Perry in the shadows Credit: Courtesy Robert Perry

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure, and artist Robert Perry takes that expression literally. In his Miami studio, he transforms retro cast-offs like 1940s and '50s kitchen appliances, musical instruments and motor parts into avant-garde lamps, creating works of art that are statements about shape and shadow as much as they are functional light sources.

If you've walked by the Central Avenue storefront of Florida Craftsmen Gallery, chances are you've seen Perry's creations lighting up a window. A toaster stuffed with bulbs and topped with a colander lamp shade; a vintage trumpet that emits light instead of music; a handyman's level surrounded with a coil of aluminum conduit and illuminated by two long bulbs.

The studio where Perry engineers his creations is a veritable museum of the found objects he sources from junkyards, flea markets and thrift stores. One wall-long set of shelves stocks an open display of objects so Perry can walk in and improvise a new creation. The lamps take anywhere from a week to a month to build. The intensive process includes stripping the found objects of dirt and grime, ripping any original electrical guts out, then rebuilding and rewiring them into a table lamp, chandelier or wall sconce.

Sometimes his finds are a mystery until somebody else identifies them, Perry admits. Husbands seeking refuge at art fairs occasionally provide him with clues. "The guys come in and say 'Hey, this is my booth,'" he laughs. One such refugee helped him identify a salvaged intake manifold from a Ford Taurus that he had incorporated into a fixture.

For Perry, the lamps aren't just an excuse to spend hours tinkering in the workshop; light, the intangible component of his works, plays the starring role. Before plying his unusual current trade, he was a lighting designer for theater productions in New York City, Chicago and throughout the country. When he began making the trash-to-treasure light fixtures as a hobby, friends said he should consider doing it as a business. At art fairs, sales took off, and Perry took the opportunity to leave his theater career behind — and, in 2004, to leave NYC for Miami. Now he designs drama on a small scale, creating conversation pieces that light up a living room.

The lamps have "a wow effect," Perry says, triggering smiles and laughter from most visitors. But not everyone gets it. The lamps can be a hard sell, he admits, because some people think "Hey, I can do this at home." More power to them if they can, Perry says, but don't blame him for being skeptical — he's spent years fine-tuning the process he uses to transform junk into a finely crafted work of functional art.

It's that transformative magic that Florida Craftsmen executive director Maria Emilia says makes Perry's work so unique. When he turns a trumpet into a lamp, "In the transition, it transcends both objects," she says. Though he starts with familiar objects that "you recognize from your memory bank … they disappear, and [the lamp] becomes one object that is new and exciting."

The Handmade Holiday Guide

This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2006.