Form and content explored: Boone's Rustic Works

I'm always on the lookout for cool DIY-type artists, and Lynden Boone Durkee is by far one of the most interesting I've met in the Sacramento area. I first met Durkee about three months ago when he came to my garage sale and bought an old lamp off me for a dollar. He gave me his business card, which I filed away. Last week, I found his card and spent some time on his Web site. Wow--I was floored by the charm and ingenuity of his creations. I called him up and we set up a time to chat.

I spent a couple hours this weekend at the Oak Park residence of Durkee for an article, and I really want people to check out some of the stuff he's created. Durkee describes his art as "The transformation of rustic pieces of history into functional art forms," and there's a functional aesthetic to his work that is mindboggling, both artistically and historically. And he's a real cool guy--and his wife, Chris, who goes garage-saleing with him every Saturday morning. Check out his Web site: www.boonesrusticworks.com (it's a fun site).

The photo above is a 1920s acetelyne-gas generator used for welding, which today is pretty much obsolete. Durkee has transformed the generator into a fully functional living-room lamp; the generator's components work in the same way, and the welding head attaches to the light bulb. He's even re-created the carbite crystals that would drop into the water to create the acetelyne gas used for welding. This, of course, was pretty dangerous; acetelyne was unstable and a lot of workers lost their lives when these generators overheated and exploded. I'll have an article on Durkee coming out in an upcoming issue of SN&R.