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Tuesday, December 04, 2001

By Eve Modzelewski

Seventy-five-year-old DeVon Smith has made a hobby of making headlines.

As a young man, he hitchhiked 219,000 miles, earning himself a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was an intermittent 24-year venture that took him across the United States, South America and Europe -- and newspapers across the country took note.

	Jupiter, left, and Saturn are two members of DeVon Smith's robot family that are on display at the Children's Museum. Smith, who started making robots in the '80s, says, "It shows you what you can do with nothing." (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)

For the nation's bicentennial in 1976, he created the world's longest birthday card, gathering 21,000 signatures. Then he topped himself in 1987, collecting 50,000 signatures on a card for the Constitution's birthday.

"U.S. can't miss this greeting," one headline proclaimed.

But it was Smith's more mundane work -- as a scrap hauler near his hometown of Ellwood City -- that morphed him from a record-breaker into an artist.

Starting in the 1980s, he used the junk he was collecting to begin constructing a family of life-sized robots. A visionary when it comes to seemingly useless scraps, Smith transformed parts of hair dryers, oscillating fans, TV antennas and reflectors from cars and bicycles into the zany beings.

And people noticed him again.

It was hard not to with Smith organizing weddings for the robots. Jupiter Salvage and Venus Scrappe were married in 1983 during an Ellwood City Chamber of Commerce promotion. The Associated Press and USA Today picked up the story.

Before long, museums and collectors were calling him with requests for the robots.

"It shows you what you can do with nothing," says Smith, who lives in a 1956 trailer in Wampum and gets by on his monthly $382 Social Security check. "You just have to use your head -- and you have to have a lot of junk."

Though his work could easily be considered sculpture, Smith never thought of himself as an artist. At least, not until the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore called him in 1999, asking to display the robots.

"I didn't even finish high school. And I was never good at art in school," he says. He had no agenda when he started creating the robots. Rather, the reason he made them was that he saw faces and figures in the junk he collected. He'd pick up a hinge from a cabinet and see two eyes where the screws went; he'd see sewer pipes as legs. After a few years, he extracted those latent images and started assembling the robots.

And he's still making robots. He's crafted 14 to date. His original family, which cost him just $39.50 in supplies, is now on display at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. The bulk of that money was spent on spray paint, he explains.

"Everything is done on a shoestring with me," he says with a smile.

It's not tough to detect that Smith is proud of his work. He wears a homemade captain's cap emblazoned with the words, "World's first robot family: Children's Museum Pittsburgh." And his navy-with-red-trim blazer, which he calls "the jacket of many nations," is cluttered with pins and patches, some from as far away as Peru and Africa. The oldest pin on the coat -- a tiny black tailless cat -- was given to him in 1958 by the mayor of Douglas, Ariz.

The ensemble, which some would call eccentric, is the latest incarnation of the outfit he wore as a hitchhiker in the 1950s. In order to pick up rides more easily, it was important to dress sharply, he explains.

"You want to ride in the good cars, the Cadillacs -- to hell with those old Volkswagens!" he says. "You know a guy is OK if he's wearing red pants and a jacket." He's traveled in about 6,000 different cars and, once, he even hitched a ride in a Rolls Royce.

Some segments of Smith's hitchhiking journey had themes, and in the late 1950s, he embarked on a celestial voyage of sorts, stopping in towns such as Mercury, Texas; Earth, Texas; Eros, La.; and Star, Miss.

"Starry-Eyed Hitch-Hiker Hits Miami," read a 1958 headline in the Miami Herald.

Many of his robots bear names inspired by that pilgrimage. In addition to Jupiter and Venus, their offspring Sun and Sis-tar are on display at the Children's Museum. And Robo-dog Pluto, sister-in-law Saturn, and brother-in-law Mars are alongside them. The most recent addition to the exhibition is Alligator, made with green-tinted tire tread and flashing red taillights for eyes.

What delights Smith most about his robots is that they're appealing to a cross section of ages. Babies smile at them and 80-year-olds are captivated by the mechanics of them.

"You can't believe the satisfaction."

Though cataracts are starting to limit his vision, Smith's callused fingers remain strong and agile, and he says he'll continue to create new robots for as long as he can. Amazingly energetic, he's fueled by coffee and swears by his vitamins and a daily dose of shredded wheat.

And, when a reporter is listening, the junk collector in him can't help but put out this public notice:

"I'm looking for oscillating fans, barbecue rotisserie motors and reflectors off bicycles, cars -- anything."

In other words, he's looking for more robot parts.

Eve Modzelewski is a free-lance writer.