<\/p>\n
The home of Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent in Sebastopol. Amiot makes junk art out of repurposed materials and his spouse Laurent paints them.<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Patrick Amiot in his backyard on Florence Avenue in Sebastopol. The sculptor has given pieces to many neighbors, turning his street into a destination.<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
A\u00a0Godzilla sculpture by artist Patrick\u00a0Amiot stands in the front yard of a home on Florence Avenue in Sebastopol.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter Hartlaub\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Amiot and Laurent\u2019s backyard is filled with their junk art sculptures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Patrick Amiot\u2019s first sculpture on Florence Avenue in Sebastopol, a 14-foot fisherman made of recycled parts, was installed\u00a0in June 2001. It was meant as a goodbye.<\/p>\n
He was broke, his career was at a crossroads, and the artist planned to pack up his young family and open a pizzeria in Costa Rica. The looming, joyful artwork erected at his home was a thank you to his adopted town.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was expecting a city ordinance to tell me to get my s\u2014 off the front yard,\u201d Amiot remembers. Instead, it drew the interest of a local newspaper. \u201cThey asked the neighbors, \u2018What do you think about this? \u2019 And the neighbors said, \u2018It would be nice if he did something else.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Amiot and Laurent\u2019s Sebastopol home is filled with surprise art pieces, furniture made from recycled materials and work from fellow artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
The end became the beginning for Amiot<\/a>, ringmaster of one of the most charming traditions in Bay Area art and community. The sculptor and his wife Brigitte Laurent have since collaborated on more than 30 works of whimsy on their street\u00a0\u2014 including baseball players, batmen<\/a>, a wicked witch, a rampaging Godzilla and houses strutting on chicken feet\u00a0\u2014 which adorn almost every Florence Avenue home for a three-block stretch.<\/p>\n An otherwise unremarkable residential street has transformed into a Halloween attraction and guidebook destination with a 4.8-out-of-5 rating<\/a> on TripAdvisor. Amiot\u2019s art-ensconced house is the centerpiece.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI always tell people, I think it\u2019s a combination between Willy Wonka\u2019s factory and Pee-wee Herman\u2019s house,\u201d said Katlyn Dycus, who lives in a cute cottage fronted by an Amiot sculpture.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Her shaggy brown dog with a chef\u2019s hat, apron and wide eyes that look like they were made from shower drains is dad-coded, holding a (local) Crooked Goat beer<\/a> while turning hot dogs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve never seen anything like it before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Amiot landed on the Chronicle\u2019s radar when his block showed up in a Google review dataset as the second-highest-rated museum in the Bay Area<\/a>. Amiot laughs at the mistake. He has never courted art museums or galleries, preferring to drop his often monolith-sized<\/a> sculptures in shared community spaces.<\/p>\n Laurent paints an\u00a0Amiot junk art sculpture that the couple is creating on commission for a local auto repair shop.<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n And the community has embraced him back. Amiot and Laurent, who curate color schemes and paint the sculptures, landed in Sebastopol by accident.\u00a0The artists, who still carry French accents, left Quebec in 1997 with their 4- and 6-year-old daughters. After Mendocino (too cold) and Los Angeles (too Los Angeles) didn\u2019t feel right, the family lucked into Sebastopol.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe ran out of gas here,\u201d Amiot said.<\/p>\n The family connected to the agricultural city\u2019s Americana spirit and progressive leanings from the start. But they missed the way Quebec neighbors socialized during hot summers, blending without boundary in each other\u2019s front yards. Amiot and Laurent improvised a pizzeria in their front driveway and asked neighbors to join.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the newspaper article about his giant fisherman, Amiot made a large Statue of Liberty using a metal trash can and other found materials. It was erected on Sept. 10, 2001. When the world changed the next day, the artist planned to take it down in the name of good taste, but locals had already started a shrine of flowers and notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n A firefighter neighbor was the first to ask for his own sculpture. Amiot made a cowboy for another neighbor shortly after, inspired by a \u201cReport All Poachers\u201d bumper sticker. He knocked on doors, started conversations and remained curious<\/a> toward newcomers, his next work always in mind.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically that\u2019s how it started,\u201d Amiot said. \u201cI got to know all my neighbors through the artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Amiot and Laurent\u2019s home studio in Sebastopol. The sculptor has added a second studio where he welds his pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Amiot\u2019s\u00a0art career was founded on making bright and detailed ceramic figures; the Montreal Canadiens hockey team was an early muse. The much larger junk art sculptures (Amiot embraces that term) flourished after the Sebastopol move.<\/p>\n A quarter century after his first Florence Avenue piece, nearly every home on the street of inviting bungalows and neat yards has an Amiot sculpture outside: a Godzilla with spark plugs for teeth; a punk rock guitarist with a metal cauldron head and (real) spiky grass for hair; animals with eyes made from clocks and pressure gauges; superheroes with sprinkler parts on their utility belts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some are chosen by neighbors from the sculpture garden surrounding Amiot and Laurent\u2019s otherworldly home\u00a0\u2014 a colorful mix of neon signs, themed family photos, surprise artwork on pull-blinds, furniture made from car parts and sculpture installations bartered from other artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Others are custom-made. Multiple neighbors explain that the \u201cCrow Bar,\u201d a murder of crows drinking Coronas, with one bird passed out on the bar, was made for the resident, a former bartender at Marty\u2019s Top of the Hill, an iconic Sebastopol country-western\u00a0bar that closed in the 1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n Amiot\u2019s work now helps define Sebastopol, appearing around unexpected corners of the charming downtown along Highway 12<\/a>. There\u2019s a 10-foot chicken<\/a> in front of the community art center; a Jerry Garcia sculpture greets you at the computer repair shop<\/a>. When the Chronicle shows up for an interview, Amiot and Laurent are finishing a cartoonish car piece\u00a0\u2014 a bearded mechanic pops from the hood of a salvaged 1950s aquamarine truck\u00a0\u2014 that will welcome customers into a local auto repair shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cHis mind is always bubbling and he always has crazy projects,\u201d Laurent says, as she adds a little rouge to the auto mechanic\u2019s cheeks.<\/p>\n![\"Laurent](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjY8w3CXZQ6BCCn7LgcXKD0n5aUo5WxIUXgINnhms0EcFtJ_yGpYdy1EpqmDtdmOoy29mN0FpUx9L7ygrmgVLuszvk7Gu_NyGEiQXXIU5IjkEcK0qgFlL0Ek_UpfiMzkcyUcpvQ5A\/s1600\/sculpture-batman-art-by-patrick-amiot-1.jpg\")