August 24, 2001

12:17 PM

Local government and business conspire against artist.At least that's what it looks like to me. Artist is commissioned to make scrap based art by company, city says his 3 acre junk/art lot is an eyesore and forces artist to pay to move all his junk/art to the company in question.
posted by skallas (7 comments total)

What a bizarre closing quote:

"If we take away this man's crayons, he can't color anymore.''

Right, but if the crayons are several tons of scrap metal and the artist hasn't colored for two years, I'd say it's time to put away the coloring box. I mean, as an artist, I don't object to artistic freedom, but wouldn't you think that he'd have gotten somewhere in that amount of time?
posted by me3dia at 12:37 PM on August 24, 2001

Maybe there's a conspiracy and they changed the page, but I didn't see anything about having to move it back to the company. The company plays no role other than supplying the material and commissioning the work, as far as I can tell. The judge just says it has to go. He didn't say it had to go back to the company.
posted by whatnotever at 12:41 PM on August 24, 2001

[Prosecutor Sharon Miller] argued that Miller signed an agreement in 1999 promising that he would remove the items from his property, then didn't comply.

This doesn't sound like a particularly complicated legal issue.
posted by argybarg at 12:58 PM on August 24, 2001

The government want him to clear it up, (all twenty tons of it!!) Miller should beat them at their own game, and bequeath it to them.
posted by lucien at 1:18 PM on August 24, 2001

The 3-acre property has about 20 tons of stainless steel, by Miller's estimate, which Miller has salvaged from GOJO in the past several years.


He salvaged the scrap, which legally belongs to him. GOJO convientely gets his salvage back with zero expense. I think that's very suspicious. Granted, I might be reading too much into this.
posted by skallas at 2:49 PM on August 24, 2001

Won't somebody please think of the property values!
posted by krisjohn at 4:51 PM on August 24, 2001

Artist's page with more media links.
posted by skallas at 3:04 PM on August 25, 2001