TA L B OT I C S
TALBOTICS While working on a master's degree in Santa Barbara, California, Tal Avitzur worked for sculptor George Rickey, ceramicist Beatrice Wood and painter Irma Cavat. The passion they showed for what they did inspired him and set him on his creative path. With a workshop full of vintage tools and retro scientific equipment collected over many years, he began building sci-fi themed sculptures. Tal is heavily influenced by the comics, science fiction books and movies that he's always enjoyed, as well as still looking at things with the same wonder and amazement that he had when he was a child.
“
During a remodel of a fixer I had purchased I tried to use as many recycled materials as possible, so I frequently visited scrap metal and salvage yards to gather objects for different building projects. I kept finding all kinds of cool objects that I didn’t need for the remodel but I thought they needed to be rescued from the yards. Before I knew it, my gardening shed became full of all kinds of weird stuff that would make good props
on a set for a Dr. Frankenstein movie. Items collected include vintage tools, kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers, electric fans and scientific equipment. Based on the designs of some of these objects (circa 1940s through 1970s) it seems as if many of their creators had secret desires to be building rocket ships and robots.The original use of a vast majority of the spare parts in my inventory is a mystery to me, because the scrap yards don’t have
tags identifying each object. After I bring parts to the studio, they are cleaned, disassembled (if necessary), sometimes polished, then sorted. Each piece begins with finding the personality in an object, then test-fitting combinations together, and cutting, drilling and grinding until reaching a natural-looking fit. I find it enjoyable figuring out how to put things together that were never meant to be connected.”