Old condoms. Empty six-pack of Bud. Petrified poop. These aren’t uncommon sights at any street spot. And hell, sometimes this “ambiance” even makes the spot more rewarding, by keeping the less willed skaters away.
Artist Sam Keller seems to operate with a similar mindset. I’ve been following his work for a while, and what I like most is that he doesn’t seem particularly attached to any one lane or medium. He uses it all: discarded trash, corporate logos, fast food packaging.
Of course, turning everyday junk into art is nothing new. Artists have been doing it for generations, and even within skateboarding, guys like Bobby Puleo have been collecting and repurposing found objects for years. But Sam feels like he’s carrying on that tradition in his own goofy and unpredictable way: flipping the meaning of corporate products and finding humor in the disposable stuff we’re surrounded by.
When I heard he was building a model of the White House entirely out of McDonald’s french fries for his newest project, I was motivated to document it, even if we didn’t know what we’d use it for.
What followed was a series of trips back and forth to McDonald’s, a lot of fries, and a look at how Sam turned a fried idea / prank into something someone might buy.
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