When visiting sculptor Joe Anton’s split-level rambler in Brooklyn Park, it might take a while for the subject to come around to art. Horsepower TV might be on, demonstrating the latest muscle-car trick modifications. You might need to help unload an awning from the bed of his Ranchero. Plaques in the rec room display his name on General Mills patents, the most recent for a machine that marks extruded cookie dough to show exactly where to slice it. You may unexpectedly receive a humongous bag of dehydrated strawberries or Green Giant asparagus spears.
The stainless steel sculptures, large and small, are everywhere in the Anton home. Mostly they show whimsical animals and humans—somewhat akin to Alexander Calder’s early wire sculptures, but constructed from a boggling array of household items. In Anton’s hands, common objects achieve a sort of visual onomatopoeia: forks become feet, spatulas fold into wings, spoons overlap to form reptilian scales, a caulking gun handle forms the beak of a penguin, spark plugs suddenly look strangely facial and snoutlike. Already loaded with gifts of food, I tried once to decline the offer of a sculpture, a frog made from forks, spoons and nuts. “Be a cheerful receiver,” scolded Anton.
The living room contains a steel mesh chair and a galvanized end-table made from scrap for which Anton dumpster-dives (an activity he refers to as “the fine art”). He takes the outsider artist’s benevolent view of utility: art doesn’t have to be useless. The chair is comfortable, the table functional. He once welded a figure of a firefighter onto a hot-dog skewer, the skewer anatomically located (if not accurate). It, too, bears evidence of regular use.
Anton’s gift for perceiving organic forms in almost any hunk of metal may derive from being “a machinist from birth.” But it also grows out of the way he lives, including his Tao-like version of Christian faith, the central doctrine of which is adaptability.
“A chameleon who can’t change colors is a dead chameleon,” he quipped. “You have to make yourself ready for a window to open, for an opportunity. God doesn’t test you. He gives you chances.”
Putting this faith at the center of their lives, Anton and his wife, Sue, are always seeking to know how their actions “reflect the mind of Christ,” as Sue puts it. Practically speaking, this means that if God provides you with chances for good fortune, you must also be alert for opportunities to do good. “We tithe. We go beyond tithing,” said Anton, without a trace of evangelical mania. “Does that make you a Christian artist?” I wondered. “And is this Christian art?” “That’s like saying if you’re a Christian farmer, you can only grow Christian vegetables,” replied Anton, clearly amused by the thought.
Windows of opportunity have indeed opened for Anton recently. While his work has sold mostly in the gift market, in February 2002 General Mills installed his first large commission, a four-by-eight foot stainless-steel abstract piece titled “Genesis.” This came to pass, he explained, when he called attention to an irritatingly blank wall near the human resources offices. Then a public-relations manager noticed that a flower he made from spoons resembled the Yoplait division’s trademark daisy. Rather than litigate for copyright infringement, she ordered 150 copies.
He still works as a machinist, but Anton has also become General Mills’ house sculptor of sorts, turning out extra daisies on demand and welding whimsical award plaques. At the moment, he’s working on a modular piece for 8th Continent, the soy milk division. This good fortune, however, has taken some serendipity out of his work. He orders spoons wholesale, in lots of four hundred. “You can only hit your kitchen drawer so many times,” he lamented.
—Joe Pastoor
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