Cardboard Sculptures!

As I share in my homepage, I've always had fun creating with cardboard. It was cheap, easy to get my hands on, and easy to work with. As a kid I would take a box and scissors (sometimes a steak knife when mom hid her sewing scissors) and tape and be happy for hours. In high school my skills and techniques vastly improved, using craft knives and glue. Now I have my daughter following in my footsteps. I often tell people that she is already a better artist than I was at her age. Here are a few of the more refined pieces I've produced over the years.

The Statue of Liberty bust was created my first year in college (nearly 25 years ago; wow!). It was for my church and was over 8' tall and placed in an antique truck bed for a summer festival parade. The theme was patriotic freedom to honor the refurbishing of the Statue of Liberty and our slogan was "True freedom begins at the Cross!" I pieced it together in my dorm with poster board and cereal boxes over a corrugated cardboard infrastructure.

The Lamborgini Countach (still my favorite super-car) was corrugated cardboard painstakingly fabricated into compound curves and skinned over a light wood frame. The outside was covered with a huge roll of red vinyl contact paper purchased directly from the manufacturer. Windows were actual smoke color 18" Plexiglass. And the tail-lights and reflectors were fabricated from plastic diffusion panels made for drop ceiling lights. It was an exact full-scale replica that could be disassembled into several sections for transport or storage. It took over a year to build and my original intention was to rent it out for marketing displays. But I lacked the knowledge at the time of just how to promote the idea and it ended up being lost to the curb-side trash pickup after completing masters grad school work. One of the biggest compliments I received was hearing about some people who stopped by the curb asking if it were a kit car!


The 57 T-Bird and giant clock were created for the team booths of my wife's Relay for Life workplace teams several years ago.