The Brooklyn Rail

As I chat on the phone with author Kevin Carey about the inspiration for his new book Junior Miles and the Junkman, I watch my partner and my twelve-year-old inspect and take apart the drivetrain on a bike. Carey has asked me to jump into a planned conversation with artist Steve Gerberich, crediting Gerberich’s kinetic art as motivation for his upcoming middle-grade novel. We are discussing meeting logistics, but Carey has also piqued my interest in Gerberich’s sculptures with complex descriptions of the mood and motion of the mechanized installations— like the sound of bicycle chains turning in the distance, the movement of geese in flight over his head and the long distant clank and mechanical rattle that pulled him deeper into the Springs, Sprockets and Pulleys exhibit. Like the speaker in his book, Carey’s description focuses on a single sculpture of the awe-inspiring fisherman George, who casts a line from what Gerberich will later tell me is a meat grinder, a pulley, and a “farm mechanism” curated into a fishing rig.

There is something familiar in all this talk of gears and mechanical assemblies. Suddenly I’m six again, walking into the garage and finding the banana seat of my pink Huffy on the oil-stained floor. My brother disassembled the bike to harvest it for parts to modify his Mongoose. I mention this revelation to Carey, and he chuckles with a wise sort of knowing, “Yeah, that sounds familiar.” He tells me similar stories of growing up in the sixties in Revere, Massachusetts. Like the summer he and his friends discovered they could easily loosen the exposed bolts on a newly installed playground. “Naturally, we take it apart, right?” He laughs, “All over town, you’d see kids cruising by with chopper extensions made from the monkey bars.” The inflection in his voice mimics his descriptions of Gerberich’s installations and reveals a respect for practical ingenuity.

Kevin Carey is a novelist, poet, screenwriter, and coordinator of the creative writing program at Salem State University. He is practical and working-class—a self-described “former fry cook.” He is also the first to express gratitude for his academic career, which he describes affectionately as “a great gig.” Sentimentality and gratitude smooth out an otherwise rough streetwise demeanor—a backward Celtics cap, blue jeans, and a propensity for choosing the back corner at most readings, just like ninth grade. The grit of lived experience is apparent in the no-nonsense way he speaks and writes, permeating the wide range of his work. From his poetry collections, Jesus Was a Homeboy and Set in Stone, to his crime novel, Murder in Marsh, and his screen and stage plays Peter’s Song and The Stand or Sal is Dead, Carey constructs narratives from where the pavement meets the shore, not from the halls of higher learning. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Carey finds inspiration in the rough whimsy of Gerberich’s kinetic wonderland.  

It was around 2000 when Carey first stumbled on Gerberich’s exhibit Springs, Sprockets and Pulleys at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. With a book idea fermenting, Carey recalls the “solitary nature” of the figure George the Fisherman standing in the exhibit— “that visual sat with me for a long time.” But it was a second encounter with George the Fisherman, at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, during his MFA residency, he conceived the “junkman” character, Mr. Miles—the sculpture that serves as the catalyst of healing for twelve-year-old protagonist Junior Miles who navigates the grief and economic fallout of his father’s untimely death. Carey acknowledges that his junkman character differs from Gerberich’s sculpture, but the character Mr. Miles clearly reflects Carey’s connection to Gerberich’s art. When I ask about the influence, Carey describes standing face-to-face with the sculpture and questioning, “What would it be like if this came to life?” He projects a similar quality onto his protagonist Junior when the character asks, “Who are you?” as he confronts the junkman. What Carey sees in the fisherman sculpture continues to inspire the endearing relationship between the two characters and subsequently facilitates a plot packed with unexpected adventure and self-discovery in the vacuum of the father’s death. Most notably, Carey’s characterization of the sculpture expands Gerberich’s fantastic world beyond the exhibit, creating an imaginative world that might exist when the lights go out or when the patrons leave the exhibit hall. 

Carey and Gerberich reside in different states, so we arranged a quick online meeting. On a sunny afternoon Zoom call, we talk about personal journeys, kinetic sculpture, narratives, and the many parallels of their creative process. Gerberich links in from his studio, which looks like the set of an I Spy Treasure Hunt edition—I’m tempted to start identifying the familiar objects hovering in his aura. Carey is at his office on campus; His backdrop is a wall of casually pinned images—an MLK protest poster and Wes Anderson posters, Buddhist prayers, and pictures of his wife and kids, like a wall of reminders. It occurs to me that Carey’s two-dimensional hodge podge of creative inspiration is the writer’s version of the three-dimensional collection behind Gerberich.

