"Colonization Devices"

When is a shovel not a shovel?

When it's been in the hands of  Canadian sculptor

Floyd Elzinga of course.

Floyd grew up on his parent's farm in Beamsville,

Ontario where he began creating environmental

installations such as his giant pine cones made from

forged shovels.

Floyd gives "picking a scrap" a whole new meaning

as the raw materials for his sculptures are discarded pieces

of metal.  He's the ultimate recycler breathing new, and

more beautiful life into otherwise useless objects.

Must be the iron chicken's nest from Clangers

His current studio is to be found on the Niagara Escarpment

in the very heart of a wild, natural landscape and

inspiration can be found all around him in the forests

and waters which lie just outside his back door.

He's a man who takes the quintessential Canadian landscape

and writes his name large all over it in letters of steel.

Well not really, but you know what I mean.

A forked tree

Floyd is an artist who uses metal working machinery in place

of a brush to give texture to his pieces and achieves his

palette of colours through polishing, burnishing, rusting

and grinding.  Grind on Floyd, I like what I see.

"Colonization Devices" is the special name he has for his

cones because they illustrate the dichotomous nature of

seeds - simultaneously innocuous and aggressive.

So tread warily next time you pass some overblown lupins

because they may be poised ready to attack.

And if you're hankering after a sculptural landscape don't

be surprised to find he's come along and put a zip in it for you.

Ladies, gentlemen and welders, I give you Floyd Elzinga!