There is a svelte new 3,200-pound woman in town, and she is getting a lot of attention.

The woman in question is “Salvage” — pronounced “Sal-VAHJ.” Created from discarded metal parts and displayed on the front lawn of a Main Street house, she is the work of Joseph Jilbert, an artist in neon, glass fusion, nightclub and restaurant design and more, and a recent transplant to New Iberia.

Salvage has been sold along with 44 other commissioned sculptures to a community in Hot Springs, Ark. She will be receiving New Iberians’ honks for another six months, but in the meantime and in the future, Joseph, who is known artistically by his first name, has plans galore for New Iberia and nearby communities.

Advertisement

“Everybody wants unique stuff,” he said. “Well, that’s me.”

Joseph wants to turn the abandoned gas station at the corner of Lewis and Main into a gallery for his art.

He has a neon company called “VoltArt” that was set back by the loss of tools and headquarters to Hurricane Katrina, but with local help he is back to work, even without some of the needed tools. He has ideas for the Art Walk and for a club. He has created a sign for Meche’s Donuts and has neon and other work commissioned with other local people and companies. His lawn is his “stage”; Tuesday he created the whimsical “Lucy,”  now sitting to the left of his stairs. “Ricky” will soon join her — possibly in a posture of exasperated despair — on the right.

A self-taught artist, his artwork started to fill a childhood need.

“When I was a kid, I was a very poor kid and I didn’t have toys,” Joseph said.

Instead, he made them out of wood and mud.

It took him 17 and a half hours to make Salvage. He works so quickly that although he wears protective gear, his arms are lined with scratches and scars.

“You call them scars, I call them trophies and rewards,” he said. “I just can’t wait to see my toy come to life.”

Really, that would be multiple toys, as Joseph works on more than one thing at once.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “I don’t think God wants me to stop. (New Iberia is) about to get some gorgeous things through my creativity that’s coming from above. How I do it, I don’t know. But I just can’t help it.

“The things people throw away I make come back to life. It’s hard to part with them. They’re like family.”

Even more animate supporters are friends he has both brought with him and made locally.

His fiancee, hair, makeup and wardrobe artist Julia Munson, is recovering from cancer. This, he said, is what inspired them to move to New Iberia. Some of their friends, such as Arkansas-based artist Crystal Irwin and Atlanta-based healer Charles Hancock, are in town either temporarily or permanently to help them.

Although City Hall has received some complaints about Salvage, and the Historic District Commission is holding a public hearing at its meeting Tuesday, Joseph said the feedback he has received has been positive — from honks from passers-by, to jobs received and offered, to donated pieces of quartz and scrap metal and services and material help received from area companies and individuals.

“There’s so much ... being thrown away,” he said. “Let’s do something cool with it.”

Joseph has a Web site at www.joeedd.com. He can be contacted at joe@voltart.us and 251-4108.