Frailloop - Recycled Steel Artwork

Our Wild Fun Day on Saturday 4th August was a wild success! Focusing on conservation and wildlife around Moss Wood, one of the more left field exhibitors was Frailloop – the trading name of artist Gavin Darby.

Gavin’s work is inspired by nature, with most of his work portraying birds and other animals – often with a unique and quirky sense of humour which we love! His art is created purely from recycled metal (usually steel) which, along with the wildlife inspiration, made it a perfect addition to our Wild Fun Day – as wildlife and helping our environment was what it was all about!

In the beginning, Gavin started taking some evening classes on how to weld to do some boring work. While he was practicing his technique, he started making a few little bits and pieces that his classmates loved so much that they began taking them home! Encouraged by this, he began making more and more – until Frailloop was born. He never got around to doing the boring work…

The name Frailloop represents Gavin’s ethos and is an encouragement to all to reuse, recycle and repair. He views our environment as complicated and interconnected – like the links in a chain. ‘Frailloop’ refers to the weakest links in the chain.

“Should one part fail everything will come crashing down around our ears,” Gavin explains. “Many people feel that any change they could make is so small is effect would go unnoticed. However every little step as the combined effect of many small changes is positive.”

We were delighted to welcome Gavin and his Frailloop recycled metal sculptures to Moss Wood for our Wild Fun Day and hope he will be back in the future! In the meantime you can find out more about Gavin’s work on his website here or his Facebook page here. Gavin also collaborates with a potter, Gary Jones, to make some fantastic pieces which are well worth taking a look at here.

You can see Gavin live with a much larger selection of his work at events coming up such as Living North York and Craft in the Pen in Skipton on 17/18th November.