One man’s trash is his wife’s babysitter

My 6-year-old son Cash and I are constantly battling my husband over trash. We set aside yogurt containers, egg cartons, berry baskets and the like for art projects. And half of them disappear.

“What, I thought that was trash!” is my husband’s befuddled defense. But Cash can turn anything into art. Give him an empty tea box, two toilet paper rolls and a styrofoam mushroom container and he’s made a castle, complete with a draw bridge. He’s obsessed with the British kids’ craft site and television show, Mr. Maker, and some days he even entertains himself for hours with a string of projects. A bowlful of fake ice cream scoops from an old sponge, a pencil-shaped pencil holder from a paper towel tube, fake books to hide stuff in from cereal boxes...it goes on and on.

So when a friend gave me a San Francisco Chronicle article about a showing of Don Carlson’s metal sculptures, welded from recycled materials that were described by writer Regan McMahon as mesmerizing even for kids in strollers (I have one of those too), as part of the Pro Arts East Bay Open Studios this weekend, I knew we had to go. It was just a bonus that some of the pieces look like robots (another one of Cash’s obsessions), including what McMahon described as a “mock-monstrous creature whose pointy teeth are clenched closed” that is actually a functioning barbecue with smoke venting through its nostrils.

On his Rude Designs website, Carlson says his work reflects the concept of infusing life into trash.

His showing, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 674 35th Street in Richmond is part of the Pro Arts East Bay Open Studios that will feature more than 400 artists at locations from Oakland to Richmond on Saturday and Sunday.

Check out the full schedule and map at http://proartsgallery.org/ebos/pdfs/EBOS2009Directory.pdf