Mark Stutsman and Jamie Gish prove one person’s trash truly is another’s treasure. Through their business Salvage Sculpture, the couple takes everything from vintage jewelry to metal scraps and repurposes it into other jewelry pieces, sculptures, decorative lighting, and more.
Stutsman started Salvage Sculpture in 2015, creating art pieces using silverware and metal sculptures and showing his work at Funk in the City. Then in 2016, Stutsman and Gish met, and Gish added her vintage upcycled jewelry pieces to the business a year later.
“When I met him, I had already gone back to work,” says Gish, who worked for several years as a full-time retail manager. “I had given this all up because I was just burnt out, but he said, ‘You’ve got to make jewelry again because it’s so beautiful.’”
Last year, Salvage Sculpture added a new project to the business in the form of an old 40-foot city bus they converted into a mobile showroom. The couple travels around the area to local art and crafts shows like the Franklin Street Bazaar and Sunday Market, which will take place this year on Sept. 29.
Along with Gish’s unique jewelry and Stutsman’s metal sculptures, Stutsman also has started making lighting pieces out of objects like old rotary phones and rewiring salvaged industrial lighting. They also recently opened a storefront property, in addition to their mobile showroom, located at 2201 N. Kentucky Ave., where they will showcase their usual work along with other antiques, vintage pieces, salvaged medical and industrial equipment, and oddities.
“When we first started working together, we moved two work benches facing each other,” says Stutsman. “Working alongside someone who has a passion for the same kind of stuff really pushes you to do and make better stuff.”
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
812-453-7862 • salvagesculpture.org
