I don’t typically love junk metal art, but every so often a maker brings enough imagination and creativity to bear that the work transcends its lawn-ornament origins. Tom Every and his Wisconsin Forevertron is one of the more famous examples of this.
Jack Barker, whose metal art filled his Essex, Illinois, yard, did not work on Every’s monumental scale — physically or conceptually — but his creations were if anything weirder than Dr. Evermore’s. Barker’s use of materials could be disconcerting, as could his imagery. The scrap metal he used was more or less conventional, but the metal scraps he also used gave some of his figures an extraordinary intensity. And the way he figured out how to use his materials resulted in creative magic.
Much of Barker’s work was figurative, but many of those figures were quite abstracted, and some of the sculptures were entirely abstract. It all added up to a mind-boggling environmental conglomeration that was impressive in its own right, though at the expense of each individual piece’s potential impact. It could be hard to pick them out of the crowd. Fortunately, some of the more sculptural pieces were set off in the side and back yards away from the concentrated mass in front.
Barker, a machinist who was born in Essex, died in 2012 at 78. His remaining artwork was auctioned later that year along with other items from his estate.
These photos of the Jack Barker metal art environment are from a 2011 visit.
Here’s a short video of Barker from Roadside America.
Atlas Obscura has an entry for Barker.