Minimum Wage Art

Minimum Wage Art is the name Bob Smith, an Arlington artist and self-employed handyman, gives to most of the original art he makes. His work spans mixed mediums, from postcards and T-shirts to large sculptures built from trash, and some of it is social or political. He chose the name on a whim in 1978 as an ironic, humorous jab at an art world he finds largely pretentious; he never studied art or the business of being a successful artist.

Smith grew up in Medford, went to school in Somerville and spent most of the 1980s in New Mexico before settling along the Alewife Brook in Arlington. In the 1990s he and friend and collaborator Nick Wyneken began making large creature sculptures they call Skraelings, a Nordic term meaning “not of our tribe.” After Art Beat in 2007, the pair began placing Skraelings along a bike path near Davis Square, a spot that has evolved into a Free Range Sculpture Garden.

What to Know

• His most popular design is a black T-shirt with a slightly tilted red map of North America labeled “INDIAN TERRITORY.”
• Anyone is welcome to add work to the Free Range Sculpture Garden.
• Some of his Skraelings stand as public art on the Eliot Square island and outside the Coop building on Palmer Street.
• The first Skraelings were made at Piano Dave’s Cooperative Gallery near Inman Square.