliam acknowledges a theme running through his recent work, pointing out, “Everybody has an abundance of sensory appendages, antennae, feelers, fingers and toes, large noses, ears and whiskers.”
I love this idea and I promise to use my own metaphorical whiskers for good and never for evil.
My boyfriend, also an artist, brought an arguably more male perspective (he could identify many more gizmos than I could) to Gilliam’s pieces in that he liked that the parts were familiar, and those he couldn’t identify stirred in him a curiosity about what they were and where they came from—maybe how long something sat in a field or an old house, for example.
Gilliam says, “I was interested in using parts designed for one thing to then change into other things. The main focus was the balancing of shapes and the use of recycled material.”
So, even as the sculptures are totems to the artist’s point of view, they are also “creations for creation’s sake” and he doesn’t want to appear preachy or judgmental.
Gilliam reminds me that every molecule is intelligent, just as every part of each sculpture was thought out to create the whole.
“More than anything, I want to uplift and enlighten people. My art is merely a platform,” he reflected with a smile.
Kirk Gilliam’s “Junk Redefined” opening/demonstration is November 7, 1-8 p.m. at Nature’s Express, 2949 Fifth Ave., San Diego, CA. 92103. For more information, call 619.550.1818, visit natures-express.com, or contact Gilliam at jacumbakirk@hotmail.com. Lynn O’Neill is an essayist, fiction writer, freelance copy editor and editor. Contact her at jasminatree@yahoo.com.