SALvaged artworks

Sal Greco never passes a pile of trash on the street without slowing down to look at it. Many times he stops and looks for something he can use. If so, in the trunk it goes. With today's heightened environmental awareness, and especially on the heels of successful TV franchises such as American Pickers, Salvage Dawgs and West End Salvage, interest in finding value in items otherwise left for dead has a trendy name -- up-cycling -- and has grown into a movement. Greco’s creations from reclaimed materials are blended or morphed into furniture or wall hangings. An artisan who creates sculptures and display-worthy artwork from reclaimed materials, Greco's work has developed in an organic and unpredictable way, much like the way he gathers the materials for his work. Starting out as a young man refinishing his grandmother's oak icebox, since the early 1970s he maintained an active interest in refinishing furniture -- pieces that had seriously seen better days -- while working a corporate systems day job. “I’m giving old wood a second chance,” Greco said. “Everything is reclaimed. What I take in has to be old and used. My materials are usually 50 to over 100 years old. The older, the better. Better with more patina.” Over the years, Greco says, he's worked with everything from picket fences to pianos, transforming them into beauty and function. He started with one piano but now has several disassembled pianos in his garage workshop. Some materials become sculptures or wall-hangings, piano parts become shelving or unique looking entry or coffee tables. Everything he creates now is re-purposed. What separates his products from many mass-produced designs is what it is not — it’s not virgin wood designed to look distressed by a manufacturer that treated it with chemicals or wore it down with tools. “It’s all handmade,” Greco said. “All I do is leave it unfinished, paint or stain it.” "I give new life to other peoples' throw-a-ways," he says. For now his website www.SALvaged-artworks.com displays his work and in the future will include other artisans’ works. For more information contact Sal Greco at 724-316-9326 or avanti37@consolidated.net.