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Standing inside Tritch Hardware in Eagle Rock on a recent morning, Patrick Nickell is having a hard time deciding which metal saw blade to buy for his wife. Weighing them in his hand, he seems perplexed by the choices.
The sculptor is a familiar figure in the store, where he can often be spotted wandering the slightly dusty aisles. Just moments earlier, the clerk behind the counter had greeted the artist by name.
But it's not metal saw blades that draw Nickell to the store. The 43-year-old usually comes by for cotton string, cardboard and glue guns -- the flimsy science project materials with which he creates his art.
The artworks he creates from cut-and-glued cardboard, crumpled newspaper, plywood or plastic held together with string have a decidedly homemade quality to them.
"I don't want to be the 'cardboard guy,' " says Nickell.
But "it's hard to escape what the materials mean -- the inherent meaning of cardboard," he says, referring to the throwaway quality of his medium. "I'm trying to refine that type of material, bring it to a larger scale, and then to make it more sophisticated."
A survey of Nickell's work, currently on view at the Luckman Gallery at Cal State L.A., shows a combination of sophistication and wit. A giant plywood asterisk painted a pale greenish yellow occupies a central spot on the gallery floor. Most of the sculptures hang from the walls like paintings. Some resemble delicate chandeliers -- small connected rings of painted cardboard strips, covered with plastic membranes and hung with cotton string. Light filters through the strings and translucent rings, adding another dimension: shadows on the wall. Other works have a heavier quality, constructed from tin can pieces and fine metal...