Initially, Carey is star-struck, but he is visibly relieved when Gerberich (like Carey himself) cracks the occasional dad joke and fumbles with the technology. Gerberich shares his artistic background, which began at the University of Northern Iowa and evolved into the mechanization of window displays in SoHo before attracting curators and expanding to more extensive public exhibits, often breaking records for attendance. His growing collections have appeared at Grand Central Terminal, Buffalo Museum of Science, Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Waterloo Center for the Arts, and Science World in Vancouver. As Gerberich elaborates on his career, he sounds surprised as he lists his many exhibits and names of the warehouses he now needs to store his work.

Gerberich’s exhibits are quite large, often taking up as much as 5,000 square feet, but they are also complex, interactive, and imaginatively constructed from repurposed items. Many of the sculptures are anthropomorphic, like George the Fisherman or the Cash Cow, and most reveal a sort of mechanized transparency. As the simple machines move, they prompt the observer to visually trace the mechanics while reconsidering the context and task of familiar items like toys, sports equipment, and musical instruments. Gerberich describes this as an “evolution of the materials.” An old Time-o-Lite device switches on a motor that powers an inverted Samsonite suitcase making it flap open and close, becoming the wings of a goose. An upside-down teapot becomes a head—the spout, a nose. Collectively, the sound and movement of a Gerberich exhibit hall is a whirling, clicking experience of bicycle gear assemblies, chains, belts, and motors turning in a satisfying chaotic sense of repurposing objects.

Like Carey, Gerberich is a blend of practicality, smarts, and reflection. Gerberich’s work feels accessible because it is composed of recognizable objects. Still, his artistic influences—Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely, Edward Kienholz, and even Paul Klee’s The Twittering Machine (1922)—reveal Gerberich also has serious expectations of himself. Even though his exhibits are whimsical, Gerberich is not afraid to challenge the audience with compositions like Sea Ship, which employs oars and the sound of metal chains resonating on the wood contemplative of the Middle Passage. Carey describes the experience of approaching this piece as deeply emotional.

As we talk, it strikes me that both men are committed to honoring the people who influence their work. Gerberich’s sculpture George the Fisherman is a tribute to his close friend George Holbrook Haupt. Gerberich also highlights the talent of his late brother Tim—a “born creator” and survivor—who continued making art after a devastating brain injury. When Gerberich mentions, “my favorite tool is gravity,” I recall the rocking motion of Tim’s work, Orange Hares, showcased on Gerbomatic.com. Similarly, Carey praises his wife, Betty, not just for decades by his side but for the idea to attend the Pittsfield Springs, Sprockets and Pulleys exhibit in the first place. It becomes apparent that even our conversation stems from Carey’s wish to acknowledge Gerberich’s artistic contributions as an essential part of his own creative process.

This same generous spirit exists in the openness with which Carey and Gerberich approach their craft. There are no curtains; Gerberich exposes his sculptures’ mechanical anatomy just as Carey always ensures his office door is open. The courtesy and willingness to share writing and publishing experience with aspiring writers mimic Gerberich’s open invitation for folks to join in experimenting at his Newburgh studio— an offer Carey takes him up on, stopping by just a few weeks after our conversation.

Afterward, Carey sends me a picture of them together. Gerberich is in a Detroit Lions cap; Carey is his go-to Celtics hat. Both men wear button-downs over a t-shirt, dark-rim glasses, and wide grins. They sit immersed in the gadgetry of Gerberich’s art studio. Suddenly, I’m grateful to be a satellite of this story. While I realize individualism exists in artistic creation, and the solitary nature of artists and writers is part of what keeps me at my desk, Carey and Gerberich are a great reminder of the unexpected inspiration and connection in the creative community. They display an openness and willingness to share their process by keeping the door open for other creators, and this collaborative nature is as awe-inspiring as the kinetic and narrative worlds they curate.

At the same time, this bit of research and exploration into bobbling things, salvage yard junkmen, and sculpture has had a strange effect on me. Not only do I recognize a similar process of invention occurring as I watch my partner and kid break apart the wheel assembly on their busted-up bike and flashback to my brother salvaging my bike, but a bit of pareidolia has taken hold of me. I suddenly see a strange humanity in our five-foot tall DeWalt tripod work lamp and the bent neck of my computer microphone; even the lenses on my iPhone seem to peer out at me like a three-eyed alien. Ultimately, Carey and Gerberich create life from these gadgets and clutter, and while I acknowledge the objects around me won’t suddenly cast a fishing line, or dance, or spur childhood adventure like in Junior Miles and the Junkman, I concede, it is fantastic to imagine it.