Refurbished Dreams

Rebecca Low and her gallery of artists breathe new life into “found objects.”

By Jill Bold

In late autumn, out of the blue on a perfectweather day in Fort Worth 20 years ago, a man in overalls wandered into Rebecca Low’s art gallery, the lone patron in an empty showroom.

“Who buys this shit?” the man demanded to know.

Deflecting his aggressive vibe, Rebecca replied to him with candor and kindness.

“Well, I’m very grateful that not everyone feels this way about my work,” Rebecca said to him.

“There’s room for everybody. I’m guessing you’re an artist?” He was, and Rebecca hosted this fellow artist in her gallery for the following hour and a half, discussing how his own art could have a home at the Rebecca Low Sculpture Gallery.

“I have two or three things my folks taught me,” Rebecca says, reminiscing about her supportive and loving parents. “You can do anything you want, do it with kindness, and be the best you can be at whatever it is you choose to do.”

And Rebecca chose to take discarded items, view them in a new way and create a unique sculpture from “found objects.” Recycling otherwise useless objects into art is her passion. But being a sculpture artist was never a dream of hers.

The idea originated when Rebecca was walking with her dog in a Kroger parking lot. As she collected items off the ground, a lady from across the parking lot declared, “This is my lot.”

Undeterred, Rebecca returned repeatedly to retrieve recycling items, and the same woman confronted her, asking why she’s picking up what appeared to be trash.

“Why don’t you make something with it?” this woman asked Rebecca. She didn’t know how to make anything with metal, but the woman offered some advice that Rebecca ran with: “Go take a welding course.” And that’s exactly what she did.

The gallery’s main room showcases the works of over a dozen artists — bright, textured sculptures atop pedestals fill the floor space, and graphite drawings and slightly skewed, framed photographs adorn the walls surrounding Rebecca’s office. Window shelves along the front wall display many of artist Chasity Hernandez’s stark white sculptures with striking facial features.

“One mission is to teach people how to see things differently,” Rebecca says.

Holding up a random piece of metal that is shaped like a pterodactyl head, she asks, “What does this look like to you?” She describes her means of inspiration as trying to see what is already there rather than taking material and manipulating it.

A prominent display in the property’s “backyard” features unaltered antique tractor hoods that clearly resemble the famous Easter Island statues when staked into the ground on its edges.

Rebecca stores all the scraps of deteriorated, discarded materials in her sprawling backyard. She gleefully refers to her indoor-outdoor workshop that connects the gallery and her backlot as her “playroom.”

Although part of the gallery’s purpose is to sell art, Rebecca strives to use it as a way to enhance the community. “It brings such diverse art that anybody can like if they come in,” Rebecca says.