‘21st Century Folk Art’ Capacitor Crowd

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By David Burke | Monday, January 7, 2008 11:42 AM CST | () comments

When you dare to open up a TV set or a computer monitor, you may just see a maze of wires, circuits and components.

DeWitt Young sees material.

The 48-year-old artist has been creating “Capacitor People” — with parts made from discarded electronic junk — since 1982.

“I was helping a friend move and we dropped a TV down the stairs,” Young says, then laughs and shakes his head. “It makes for a great story.”

Young, who works for a company that makes scales, constructed his people quietly in his home in Rock Island for about 20 years, until he took them to the former FX Gallery in Rock Island. The gallery was operated by Donna Lee, who now runs a display space and shop in the Bucktown Center for the Arts in downtown Davenport.

“I just believe it’s a sign of the times, that cyber connection,” Lee said of the appeal of Young’s creations.

Young said he’d make very few of the creations in a year, and give them as gifts. He has expanded the creation of his self-proclaimed “21st Century Folk Art” to his own Web site, as well as selling on the hand-crafted art sale site etsy.com.

To become more marketable, he changed the designs to something that he could easily make in mass quantities.

“I wanted something I could replicate,” he said. “To design a guy from scratch every time just wasn’t practical to do.”

Variations of robots have come from the creations. They’ve become a hit, especially with children.

“Kids like it, because it’s a fish-out-of-water kind of thing. They know it’s not supposed to be that way,” he said. “They like it as much as most adults.”

Young even invites children in on the creative process, asking them which parts that he’s separated into a tray would work best for a robot’s eyes, nose or mouth.

When they get done, he said, children usually exclaim, “Mom, mom, I’ve helped design this robot! We’ve got to buy it!”

“That’s dirty pool,” he confessed with a laugh.

His pickings from the inside of TVs have passed their prime time, he said. In the early to mid-1980s, automated fine tuning, remote controls and other circuitry took away some of his best ingredients.

“The boards were loaded up with stuff,” he said.

Newer plasma and LCD televisions don’t have enough parts for him to even bother with. VCRs have some parts he can use, but DVD players are virtually worthless to him.

“It’s a limited palette I’ve got,” he said.

He thought he might have a treasure trove with a used karaoke machine, but found it barren.

“The manufacturer didn’t consider secondary use when he made those,” he said.

Young hit the jackpot two years ago, when Blackhawk TV in Rock Island sold its warehouse inventory as the store was closing. Now when he gets offers of old TVs to donate, he hands donors a magnetic business card from the Waste Commission of Scott County, which properly handles the disposal of electronic items.

“For the most part, I’ve got more parts than I need,” he said.

Young said he enjoys the interaction with other artists, customers and patrons at Bucktown.

He said he’s learned about presentation since moving to Bucktown, using jewelry display racks and even a hollowed-out TV set to show off his creations.

Young said he may branch out into a different art form in the future.

“I might have hit the end of the road as far as what I can build,” he said. “There’s only so many shapes and so many things you can do.”

Although he enjoys his creations, he isn’t sentimental or affectionate for the finished products.

“I don’t see myself as a ‘This isn’t what I do, it’s who I am’ artist. I’m not like that,” he said. “I don’t have a strong emotional attachment to them.”

But in a short time, he has developed a reputation for what he can do with televisions or computer monitors.

“Someone once told me they would never drive by another TV on the side of the road without thinking about me,” he said, smiling and tapping his chest. “It warms my heart.”

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.