MotoArt Top Ten Questions:

1. Where do you get your parts?
MotoArt finds our inventory all over the world. Different yards specialize in different aircraft. Most commercial aircraft parts come from the deserts in California and Arizona. However the older, more vintage parts are typically found in old hangers or barns all across the country.

2. Isn't there an abundance of this stuff out there?
Yes, and no. Since 9/11, the US Government changed the laws about decommissioned parts. You can no longer get old military aircraft. Everything that leaves the military bases must be scrapped in very small sections, making it all un-usable. Any fighter, bomber or US Cargo airplane part that we use is being pulled from a pre-9/11 pile. These piles are growing smaller each day. Commercial Aircraft is available to us, because the FAA requires them to be decommissioned after so many cycles of take off & landings.

3. How did MotoArt start?
Dave & Donovan who founded MotoArt, worked together in the 1990's as architectural sign guys. They did high-end theme work for such clients as Disney, Universal Studios and Museums. One day the scrap aluminum truck came by and he had an old beat up B-17 propeller in back of his truck. Donovan rescued it and created the first Propeller Sculpture. The rest is history.

4. Didn’t I see this stuff on TV one time?
Yes, MotoArt did a television series called Wing Nuts back in 2004 for Discovery Channel. Eight one-hour episodes were produced based on our work. It unfortunately ended when our good friend and partner Tim Roberts passed away from a heart attack.

5. Will you film again?
What we learned is that it’s difficult to do both. Run a business and make TV. We’re still holding out for the right offer to come along. In the mean time, we have done several small segments for various programs, including one coming this June 2008 called “It’s Easy Being Green” for the Fine Living Network.

6. What type of clients do you have?
MotoArt’s clients are some of the most diverse crowd we’ve ever could have imagined. From top celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, self made people who reward themselves, to young adults who save money for years to buy one of our pieces.

7. Why are your pieces so expensive?
In actuality they’re not in consideration the process our pieces must go through to look so good. Even great cost goes into procuring the parts by finding; removing them and shipping them back to our studios. Also because recycled metals are so high, we literally compete against countries like China and India for the metal. Our fabrication process also entails the tedious process of sanding and polishing each piece that sometimes can lead to up to a hundred hours of work.

8. Do you do custom work?
Yes, we work with clients on design-builds for larger projects. Because custom work is so time consuming, we tend to encourage people to buy from our existing lines of work. However we have a complete in-house design team that can take an idea from concept to reality.

9. Why do you call yourself MotoArt?
MotoArt was originally started to preserve all works of recycled engineered parts from all makes of machines. Aviation was our start; we wanted to leave the door open to push the limits of or designs to all fields of industrial art.

10. How many pieces have you designed?
To date, MotoArt has designed and fabricated nearly a hundred different styles of recycled functional art. You can find our work in nearly every country around the world.

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Dave and Donovan

Propeller Sculptures / By MotoArt Told by Artist Donovan Fell III

As a young boy growing up in Southern California in the early 1950's, airplanes and the men who flew them became a lasting fascination. In 1959 I stood in line for hours at Los Angeles International to gaze in awe at the new DC-8 jet passenger liner. United Airlines offered the public free tours of this new aircraft to acquaint them with the future of aviation, jet propulsion.

As the years passed jets became commonplace and propeller driven aircraft have become a rarity. During this time my career evolved into building themed entertainment structures and sculptures for museums and the entertainment business.
One January morning in 1998, the metal junk man who recycles our scrap aluminum made his usual stop. By chance I glanced in the back of the scrap pile and viewed several marvelous creations from the past. As it turned out, these were B-17 propellers. All were greasy, dented, and about to be melted for scrap.

What beautiful shapes they were and what countless memories of engineering, combat and freedom they contained. It was love at first sight and I vowed to save these unique forms of metal from the smelter¹s furnace. Within minutes a deal was struck and the possession of several hundred pounds of scrap aluminum changed hands.

The next few weekends were spent degreasing, sanding and polishing these beautiful metal shapes from the past. Due to their size and weight, wall mounting these pieces was out of the question. Eventually the idea of a single freestanding blade sculpture evolved. Within a few months my office and adjacent workspace had become a propeller forest. Realizing others shared my enthusiasm for these seductive historic shapes led to a new and lucrative hobby. After some initial detective work, several sources were found for procuring more blades, hubs and various other components that make up these sculptures.

The rescue of these marvelous engineering components from yesteryear gives much joy as well as a feeling of being a small part of the great art of aviation.