The importance of artists

There's this artist, Barry Smith, who lives in Australia. He works in metal, recycling old soldering irons and silver-plated trays and gears and bits into art. I really like his stuff. There's a link to his blog, rustnstuff.blogspot.com, in my sidebar there.

He snips leaf shapes out of old silver trays, folds them in half and hammers them, impresses them with words like "peace," and sends them out into the world. Maybe it's naive, but I think it helps. Kind of like when a certain percentage of people in a city learn to meditate, and the crime rate drops  there.

These are two of his light catchers, made from old tools and antique crystals. He's got a steampunk esthetic in a lot of his pieces.

He's a full-time artist with work in a bunch of galleries, and his stuff ranges from jewelry to big outdoor sculptures. Cool guy.