DENIZEN OF THE SCRAP YARD  My brother, Mark Hundley, took this portrait of me at Bobby Chenman's scrap yard in Norfolk, Va in 2014. Before he sold the business in 2017, I loved roaming the yard there, letting my mind wander. I was able to hallucinate drug-free, completely absorbed in the moment, seeing all the wonderful things around me – not for what they were, but for what they might become!

WHRO AND THE SCENE PRESENT "Sam Hundley, An American Scrap Artist" In 2016, Hyunsoo Leo Kim, a very talented photojournalist and longtime friend at The Virginian-Pilot, created THIS 6-MINUTE VIDEO PROFILE of me for the local public television station. I was the first in a series of video portraits of local artists. This will help explain what I do.

BIO: I was born Sept. 26, 1958, in Phoenix, and was inspired from a very young age to be an artist by my parents, who enjoyed creating folk art – seasonal decorations, quilts, puppets, masks – out of everyday household items.

While studying commercial art at the University of Arizona in Tucson, I landed a part-time job in the art department of The Arizona Daily Star, which led to a full-time promotion in 1980 and a career spanning 39 years and 5 newspapers across the country. I caught the wave of newspaper design at just the right moment and thrived as an artist in that culture in which everyone worked together to solve problems and communicate ideas as creatively as possible.

I met Lynndale Pierce in Seattle and we married Jan. 19, 1986, in Norfolk, VA and raised two daughters, Lucy and Claire.

I began collecting found objects (metal debris, road gloves, flattened cans, etc.) in 1990 while working in San Jose, CA and in Oct. 2009, I began devoting myself to creating art using these things. It was like a faucet being turned on full blast. My first solo exhibition was in 2012 and I’ve exhibited several times since then at local museums and galleries. I also began leading workshops to share my philosophy of seeing and utilizing the beauty that surrounds us.

Since my retirement from The Virginian-Pilot in Dec. 2017, I spend most of my time in my home studio, creating folk art. I illustrated and designed the 2019 Meat Puppets album, “Dusty Notes” (2018), designed an e-book for kids, “Scrap Art Alphabet” (2018) and created my first children’s book, “Gifts of the Magpie,” to be released in early 2021.