Valley verve : ‘I get a kick out of it’

Tucked away in the back of the garage at his Valley home, Floyd Surdez (sur-day) takes broken or unassembled tools and welds them together to create yard art.

His medium is metal and includes sickle guards, shovels, rakes, trowels, blades, nuts, washers and pipes. “I get things from farmers, junk yards, yard sales, the dollar store – you name it,” he said.

It began while on vacation in the Midwest where he saw a piece of yard art. It was a black crow made of tools. His wife, Dorothy, said, “You can do that,” and so he did.

Surdez’s first piece was a buzzard made from a saw blade and a cement trowel. It stands in his yard next to a pelican. Since 1997, he has made more than 200 and has sold most of them. “I have them all over the country,” he said.

He has made storks, ducks, herons, roadrunners and roosters. He has even created custom pieces including a jailbird, a preacher bird and a teacher bird complete with horn-rimmed glasses and a pencil behind its ear. “I get a kick out of it,” he said. “Sometimes I sit back and laugh at them.”

The birds stand up to 2 feet tall and they all have personality; some are quite hilarious looking, even enamoring. Some wear top hats made of pipe and washers and some appear about to take flight. They are brightly painted with three coats of rust inhibitors and gloss enamel and make a lighthearted addition to gardens as well as tabletops. “One customer put hers on her coffee table. She didn’t want it to be stolen from her yard,” Surdez said.

Surdez, 76, sells his art from the back of his pickup, which is filled with them. He pulls out a makeshift table and displays them in busy lots, usually on Saturdays from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can often find him in the strip mall parking lot in front of the Valley Wal-Mart near the Broadway entrance.

His prices are reasonable and range from $40 to $65. A tag hangs from each piece that reads, “Dear friend, thank you for choosing my creation. These ‘Yard Birds’ are fun to make – the only limitation is imagination … .” He offers up his phone number, adding that, if needed, he will reweld or repaint at no cost, and “God loves you.”

A former food chemist, Surdez retired in 1996 from his career in orange juice processing and bottling. A Spokane resident since 1983, Surdez moved into his Valley home eight years ago. In 2004, he had open-heart surgery, followed by another surgery in 2006. He will be having knee-replacement surgery this fall. Still, he is doing well, getting around, and sharing his creations with others.