LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE WITH DALE TEACHOUT

Getting a hold of Metro Detroit artist Dale Teachout takes skill. He doesn’t answer to email, he has no website that we know of. He doesn’t even do well with a cell phone. You have to literally run into him on the street and that’s exactly how we found him. We found him walking out of his studio one night when we were crawling around the caverns of the Russell Industrial Complex looking for cool stuff to shoot.

Dale Teachout is a junk artist. He collects junk and makes monstrous sculptures out of them. These sculptures are made out of bits of broken toys, odds and ends, wooden scraps, doll parts, door knobs, scraps of metal and hunks of plastic. There are no limits. This metro Detroit artist goes all out and goes out of his way to express himself.

Walking through Dales studio takes courage. I don’t think we were able to cut through the entire studio in one visit. Everywhere you looked was mounds of  junk. It was dangerous when you get right down to it. You could step on a busted doll head, slip, lose your balance and then snap your ankle in two.  From there who knows what could happen?

The best thing about Dale is his quirky sense of humor. As you watch him in action you will notice that we didn’t script anything. He sucker punched me with his wry wit and sarcasm. This guy is downright entertaining and that’s what I liked about him. It was unpretentious honesty that got my attention. Combine that with urban street smarts and you got yourself one heck of an artist. Dale Teachout is a nonconformist to say the least. And then there’s his subject matter…..

Check out Dale Teachout at the Russell Art Gallery – We will be catching up more with Dale in the near future….

Detroit Junk Artist Speaks!

James BrownEagle Niemi

Detroit Heavy Metal Artist