Frontyard Art Display Now a Local Wonder

And a wonder it is.

Industrial steel pipes, painted black, tower in front of the house, topped with vents painted red. Small, bright red tubes dangle inside spheres fashioned from steel, mimicking the fire in Earth's core. Michael Jackson -- from his "Bad" album days -- makes an appearance too, engraved in a block of acrylic.

And presiding over this densely packed sculpture garden -- from atop the house's roof -- is a zebra made of steel rods, burlap, newspaper, glue and chicken wire.

Most of their material, down to the discarded white matting Dianne uses for sketches, comes from the trash.

As Lew points out, there's art in trash. Spelled backward, the "tra" in "trash" becomes "art."

"People don't realize there's a lot of things out there you can make things out of," Lew, 67, said. "All garbage isn't nasty."

He added, "In our world, we can go to the alley" -- or "Alley Cat University Research Center," as he and Dianne, 55, call the industrial areas in East Los Angeles where they search for supplies.

Many artists are thwarted by the cost of materials, Lew said, but using trash "gives people that are poor more of an opportunity." Especially in Los Angeles, where people throw away all kinds of things.

The brother-and-sister act have planted so many sculptures in what was once a front lawn that it's hard to distinguish one work from another. The house's roof is barely visible over the tops of the tallest pieces.

Lew and Dianne can often be found lounging on the parkway in front of their creation, waving to cars passing by. They welcome visitors by offering a fold-out chair next to their own seats under two large umbrellas.

Inevitably, a driver zipping along the residential street will slow to a creeping pace and stare. One afternoon, an onlooker crawled past in a dark green Toyota 4-Runner.

"Take a picture!" Lew shouted. The driver smiled.

"Next time," he replied before pulling away.

Several weeks later, the driver of a black Yukon slowed to gawk.

"Take a picture!" Lew shouted.

"I don't have my camera," she said. She passed again later, this time with her son, who stepped out of the car and slipped a coin into a black donation box -- one of the few contributions the Harrises have received in years.