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Keith McCord ReportingWhen you think of going to an art exhibit, you probably assume you'll be in a quiet room with various inanimate objects on the walls and on display. Not so at the Kimball Art Center in Park City.
This exhibit is different. First of all, it's rather noisy! You won't have to whisper when your visit the art center. And the exhibits, created by a Lehi artist, will certainly hypnotize you.
Do you have some old junk lying around? If it's made of metal, and has a weird shape to it, Andrew Smith just might want it. He creates interesting contraptions out of all kinds of stuff.
Q-How long have you been doing this type of artwork?
Andrew Smith: "I've been doing this for about six years."
For example is a piece that he's named "High Dive". He took an old motor; created a chain-driven lift, added a bunch of one-inch ball bearings, welded it all together and hooked it all up to an old satellite dish that he had in his studio.
Andrew Smith, Kinetic Artist: "Sometimes they work just like I've hoped, and other times it will not even come close to doing what I want it to do. So there's a lot of trial and error. A lot of times I have to abandon an idea."
Smith calls his creations, "Kinetic Sculputures". There are 13 on display at the Kimball Art Center, each with its own style, shape and feel. All of them move in some way and all were created with stuff that he just found.
Andrew Smith: "Sometimes I'll just stop by a scrap metal yard and see if there's anything interesting; and if there is, then I'll get it."
Some of the pieces Smith put together in a matter of weeks; others took several months. These "complicated inventions" really don't accomplish any useful task, except perhaps to amuse kids and adults alike.
Andrew Smith: "When I was about 22 or 23, I started playing around and putting things together. But I wanted things that actually worked and moved."
So what will Andrew Smith's next creation do? Depends on what he picks up the next time he goes to the junkyard!
Andrew Smith's Kinetic Sculptures will be on display at the Kimball Art Center through October 28th.
