In this Palo Alto yard, discarded objects become art

On Waverley Street, discarded objects rarely go to waste. For nearly 30 years, neighbors have been dropping off old gears, rusted machinery, car parts and other unwanted odds and ends at Rochelle Ford’s home to see what the 90-year-old Palo Alto artist will create next.

“They’ll leave chalky faces in the middle of the night and a piece of metal, or they’ll leave a note: ‘Hope you can use this!’ or ‘Think you can use this?'” Ford said. “They don’t even leave their name!”

The sculptures Ford creates from those discarded objects have transformed her colorful front yard into a whimsical outdoor gallery and one of the neighborhood’s most recognizable landmarks. The space is filled with sculptures, giant alphabet letters, yellow and purple flowers fashioned from scrap metal and other one-of-a-kind creations.

Using a welding torch, Ford combines organic and industrial materials to create large-scale metal sculptures. Her pieces are whimsical — often humorous — and always made from unconventional materials. Among her most commonly used materials are steel, copper, brass, feathers, bones, beads, yarn, paint and glass.

The Waverley Street property also serves as the home of her studio, Metal Sculpture by Rochelle, where Ford creates metal and mixed-media sculptures, masks and garden pieces.

A neighborhood collaboration

Ford only started creating at age 58, when she taught herself how to weld. Before, she worked as an executive for the international nonprofit Avanta. Since then, she’s completed commissioned pieces, sold sculptures to collectors around the world and gradually transformed her front yard into the whimsical outdoor gallery it is today.

Over the years, the property has become a neighborhood curiosity, drawing both admiration and occasional criticism for its idiosyncratic style.

“I knew the people that didn’t like it would cross the street and not even look,” Ford said. “But the people that liked the house would stop and take pictures. They still do. I’m assuming it’s because they like it — it could be just because they think it’s the most god-awful thing they ever saw. But I say, ‘Oh, they must like the house.'”

But many residents have come to embrace the home’s characteristic aesthetic and even own her work.

“Everybody on the block has, at one time or another, bought art from me, and a lot of people in Palo Alto have bought my art also,” Ford said.

In her exhibitions at local galleries, people who’ve donated their discarded objects get to see what she’s created from those materials. Ford makes a point of showing donors the finished piece directly, but in other cases, especially with anonymous donations, people recognize the piece themselves and let her know.

“They’ll say, ‘I left this for you, I’m glad you used it, you found something to do with it, and that’s great,'” Ford said. “Sometimes they even buy it back, because it was made into something that has sentimental value that it didn’t originally have.”

The house behind the art

The front yard may be what first catches people’s attention, but Ford believes the property itself has long been a special place.

The 1927 Spanish-style home, with its colorful exterior, arched windows and other distinctive architectural details, has a history that predates Ford’s own additions. She learned from an architectural historian that the house, located in Palo Alto’s Professorville Historic District, was commissioned by Stanford University’s first female physician, who gave a young architect remarkable freedom to experiment with features like the home’s coffered ceilings, arched doorways and custom light fixtures.

“I still lay on the sofa and look at that ceiling,” she said. “He designed the ceiling. He designed the lampshades. It’s a house with lots of interesting architectural features.”

The architect later became chair of the University of Washington’s architecture department and went on to design dozens of acclaimed homes throughout the Pacific Northwest. After another family with 12 children lived there, Ford and her husband bought the house.

“It just seems like a special house for a lot of people who’ve had traumas in their lives,” Ford said.

Over the years, Ford has added her own chapter to that history, creating a home that reflects her artistic approach to nearly every aspect of life.

“I’m really a homebody,” she said. “I love home, and I’ve always wanted my home to be artful. I live a very artful life: I dress artfully, cook artfully, creatively buy clothes. I just like things that are different.”

Still inspiring at 90

For Ford, the sculptures are about more than transforming discarded materials into art. She sees creativity as something timeless and indispensable, and tries to inspire others to do what they love for their own sake.

“I’ve given lots of talks about art, and there were lots of gorgeous communities where older people moved when their children were grown and moved away. Nobody was doing anything,” Ford said. “And I visit all my friends that are as old as I am, and some of them have given up on life. So I go and kind of keep them interested in doing something.”

Today, at 90, Ford is still passionate about sculpting, but her work has become smaller in scale and less physically demanding to produce.

“I’ve scaled down,” she said. “I’m not as involved with the big, serious, heavy pieces now. I’ve ruined my hands making gates and three-story-high sculptures because I thought, ‘Oh, I can do this. This is macho.'”

And while Ford is still creating, some of her friends have since picked up painting or taken up other artistic pursuits.

“At first they said, ‘Oh, we’re too old,'” Ford said. “And I’d say, ‘None of you are as old as I am. You’ll never be as young as you are today.'”

For more information about Ford’s work, visit Metal Sculpture by Rochelle.