Reluctant artist turns metal scraps into vivid art

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Wayne Kern's calloused hands are dancing to the tune of rain trickling from the ceiling.

At his scarred workbench, with the chill of a wet, gray afternoon pulsing through an open window, Kern bends and twists a thick rope of electrical cable anchored to a metal vise. Later today, or maybe tomorrow, the silvery strand will become an ornamental tree, with barren branches reaching out like a mother's arms.

"Most people look at this stuff, and they think of it as flawed," he says.

Slabs of chipped glass. Torn window screens. Metal guts from clocks and cars. Balled-up pieces of copper wire.

Flawed? Not to Kern. To him, each of these things represents the beginning of an art project. The screen? The fins of a fish. The copper wire? A dancer's tangled hair. The car and clock parts? A whimsical mobile.

From his modest studio on a Sacramento, Calif., street favored by drug dealers and prostitutes, Kern takes scavenged "junk" and recycles it into objects that grace homes and galleries.

Yet Kern is reluctant to label himself an artist. He has never taken art classes, he's quick to point out, nor trained under any great masters. He's not comfortable dissecting his work, or promoting it.

"I don't know any artists. For a long time, I thought 'Art Deco' was a person," he jokes.

But Kern's creations, mostly sculptures crafted from things that others throw away, have found an appreciative audience.

"He works with such raw, hard, sharp materials," says Abundio Montez of Sacramento's Phoenix Gallery, which shows Kern's industrial art. "He takes these things, and he turns them into works of beauty, whether a female figure with a flowing gown and a hat, a mermaid, a fish. It's all so soft and eye-pleasing."

A couple of years ago, with a nudge from Montez, Neiman Marcus in San Francisco commissioned Kern to create oversize butterflies to feature in its windows during the Christmas season. Kern never got to see the display, he says with a shrug, but he heard it was a hit.

It was another midtown gallery owner, Diane Tempest of Blooming Art, who "discovered" Kern in the early 1990s.

He was living in an apartment, caring for a longtime partner who was dying of AIDS. To take his mind off his troubles, he would sit outside his building, twisting pieces of wire into various shapes.

"He had this vivid array of metal sculptures on his balcony," recalls Tempest. "Fabulous ball gowns, figures with hats and big bows. I asked him if I could sell it in the gallery, and he said yes."

Blooming Art featured his work for eight years, until Tempest temporarily relocated to San Francisco. Then Kern struck an alliance with the Phoenix.

A few miles away from that gallery, prospective customers can stop by Kern's studio and see his works in progress.

His workshop offers little to distinguish itself from the industrial buildings, bars and fast-food joints that define the neighborhood. Its only identifying feature is a hand-painted sign on the door. "Bent & Twisted," it says in red letters.

Erika Sorci, who lives in the area, remembers spotting Kern's colorful sculptures for the first time as she took a shortcut home along a grimy little street called Boxwood.

"I had no idea what those buildings were, but I saw some sculptures hanging outside and I thought, 'Those are really neat,' she recalls. "I kept driving by, and after about the 10th time, I decided to stop."

A stocky man with a shaved head, black work boots and a bemused smile that revealed a few missing teeth invited her inside.

Sorci ended up buying a sculpture of a fish that reminded her of the koi that her parents kept in their pond back in the Midwest. Fashioned mostly from metal screens and painted shimmery colors, it seemed almost alive. At $30, she thought it was a steal.

Again and again, Sorci ventured back to the workshop, sometimes bringing her husband, Justin, or a friend. Each time, she learned a little bit about Kern's hardscrabble life.

"He's got some rough edges," Sorci says, "but he's very sweet on the inside. My husband and I absolutely love him."

As Kern tells the story, he was 6 years old when his family moved to Sacramento from Detroit. His dad, Howard "Big Sam" Kern, was a jazz musician in search of work. But his dream died, and he ended up selling cars.

Young Wayne, meanwhile, took comfort in sketching figures on paper.

"I remember doodling women in dresses," he says. "They looked something like Miss Kitty from 'Gunsmoke.' "

School bored him, and alcohol and marijuana were powerful lures. He bounced around between continuation schools, and finally dropped out. After two arrests for drunken driving, he stopped driving.

For awhile Kern lived in New York, where he managed a punk rock clothing store in the East Village. He also lived in San Francisco and Australia. He "did a lot of experimenting" with illegal drugs when he was younger, he admits.

But he's over that now, he says, and at the age of 47 he is content.

He's been in his current workshop and studio for seven years now, and despite the occasional sounds of gunshots and the whir of police helicopters, Kern has managed to make the space downright cozy. His "kitchen" is a microwave oven and a coffee pot. In the back of the building, behind a plastic curtain, he has a tiny living space with a sofa, a stereo, and a closed-circuit TV screen that allows him to monitor street activity. He has his beloved dog Buddy, who patrols the sidewalk and roams the property.

And, of course, Kern has his work.

"I thank God every day that I don't have to punch a time clock or wake up to an alarm," he says. "I just get up, look around and figure out what I can create."

His mood shows through his hands

Kern creates everything with his hands, and his hands alone. He never welds or solders, lest "I burn the whole place down," he says, instead using such low-technology tools as pliers, fishing line and nuts and bolts.

In a typical month, Kern says, he earns just enough money to cover his bills, including his $300 rent, his cell phone and utilities. He doesn't have a credit card or own a vehicle. His clothing and dining expenses are modest.

About every other week, if he has the money and a ride, he takes a trip to the scrapyard, where he gathers materials for his artwork. Once in a while, Kern will find a little treasure in an alley or on the street: a discarded screen door or the junked contents of someone's garage.

"I don't like to go to supply stores," he says. "Those are perfect materials. I love to take the little flaws that I find in stuff and make something of them.

"I like the idea of recycling. It makes me mad to think that just about everything you buy these days is disposable or blows up after three years. Why not make something else out of it?"

Kern charges the customers who come to his workshop "whatever sounds right" at the time of the transaction, usually pricing items in the $25 to $100 range. In galleries, the markup is higher.

"If someone wants me to make something special, I'll usually ask them for a few extra bucks for the paint if I don't have it on hand," Kern says.

It's a shoestring existence, but things might be looking up for Kern.

Sorci and her husband, who run a software company, are putting the finishing touches on a Web site featuring his story and his art.

"What Wayne does is unique," says Sorci, who since buying her first fish has purchased six more Kern creations. "It's not something you see every day. I want more people to know about him."

That's just fine with Kern, he says, although he's not seeking fame or fortune.

"If I had the materials, I would be working all the time," he says. "Would I want my own gallery? No. I'm no good on the business side. I just want to work. That's when I'm happiest."

To see more of Wayne Kern's art, go to bentandtwistedartbyhand.com.

(Contact Cynthia Hubert at chubert (at)sacbee.com)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)