On Shop Owner’s Break, He Bends
Ruskin – Not much goes to waste in Mark McElwain’s exhaust shop.
He’s a master at crafting whimsical, decorative art objects out of old car parts. Mufflers, muffler clamps, pipes, scrap metal, cotter pins and lug nuts find their way into the bodies of pigs, giraffes, dragons and fanciful butterflies.
“I use anything I take off a vehicle,” McElwain said one morning in his shop. “Sometimes people ask me to make something for them from their old car parts.”
The Ruskin native has owned Mark McElwain’s Custom Exhaust on U.S. 41 since 2002. When business is slow, he is quick to pick up a piece of metal and let his imagination go to work. The result usually provides a bit of fun or beauty in someone’s garden or front yard.
McElwain said he has nothing specific in mind when he begins transforming a piece of pipe or an old muffler.
“When I start, I don’t really know what I’m building,” he said. “I just start and take it from there.”
His girlfriend, Cheryl Sims, expressed pride in McElwain’s artistry.
“He just takes a piece of metal, and out comes art,” she said. “It always ends up something nice people would want in their homes or yards.”
At the shop, all sorts of creatures and other decorative objects stand, recline or hang from eaves. The largest of these is an 88-inch tin man, seemingly straight out of “The Wizard of Oz.”
