Everyday Objects With a Secret Life (9 Photos)

The objects do half the work

Meters become watches, a pipe becomes a saxophone, and a handrail becomes a wagon ride. These nine works give familiar objects another role while keeping their original shapes in view.

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⌚ Watch Seller — By Tom Bob in Long Beach, California, USA 🇺🇸

Three electrical meters become the watches in a street seller’s open coat. Tom Bob paints straps through the real dials and adds one more watch across the bottom. The sales pitch is silent.

💡 Artist Fact: Tom Bob gets approval from property owners and city officials before he paints, ABC7 reported in 2019, when his Long Beach pieces already stretched from downtown to Bixby Knolls.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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🎷 Pipe Saxophone — By Tom Bob in Miami, Florida, USA 🇺🇸

A pipe’s bend becomes the neck of a saxophone. The painted musician wraps his hands around it, while the bell continues onto the pavement. Even the small valve gets a part.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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⛵ A Golden Sea Under a Lamp — By OakOak

A real lamp lights the sea around a painted sailing ship. The rough bricks catch the yellow light like small waves. This one needs the fixture switched on.

More: OakOak’s Street Surprises

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📷 CANNOT — By Biancoshock in Lodi, Italy 🇮🇹

Concrete cylinders become camera lenses in CANNOT, made in Lodi in 2022. Brooklyn Street Art describes the pieces as discarded urban debris that Biancoshock transformed with paint. The lenses project from painted camera bodies, with a white frame raised above the one on the left. They look ready for a very large portrait.

💡 Series Fact: CANNOT belongs to Biancoshock’s “Nice To Meet You” series, according to StreetArtNews, which published the Lodi installation in September 2022.

More: More Photos of CANNOT

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🐯 The Handrail Slide — By OakOak

Calvin and Hobbes take their red wagon down the handrail toward its curved end. The handrail is the whole ride.

More: OakOak’s Street Surprises

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🥫 Tombob Soup — By Tom Bob

A barrel becomes an oversized soup can. Tom Bob keeps the red-and-white label familiar, then puts his own name where the flavor should be. The handle above it gives away the change in scale.

More: Tom Bob’s Clever Street Art

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⚡ Homer and the Wires — By OakOak

Homer gets tangled up with a real electrical box and its cables. Blue painted sparks supply the shock; the loose wiring supplies the rest of the trouble.

More: OakOak’s Street Surprises

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💥 Wrecking Ball Trouble — By OakOak

A real wrecking ball, still hooked to its crane, rests right on top of a concrete ring. OakOak adds Wile E. Coyote to the ring, squashed into folds with stars beside his head. The ball supplies the punchline.

More: OakOak’s Street Surprises

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👀 Eyes in the Snow — By Nikita Nomerz

Two round wooden forms look out from the snow. Nomerz gives each one an eye, leaving the rest of the face for the viewer to imagine.

💡 Artist Fact: Nomerz is best known for his “Living Wall” project, which gives human features to rundown city walls; RFE/RL’s 2012 gallery shows examples in Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk.

More: Nikita Nomerz’s Street Art

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