See more of Wilby's sculptures at photographer Julius Ariail's site.
Local artist, Wilby Coleman, of Valdosta, always uses found pieces and discarded metal for his art: rusted harrows, plows, rakes, whatever. He turns them into art treasures with humorous and insightful titles. With these works he has had thirteen one-man shows, been in over 50 exhibits, and won prizes throughout Georgia and north Florida. Yet when you see the pile of worthless scrap metal beside his blacksmith’s shop, you wonder what on earth is he ever going to do with all that mess.

Then you walk the grounds of his yard or enter his house and find interesting, funny, wisdom-filled comments on existence.

He says, “I’ve always picked up a stick that suddenly looked like a goat, seen camels in clouds, and lately a host of new and interesting creatures shout for attention when I take a trip to the junk yard. A lot of people must see these things, too, because most, but not all, seem to enjoy the unexpected in art.

“While I make art for me, I am pleased when others get the joke and appreciate the lack of seriousness which I strive to achieve.

“Most of my work has some found object in it. There is something appealing in recognizing and using an object in a way for which it was never intended. It must be like what makes a joke funny: that surprise oblique ending which you didn’t expect, and which puts a new meaning to the whole affair.

Although Wilby never sells his work, a woman in Moultrie got away with a walking-stick insect of his made out of a steel rod with legs and a mule-hames head. The piece was new and had never been shown before.

A condition for entering the festival contest was that all work had to be priced. All of Wilby’s work was purposefully priced high enough to avoid sale, or so he thought. “I made the mistake,” he said,”so I had to sell it to the lady with the checkbook. It is the only piece I did for me that I had to let go. When I do commissions, I don’t ever consider them mine.”

Wilby contributed one his metal treasures "Duwat: Invitation to a Royal Feast," to a sculpture garden in the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts.

Other than a very few, small gifts to his children (they complain), some commissioned pieces, gifts to civic entities, and that one walking-stick piece that got away, no one else has had the pleasure of owning one of Wilby’s sculptures.