For Columbus artist Brian Riegel, musical instruments don’t just make art – they are art.
A sculptor who transforms found objects into whimsical artworks, Riegel has in recent years become something of a pied piper for cast-off musical instruments.
“Nobody seems to want to throw instruments away, even parts of them, or no matter how bad they’re damaged,” Riegel said in a recent interview. “There’s some kind of inherent, I guess, keepsake quality, or maybe the power of what has gone through it before, I think, that people just don’t feel right about pitching it.”
So Riegel takes in the instruments, mines them for parts and reassembles them with gauges, cogs, old-fashioned faucet handles and other gadgets as “morphed instruments,” steampunk-inspired designs that delight the eyes, even if their days of delighting the ears are over.
An exhibition of Riegel’s morphed instruments – Brian Riegel: Reclamations – will be on display at the McConnell Arts Center (MAC) in Worthington, May 26-August 7. But don’t expect Riegel to serenade you - he says the only instrument he plays is the air guitar. Still, he’s fascinated with the stories instruments can tell without even making a sound.
“Not being able to play any of these instruments myself has always made me very curious. And just the function of them in the first place – I think that they’re so interesting to look at even without knowing how to actually make good music out of them.”
“Sort of a Hoarder”
Musical instruments are only the most recent materials Riegel has repurposed into new works of art. He’s had a 20-year career recycling other people’s junk into art.
“I think it started more with some people who said, ‘I have these items and I don’t know what to do with them. My wife doesn’t like me having these old fly fishing rods, but I don’t want to give them away. They were my grandfather’s, but they aren’t currently useful,’” Riegel said.
Riegel’s collection of donated objects and objects he has purchased at garage sales has expanded into a treasure trove of creative possibilities that Riegel can draw on when inspiration strikes.
“Originally, my wife considered me as sort of a hoarder,” Riegel said. “I just have a lot of stuff around, and I’m just waiting for the right moment to use it. And somehow it stays in my head – ‘I know I have that, I can find it, and it’s the perfect piece for this, I have to put that on here.’”
It Began with a Xylophone
Riegel received his first junker musical instrument donation while still an art teacher at Worthington Kilbourne High School. The school’s other teachers and staff knew about Riegel’s repurposed artworks and over the years offloaded countless typewriters and VCR players – and at least one musical instrument – to him.
“Somebody had donated a xylophone to the band department, but it was in bad shape, and they said, ‘Do you want the rest of this? We don’t know what to do with it.’ And of course I jumped on it,” Riegel said.
Riegel combined the instrument’s metal tubes with parts from a vacuum cleaner, a film projector and VHS tapes to create “Drag Pipe Chopper,” a metallic, Da Vinciesque flight of motorcycle-inspired fancy.
Riegel’s exhibition at the MAC will also showcase “Bluegrass Moon,” his fantastical mashup of a guitar, a mandolin and a drum head representing a banjo with the feel of a one-man bluegrass band. Like his other morphed instruments, “Bluegrass Moon” has personal meaning for Riegel.
“From time to time I enjoy bluegrass music, especially the banjo played quickly. That’s just something I can’t fathom doing, so I’ve always been intrigued by that,” Riegel said. “When I think of bluegrass music, I think of evening time or night time when the moon’s coming out. ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ was a song I liked.”
Then there’s Riegel’s piece “Grandma’s Legacy,” a functional curio shelf fashioned from his grandmother-in-law’s baby grand piano. “Compressed Euphony,” trumpet, horn and trombone parts coiled like snakes into a tiny bundle, is Riegel’s especially comical take on the concept that lurks behind all of his morphed instruments.
“I guess the definition of the word euphony is more like ‘pleasurable listening.’ (The title) was kind of a joke more than anything else. I just thought it probably would be that pleasurable to listen to that if you tried to blow into it,” Riegel said.
A Special Kind of Music
Even though Riegel doesn’t intend for his morphed instruments to be played, there’s a special kind of music that, he says, all of the reclaimed parts bring with them into his pieces.
“Anybody who’s had radiant heat would probably attest to the sounds your radiator can make, even though they’re not necessarily musical, but the pinging and the tapping and the whistle sound of like old steam engines and things like that.”
And that’s the music that, even though you can’t hear it, is coming more and more to define Riegel as an artist.
“It’s become kind of a niche.”
Brian Riegel: Reclamations will be on view May 26-August 7 at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington.
