>> Sorry for the mess here.
>> Like a lot of people,
Miles Amorelli has
a pile of junk in his garage.
But he's not waiting
to clean it out,
he's waiting for inspiration.
>> I love stove parts.
This fun wash drum
would be neat as a disco lamp.
There's sometimes when
I put things in this pile
I can't figure out at all
what I'm going to do with it.
Then one day, I'll trip over it,
and I'll have to move it.
And when I move it,
it goes to a different position,
and when I visual that,
it totally changes the whole
perspective of the piece.
>> Miles is an artist,
working primarily
with recycled metal.
>> It's amazing what you can do
with this stuff.
>> He can make something as
robust and muscular as a shotgun
made out of Harley parts.
>> Exhaust pipes, clutch handle
and a cam shaft.
>> Or, as whimsical
as a lily pad lamp with frogs
made out of silverware.
>> These are spoons and forks,
and these are spoons and forks.
>> After an idea
grabs his attention,
Miles can think of nothing else.
>> To me, it looked like
a dragonfly body.
So then I started to think about
that for weeks.
I'd find myself, you know,
in the silverware aisle.
So finally I seen these whisks.
These are just fun spoons
welded together.
Six spoon handles.
We will just get this
zapped on there quick.
There's your fabulous
dragonfly.
As it evolves,
I get more excited.
Then when it's finished,
I can't even get stuff done,
I just pace around
and look at it
from different angles.
[laughs]
This is a steam motorcycle, or
a steam punk antique motorcycle.
>> Miles uses recycled
materials, because it's a lot
cheaper than buying new.
But also for the challenge.
>> To take something that's
pre-existing, and distort it
and contour it
into something that you wanted
is an extreme challenge.
>> He loves telling
the backstory to his art,
like in this Japanese restaurant
he decorated with
a 30-foot squid over the bar.
>> This is made out of
18-gge steel that was made
from old refrigerator panels,
washing machine panels.
All those suction cups
are old fence post caps.
These here are jellyfish.
This was made out of
old milk bulk tanks.
And the stainless steel,
I would shred off of it,
cut it, contort it, twist it.
It's having an item
being discarded
and bringing new life into it.
>> But Miles' greatest
recycling project
may be Miles.
>> I have no education.
Quit school at a young age,
went down the wrong path.
So I had all these
self-esteem problems that,
I just never thought
I was worthy to society.
When I'm 26 years old and
I find myself sleeping in the
front seat of an '87 Cutlass.
It taught me that the only
person that's gonna make change
in my life is myself.
>> Miles returned to his family,
and his brother taught him how
to weld in an old repair shop.
>> There was times when
it was so cold in that shop,
and we had no heat in there,
I was freezing my butt off.
So what I did was, I'd take
scrap off the piles around me,
and to stay warm for an hour,
I'd just weld things together.
Well, after a couple weeks
of doing that,
the farmers who would come in
for the repairs on their stuff
would see that stuff and buy it.
>> Along the way,
Miles taught himself
everything he needed to know
about welding, physics,
and design.
>> I don't know how I did this.
I've never had the education
to be able to do this.
So where it comes from,
has to be just
straight out passion.
I can work 18-hour days,
seven days a week,
which I've been doing
for 15 or 16 years,
and I don't even realize
that I'm working.
I feel like I'm Rain Man,
'cause I'm so focused,
that I don't focus on checking
the mailbox, you know,
food, gas in my car.
You wouldn't believe
how many times a month
I can run out of gas.
I hear "eccentric" a lot,
and "weird," and "passionate."
>> Now Miles wants to focus
on giving back.
>> I want to design
and build beautiful things.
When I felt like I actually had
something to give back
that people wanted,
it just exploded a new angle
in my life.
I mean, I feel reborn.