One man's junk becomes another man's treasure

On his way to school each morning, young Frank McEntire often stopped to rummage through trash containers, scour gutters or explore weed patches, ever on the lookout for interesting discarded objects.

In the classroom, he would present these discoveries to his teachers, confident they would share his fascination with the resurrected junk.

This continual search for the special item became a ritual for the boy. Occasionally he would arrive home late from school — much to his parents' chagrin — because he had stopped off at a junk shop along the way. "I'd love to go into the old-book section," McEntire said, "and thumb through the books trying to find flowers or paper or something else that was stuck in between the pages."

When his grandfather passed away, young McEntire took an unused aquarium and created a little memorial by inserting bits of collected stuff from his room. "No one ever told me to do that, and I'd never seen anything like it. But making arrangements in containers is something I've done since elementary school."

Today, little has changed for the 59-year-old. McEntire still enjoys "Dumpster-diving" — albeit more discreetly — as well as prowling through thrift stores or scouring garage sales and salvage yards. And he still juxtaposes and reconfigures the miscellany of someone's rejected paraphernalia into a presentation for audiences.

He's what is called an assemblage artist — one who creates 3-D works of art by combining various elements, especially found objects (mostly religious items, in McEntire's case), into an integrated whole that runs counter to the objects' original intent. And while often difficult to decipher, McEntire's work is cogent and fraught with social, political and spiritual commentary.

"Such unconventional use of familiar objects of devotion typically poses unanticipated questions about our times," said McEntire. "Although my assemblages are personal explorations about current events, they nonetheless challenge others to re-examine their deeply held beliefs and assumptions and become participants in the creative process."

"I think Frank's work is very interesting," said Lila Abersold, visual arts coordinator for the Utah Arts Council. "He's always thinking. He makes you wonder what his direction is when he juxtaposes something like a little baby Jesus inside forceps that are used in childbirth."

"For me," said performance poet Alex Caldiero, "Frank descends from 'that Dada strain' (Arp, Schwitters, Ernst, Duchamp, et al., for whom the urge to make is the birthing force at the core of their activities as artists."