Metal Monsters: Jim Roark's Rusted Automobile Relics on Display at The Mini Time Machine Museum

Online, September 17, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Jim Roark's "metal monsters" are full of nostalgia for the glory days of the automobile. His miniature American classic cars are not your typical pristine miniature collector cars; rather they are vehicles that have been abandoned, left to rust and fall apart. Roark works with 1:24 and 1:32 scale plastic model kits and ages the contents so that they appear dirty, abused and distressed rather than shiny and new.

Thirty-one selections from Roark's work, representing models from the 19th century through 1975, will be on display at The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, http://www.theminitimemachine.org/miniatures-collection/metalmonsters. This special exhibit is included with regular museum admission. A reception and refreshments with the artist will be held on Thursday, October 6, 2011 at the museum from 5:30pm-7:30pm. On this day, all admission will be five dollars.

After years of recreating classic vehicles from kits Roark pondered, "What would this car look like if it had been abandoned in the desert for the past 30 years, full of grease, dirt, dust, rust, broken windows, flat tires and lots of dents?" Roark figures that "to some they may be just a junk pile, but to those of us who appreciate the American automobile, they are a thing of beauty and elegance!"

More recently he has been taking die-cast model cars and literally tearing them apart and then antiquing them with paint and chemicals until the vehicles are in a dilapidated state. The vehicles are presented in fragments of landscape sculpted by Roark such as a desert wash, an overgrown forest, a vacant lot or abandon farm. They are just the places you might stumble upon a rusted automobile relic. Looking at these aged autos one can't help but be curious about their past.

Jim Roark was introduced to model building as a youth by his father who built old time model ships. Even before he could read the plans the young Roark built his own model cars, trucks, ships and military miniatures. He had an aptitude for art and was encouraged to pursue a career in the field.

Roark earned a BPA (Bachelor of Professional Arts) in Advertising Design at The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 1963. His studies included fine art, architecture, graphic design and offset printing. He worked professionally as a graphic designer, printer, engineer and creative designer for 30 years.

Throughout his adult life Roark continued to build miniature model vehicles and began creating his rusted automobile relics in the1980s. Though sculpting vehicles is his passion, he also paints, and dabbles in photography. Since retiring in 1992, Roark spends hundreds of hours perfecting the detail of his decaying vehicles so to present an authentic, albeit smaller version, of what were once elegant machines. Roark resides in Tucson, Arizona.