Interview When I was starting out
LONGVIEW, TX (KLTV) -
One man’s trash is another man’s art, at least if it’s put together right. Longview's Raymond Guest says he sees more in old iron than just scrap. Instead of recycling, he calls his art "upcycling."
“I started making the tailgate benches and doing some minor welding, putting stuff together; plant stands, whatever,” Guest said.
He spent a couple decades as a picker, but when he bought a welder a couple years ago things changed.
“It sort of bloomed,” I observed.
“Exactly; they always said I had a creative eye for what I bought, and I thought they were crazy,” Guest recalled.
But he says now he’s beginning to understand.
“I take nothing, and make something,” Guest explained.
Yes, it’s definitely something, and he has piles of nothing laying around ready to be...something.
A few years ago, he says he would just buy interesting scrap and sell it as is.
“And then it got to the point where I was trying to explain to these people what they could do with it, and they didn’t get it,” Guest said.
So he got it; a welder that is, and got to it.
“Then it’s seven days a week, all day long, just teaching myself, teaching myself, teaching myself; obsessed with it actually,” Guest admitted.
He says he doesn’t have time to date but would like to get back in the gym to "get some sort of life."
“All I do is work. That’s it. I love it,” Guest said.
“Where do you get most of your material?” I asked guest.
“Everywhere,” he replied.
He’ll go to Illinois if he has to, and he has. He even found what he calls "Bonnie and Clyde's car," which is really an old pedal car full of bullet holes.
It is another piece of scrap just stewing for awhile before it becomes art.
“I need to move more of it because I love making it,” he said.
And with that, he’s back to the same old grind.
Guest says he doesn’t sell very much locally. In fact, he sells a lot of it to the New York area. If you'd like to know more about Guest's artwork,
https://www.recycledsalvage.com
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