By Barnett Wright
The Birmingham Times
What may be trash to some, becomes treasure for Fairfield’s Alphonso McQueen.
The 60-year-old collects sundry items that he finds, restores, paints and places on property outside of his Fairfield home, located a stone’s throw from the Miles College campus. The collection draws considerable admiration from passersby.
“This is stuff I find laying around, pick it up and paint … so it looks presentable,” he said. “If it looks pretty bad, or beat up, I paint and make it look pretty nice.”
Dozens of items including pots, pans, clocks, jars, unicorns, wind chimes and sculptures of angels can be found outside his home. “[The angels] are my favorites,” he said. “I have two of them — little ones and the big ones.
The angels are inspiring. “They help me to get out there and do what I’m doing,” he said.
McQueen said he found the angel sculptures sitting in his mother’s backyard. She lives right next door. “So I said, ‘mama … give me them. Let me paint them.”
Those were the first of McQueen’s collections which he began in 2007 after he moved to Fairfield from Birmingham’s West End community. He worked in Bruno’s Supermarket produce department his entire life until the stores closed in 2009.
McQueen doesn’t consider himself as artist. “This is just something to do,” he said. “If there is something worth salvaging, I will do something with it. I paint it and let it sit there.”
And where does he get his paint?
“I find that too,” he said with a laugh. “People throw that away. I open those cans of paint and if they still be worth something I use it.”
