Four years ago, Andrea Deagle spotted an old hubcap on the side of the road near her home in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Having watched "too many" DIY home-improvement shows like Trash to Treasure, she immediately saw potential in the wheel cover.
"I thought, I could make it into a sunflower," says Deagle, 53, who studied art at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.
"After cleaning it up, spraying it black and painting the flower, I was hooked.
"I began asking at gas stations and tire stores for hubcaps and did a rose and a Mexican-style sun face."
Now, Deagle realizes she's also joined an international group of artists doing the same - turning hubcaps into "metal canvases."
Landfill Art is an international effort where 1,041 artists are turning automobile hubcaps from the 1930s to the 1970s into works of art. Each finished piece is being called a "metal canvas."
Most are painted with oil or acrylic paint, while some have been weaved on, glued or screwed or welded to, or made into fine sculpture, according to the website Landfillart.org.
Eventually, Landfill Art founder Ken Marquis hopes to publish a pictorial book on the project, showcasing all the metal canvases. Then, he plans to choose 200 metal canvases for a travelling show that depicts the value of repurposing things in life instead of sending them to the landfill.
Finding hubcaps for her business, "Rehubs," is half the fun, Deagle says. She sees them everywhere, often backtracking in heavy traffic to retrieve them in her travels.
"One day, my husband and I were driving to Newport News and I kept seeing them everywhere," she says, laughing at the memory.
"We were in a hurry and could not stop. The next day I asked my mother, Anna Grace Foster, to drive the same route with me to get them since I had mentally remembered where they were. With her in the passenger seat, I could pull over and she could pick them up. We got eight that day. She fell in a ditch on her butt, laughing as cars passed by. She was a good sport about it and now she is making a clock out of a hubcap."
Each hubcap design takes about four hours to complete. Cleaning discarded ones is the timeconsuming part because they are usually very greasy and dusty.
"As art, they need to be squeaky clean," says Deagle, who finds Simple Green does the job.
Mostly, Deagle uses cheap plastic wheel covers. After cleaning, each gets a spray coat of primer, followed by spackling in each hole and logo she wants to fill. Then, she lightly sands each cover.
Complicated designs like stained-glass looks are first penciled in, then painted with craft acrylics. Each is finished with a clear acrylic finish so they can be used outdoors or indoors.source
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