Photo by Jackie Alpers Phil Lichtenhan creates art nests from scavenged wire and other metal discards and fills them with his ceramic eggs. The artist (above) hefts one of his bigger works, filled with white eggs. He crafted rich blue eggs for another nest (below).

Ruggedly metaphoric, Phil Lichtenhan’s art conveys a bird’s-eye view of life

One man’s trash is another man’s
treasure.” Phil Lichtenhan didn’t
coin this phrase, but he could have.
    
The Tucson artist hunts for the cast-offs of our industrial society and fashions them into thought-provoking and, many say, touching works of art.

A high school art teacher for more than two decades, and also a professional painter during that time, Lichtenhan has made discarded wire and other salvaged metal his palette of choice. He turns this wreckage into abstract wall-hangings and sculpture, and into birds’ “nests” in multiple sizes.

It is the nests—with their dizzying swirls of rough wire and delicate-looking ceramic eggs—that have captivated many in the art-buying public. And they apparently have captivated the artist as well. There are so many finished nests and works in progress in the side yard of his home that the setting looks like a protected habitat for mythical mechanical birds. In fact, the nests do get a second glance from real birds. “Our neighbors saw a great horned owl on one of them,” the artist recounts.

Lichtenhan says his sculptural renditions of the avian havens range in size from about 4 inches in diameter, with eggs “the size of my fingernail,” to 3 feet or more in diameter, with eggs up to 6 or more inches in size. Some nests have rebar or nuts and bolts incorporated into their design, and some are defined by old metal highway guardrails. Still others contain wire that once kept grapevines secure on their posts. “The best source of wire is a defunct vineyard,” Lichtenhan confides. He also does his “mining” in abandoned buildings, along roadsides, in alleyways, and out in the desert.

“As birds will use a variety of materials to construct their nests, I have collected the man-made discards of our world, such as wire, barbed wire, steel banding and found objects with which to weave my nests,” states Lichtenhan. “I am particularly intrigued by the visual/poetic contrast between the pristine eggs and the nests made of steel.”

Retired from teaching, skilled in multiple art mediums, and with a master’s degree in fine art, Lichtenhan says the idea for the nests came upon him more than six years ago when he noticed some metal wire that had been thrown out at a roadside “wildcat dump.” What is that? “That’s a place where people dump their refuse illegally,” he explains.

Thinking that the old material might be turned into art nests was not especially unusual for him, he says, since birds had been images in his paintings. 

One idea led to another, and Lichtenhan saw a good use for a kiln his brother had brought him one day in the back of his pickup truck. “He had bought the kiln at a secondhand place in Green Valley on half-price day for $25, and said he thought I might want it,” the artist remembers with a grin. The super bargain had sat in Lichtenhan’s garage-turned-studio for a few years until he began creating his nests. He uses the much-valued kiln to make his ceramic eggs, which fill boxes on studio shelves. Smooth to the touch, the hollow ovals come in a variety of sizes, and in colors such as blue-greens, creamy hues and whites; some are dotted with speckles.

Photo by Steven Meckler This wire nest and its ceramic eggs are ensconced in an 80"-high tripod made from fence posts and steel cutouts.

While he had used local galleries to represent him during his time teaching and painting, Lichtenhan decided he wanted a more widespread representation for his nests and put them in galleries in various parts of the country.

One of them is The William &  Joseph Gallery in Santa Fe. Owner/director Mary Bonney says of the Lichtenhan nests, “I love their delicate ceramics and their crazy recycled metal. It’s a nice mix of the fragile and the not so fragile. There’s the vulnerability of the little egg in all that metal—we also are surrounded by dire materials, and we, too, manage to survive.”

Her clients are charmed by Lichtenhan’s work, Bonney relates. “The nests go all over the world and the United States. People are really struck by them. We just shipped one to Australia.”

Lynne Phillips of Sydney, Australia, says that not only did she fall in love with Santa Fe when she visited the U.S., she also was enchanted by Lichtenhan’s nests, and bought one at Bonney’s gallery. “I loved its blend of raw nature captured in the shape of the nest, and the eggs nesting in the center spoke of new life.”

Kim Weckesser, a Michigan resident,  comments on Lichtenhan’s talent. “His extraordinary ability to capture nature’s essence and beauty is remarkable.” A major collector, with 18 nests, she says two are “itsy bitsies, made with very fine wire, that you can hold in your hand.” Another nest weighs about 60 pounds.