‘Everybody’s precious’: Lindenhurst artist celebrates his community through sculptures

Most front lawns feature an assortment of blossoming flower beds, trees and shrubs. Not Tom Eddy’s.

The front of Eddy’s Lindenhurst home serves as a tribute to his community in the form of more than a dozen miniature copper wire sculptures displayed in a Victorian-style hall tree.

There’s a woman walking a dog, a bicyclist, a person in a wheelchair, kids fishing, a kayaker, a nanny with twins, and more. A sign on the display reads: “Celebrating our neighborhood.”

Each figure created by Eddy represents someone he’s met since moving to Lindenhurst almost four years ago.

“It’s my effort to have something fun for neighbors to walk by and see,” he said. “My overall goal with the (sculptures) is to be a meaningful neighbor bringing joy to people, celebrating the normal human, basic things that make us all go. Everybody’s precious. Everybody carries with them burdens and joys and hopes, and you never know what those are.”

People who walk by can find themselves in the sculptures, Eddy said.

“I get such enjoyment out of it because he wants to make the world a delightful place, and it delights me,” said Eddy’s wife, Helen.

The inspiration for one figure — a car — came from a young man driving by in a bright yellow Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

When Eddy first saw it passing by, he called out, “That’s a nice ride.”

The man stopped and replied, “Mister, I worked two jobs to get this car, and I picked it up today.”

The figure of a woman walking a dog represents Eddy’s neighbor, Karen Noxon.

“He has so many talents,” Noxon said. “He’s just a real people person, and he’s an animal person. He’s kind of known around here as a dog whisperer. Every dog is just crazy about him.”

Noxon met Eddy when walking her dogs by his house. Since then, they have become great friends.

“I realized he was special from day one,” Noxon said. “All the neighbors kind of feel the same way as I do about him and Helen. They’re both really special people.”

Before moving to Lindenhurst, Eddy lived in Iowa, where he had a furniture repair business. After getting married, he and his wife made all the furniture in their house.

“That’s kind of how it all started, and now we’re back to it full circle,” he said of his craftsmanship.

Eddy, 82 and retired, also has crafted a bell tower, a weather vane and a bronze bell that adorn his property. Eddy rings the bell in his backyard every day and uses it to greet boaters passing by his house on Lake Linden.

“It’s just a joyful, pleasant sound,” he said. “And it means something to me, and it means something to a lot of people because I hear the reaction.”

The copper figures in his front yard are Eddy’s most recent creations.

To make the wire sculptures, he said “you just need your imagination.” He starts with heavy wire for the frame then adds thinner wire for finer details like clothes. Each figure takes a couple hours to make.

Making the figures took some trial and error. Eddy wanted to craft the sculptures in a way that shows motion.

“That was a learning thing for me to get these guys to look as though they’re alive,” he said.

Sometimes he works on his projects in his garage. People will stop by to see what he’s working on.

Helen Eddy helps her husband paint some of his projects. She’s also his biggest fan.

“He’s very tenacious. He had time and he had talent and he had energy, and he used them,” she said. “He used them to make life a little bit better.”

Eddy’s front lawn has transformed into a gathering place, the product of his caring nature and ability to connect with people, Noxon said.

“He’s like a people magnet,” she said. “He’s a very genuine, loving, caring person who happens to be very talented in so many ways.”