If you look long enough at one of New Jersey artist Roddy Wildeman's starburst-patterned wall pieces, you might think you're careening through a wood floor hyperspace. A typical starburst pattern can consist of around 140 tapered wood pieces ripped from flooring and other wood products Wildeman salvages. He is so obsessed with reclaimed wood that he once jumped into a dumpster in Miami to get his hands on material for his next piece. Wildeman takes the wood scraps to his studio in Belmont, N.J., where he rips them to varying sizes and uses a torch on the sides before gluing and nailing the pieces onto a plywood backer board. The diversity in the widths and colors of the boards gives the piece movement; people viewing his work have told him they feel physically sucked into or pushed away from the center. "It's hypnotizing," he says. His most heartfelt piece includes wood flooring he plucked from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which lacerated homes along the beach five blocks from his own. "So many people have lived and loved and died in these houses," he says. "It's a shame for many reasons to see [the wood] go to waste."
