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By CJ Hines

These are a few of the ‘helpful hints for creative art-making’ that mechanical sculptor Steve Gerberich lives by.

Gerberich (BFA ’83), who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, creates art that moves—from a lawnmower hood that becomes a sea creature, complete with light bulbs as eyes, to a teapot which becomes the head of a saxophonist, with eyes made from nuts and bolts and ears from faucet handles—just push a button or crank a wheel and watch things move.

For more than 20 years, he has taken everyday items and turned them into ‘wonderfully bizarre mechanical creations,’ according to his Web site www.gerbomatic.com.

An exhibition celebrating 25 years of art, “Gerberich’s Gadgetry: Art that Moves,” is currently on display at the Morris Museum in Morristown, N.J., through Aug. 12. The exhibit encompasses 4,000 square feet, 30 installations, 90 motors and 175 lights.

His “Springs, Sprockets and Pulleys” exhibition has been traveling across the country for the past seven years and has pieces at the Science Center of Iowa and Java Joes, both in Des Moines. His commissioned commercial work appears at such places at Bergdorf

Steve Gerberich with one of his creations.

Goodman, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Hugo Boss and ESPN Zone. A CEO commissioned him to create a motorized roll of toilet paper.

“He’s one of my best customers. This man had everything you could imagine; he just dreamed it up for his bathroom. I transformed a battery-operated screwdriver and it counts the sheets,” said Gerberich. “Right now I’m making him a little 30-inch man hammering. ”

His work has also been featured on NBC’s “The Today Show,” the NBC Nightly News and CBS “Sunday Morning,” as well as being reviewed in Art in America, The Village Voice and Sculpture Magazine.

Gerberich finds materials at tag sales, surplus stores, thrift shops and yes, even dumpsters. His favorite source is near his hometown of Waukee.

“I call it the scrap iron convention. It takes place Memorial Day Weekend. Surveying overlooked common objects at such venues is part of the process and the inspiration,” said Gerberich, whose parents still live in Waukee.

Gerberich’s intention when he first came to UNI was to become a geology teacher, but found it wasn’t his forte. His older brother, who was an artist, inspired him to take some art classes and he became hooked on photography.

“He was always with the art and the people and it seemed much more interesting,” Gerberich said. “It was at UNI where I discovered I wanted to be a photographer. UNI’s art department, with people like Dan Powell, Fred Burton, Reed Estabrook, frje echevarria, Steve Bigler and Shirley Haupt, was so strong at that time.”

After graduating, Gerberich headed for California in a 1964 Comet to visit friends in Los Angeles and San Francisco. A month later, he was back home in Waukee, where he worked on a paving crew for two years to save money. He moved to New York City (in that same ’64 Comet) to run the photo studio for the Meredith Publishing Group.

“I was pretty intimidated at the thought of such a big city so I told myself I’d stick it out for one year and consider it my graduate school. That was in 1985, 22 years ago,” he said. “The biggest adjustment was dealing with the noise, traffic and lack of gravel roads. One of my favorite things to do is take back roads and look at the farmland.”

When Gerberich first moved to New York, he set up shop in an abandoned factory in Soho where he created small dioramas. He was doing a window installation and felt the piece needed more action so he taught himself how to make things move with motors. Now some of his installations can encompass thousands of square feet.

“I kept improving on that through trial and error,” he said. “I grew up pretty observant and I’ve always been influenced by watching industrial films and seeing how things go together.”

His studio is now in an ‘old sweat factory’ in Brooklyn, a couple of blocks from his home, which is packed with machine parts, appliances, toys, scrap metal, wood scraps and just about anything else he finds that could become mechanized. “I’ve got more objects than I have time.”