A retired social worker and self-taught machinist with an unlimited imagination has a penchant for old tools, antique fittings, architectural pieces, vintage vehicle parts, scrap wood, bicycle parts, drawer pulls, wires, computer parts, vintage bottles, and gears of all sizes.
Steve Overton, of Centralia, sees hidden inventive potential in a wide range of everyday household items such as doorknobs, nuts, bolts, bristle brushes, clock parts, corks, latches, handles, clothespins, hinges and keys, and he is always planning his next creations.
Whimsical 3- to 6-inch mini robots or assemblages, as Overton calls them, are built from odds and ends usually found in a junk drawer or from a yard sale, antiques market, secondhand shop or the far recesses of a hardware store.
Some of his robots have moving parts.
With woodworking as key to his creative process, Overton also upcycles scrap building materials and unusual fittings and finishes when tackling larger projects such as home renovation or quirky larger structures.
“I usually have future projects in mind. I like to stay busy,” said Overton, who moved with his wife, Dorinda Oberto, to Lewis County in 2019 after retirement in Vancouver.
Besides collecting whatever catches his eye in order to later build or reconstruct things, he also looks for antique items such as light fixtures to restore. Employing fine craftsmanship and a methodical and well-organized approach, Overton said from his collection he can usually find just the right part to complete a piece.
His attention to detail and the originality of his finished works sell to various collectors in the fine arts market.
“When I was a kid, we had to make our own fun. When I was young, I would drive people crazy by constantly tearing things apart to see how they worked and how they were made,” Overton said. “I had tinker toys, Lincoln logs and erector sets, but I didn’t play with them in the usual way. For me, the instructions were only suggestions, and I wanted something different or something I had in my head.”
From kindergarten onward, Overton had his own hammer and nails and other hand tools. He reminisced about an initial visit to the principal’s office after he convinced early elementary school classmates to help him nail the classroom’s hollow wooden toy blocks together.
At about the age of 8, he built a 3-foot, battery-operated robot from cardboard tubes, one that would skitter across the floor. His childhood was filled with building homemade rafts for the backyard pool or constructing tree forts.
“As a kid I would lie on the ground in the back yard and look up at the sky and think about all the moving parts, and I’d then use my imagination to think about building things,” Overton said.
More recent projects have included renovation of the couple’s home kitchen and a bathroom by turning undervalued blue beetle pine into fine tongue and groove cabinetry. Old metal school lockers were retrofitted to use as cabinets in the laundry room.
To build a custom kitchen island, Overton fractal-burned the top of an antique glass cabinet, which created intricate, fern-like patterns that he later filled with red epoxy.
Using a metal car cover frame and plastic patio panels, Overton built a greenhouse in his backyard. A gazebo was also built, nearly entirely from old fence boards and other recycled lumber. Octagon-shaped, the structure’s sides curve upward like a leaf and are then capped with a pergola on top.
“A lot of people say our gazebo resembles a hobbit’s house,” Oberto said. “Steve really can do anything.”
A recently sold large art piece exemplifies Overton’s approach. When an acquaintance’s ancient locust tree was uprooted for removal, several hand-sized rocks were embedded in the broad roots.
“I saved a good-sized chunk of wood where the roots had grown around some rocks and for a good while I kept thinking about it while doing other projects. I just knew I wanted to do something with it,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden, it came to me.”
Tangled roots and part of the trunk base became the form to create a striking large horsehead sculpture, mounted on wood with the curved roots reflecting strength and movement. Embedded rocks serve as muscular elements and the horse’s eye.
“I usually have 15 to 20 projects going at a time,” Overton said. “Some of them may not be very far along but I have the pieces and I know what I want to do. And if it doesn’t work at first, I can always figure out another way to make it work.”
Other components on his mental horizon for future creations include a wooden wagon wheel weathered over a century, vintage incandescent streetlights, and a box of unshaped spoon blanks found in a former local junk shop.
“The reason I like to do what I do is because it keeps me going and is mentally rewarding,” Overton said. “People tell me my works make them smile. What more could you ask for?”
Overton currently shows his works at The Rectangle Gallery in Centralia.
