Sculpture from Scrap:

Enlarge Image Image Gallery G. Wayne Walker Jr.John Scott doesn't paint his sculptures

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Photographs by G. Wayne Walker Jr.

For most people, 'Turkey Day' comes once a year. For a rural Kansas man, though, it's just another day at the office. John Scott, Bunker Hill, Kan., crafts yard art from scrap iron. His top seller? A turkey, made from tractor seats and the working end of a pitchfork.

I've probably made 300 of them,' he said.

The turkey joins a variety of other critters - egrets, frogs, turtles, grasshoppers, crickets, snails, roosters, pheasants, even Jayhawks - that John sells nationwide. It is a lucrative business for a man who's worked in the scrap metal recycling business (both as a dealer and a craftsman) for the past 10 years.

Half of my income comes from the sculptures,' he said. 'And with the price of scrap dropping to $35 a ton (from $75 a ton) in the last four months, that really makes me appreciate what I can make from them.'

Now a significant part of his livelihood, the yard art began as little more than a hobby.

I met this fellow in a tavern,' he said. 'He was really kind of a hobo, but he said he was a sculptor. Well, I thought he meant clay, but no, he works with scrap metal. I had always dabbled with scrap iron, and the more we talked, the more interested I got. So I brought him home with me and handed him the welder. Well, as I watched, I couldn't wait for him to lay that welder down.'

John was hooked.

'It just come as natural as anything I'd ever done,' he said.

Now it's nearly an all-consuming job.

'I'm so busy, I don't even have time to create something new,' he said. He's been invited to participate in an internet site where he could sell his work, but he passed up the offer.

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