“My name is Pat Steele,” he told me… “I’m 55 years old and life has been a blessing only because of the Lord.”
As we talked it was obvious to me that he is an artist. His art is finding old scraps from buildings that are being torn down and utilizing what he finds to make bed headboards, benches, wall hangings and more. Oh, and he corrected me when I said old buildings by saying, “Some of it’s out of old boats, some of it’s out of old trees, some of it’s out of old buildings.”
He then told me that he loves raw and old material to create new things with: “Anything that is raw – Everything gots’ its own level of respect and I try to respect it. Even people being created in the image of God, even they are something special because you’ll never meet one that’s the same and that kind of stuff interest me.”
About Pat Steele:
“I trained combat engineers for the Army. I got out and couldn’t adjust to society so I got into trouble. 30 years ago I went to prison – got out of prison and was recruited back into the Army, got hurt and couldn’t make an assignment.”
You can find Mr. Steele at the Nashville, TN Flea Market on the last weekend of each month. There, you can see what his eye sees.
Artist Peter Max once stated, “I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.”