Metal Heads

Long before Jack Haley danced across the screen as the tin man in “The Wizard of Oz,” American tinsmiths were fabricating human figures out of the stuff of their trade. In the ‘20s and ‘30s, hundreds of tin men--some human sized, some even larger--populated America’s rural highways, attracting motorists to roadside businesses. This form of folk art is rarely seen anymore, but we do have at least three tin men here in Los Angeles. In 1994, George Kane created this figure for Harley Metals (now Am-Mex recycling), his father’s metal salvage outfit, on Washington Boulevard. The 7-foot-tall “can man,” below, who leers at passersby with huge eyes and a wagging tongue, is joined by 15-foot-tall “roof man,” who began life as a water tank and now sports 4-foot-long arms, red shoes and a big smile, and “red man,” a converted recycling receptacle. All that’s missing are a scarecrow and cowardly lion.