Meet Baltimore's Hubcap Collector

Cyclist Barnaby Wickham has collected more than 700 lost hubcaps, mostly on bike rides around Baltimore. They've inspired a quest to turn litter into art, including Christmas wreaths, a giant fish, and a large Snoopy head. It's a hobby that developed nearly two years ago from his love of cycling and the joy of making something out of the junk he has collected. "I think it's sort of the excitement of the hunt," Wickham, 54, tells the AP. "I love to cycle. I love Baltimore. I love to go out in Baltimore, and there's just enough hubcaps and other things like car grilles to be interesting, but not so many that it's too easy."

• Origins: One day while cycling in early 2024 he decided to bring home a lost hubcap, for reasons he can't explain. Since then, he has started stringing hubcaps he comes across to his backpack. "I keep track of them, and I have a Google map," he said. "I pin locations where I find each of them."

• Help: Others in his community who've taken an interest in his projects let him know when they see hubcaps by the road. Now, Wickham keeps a list of them that he refers to as "hubcaps in the wild."
• Wife's contribution: Wickham also gets a hand from his spouse, Kate, who helps hold materials during construction and offers opinions. "I'm just support team, and occasionally the cautious person who says, 'You can't drive on this road' ... or whatever," Wickham's wife said. "I'm just ... supporting his love of trying new things."
• Works in progress: Wickham, who works in marketing for a defense tech firm, stores his finds in his garage and works in his front yard. He uses expanded metal as a framework, with sheet metal with holes and wiring to hold the sheets in place. He uses zip ties to link the hubcaps on the sheet metal. "Hubcaps are filled with slots or holes, and so it's easy to get a hold of them to hold them in place," he explains. His works are big. The head of his Snoopy structure is 16 feet tall and about 21 feet wide.
• Weird, wacky Baltimore: It might seem like an odd pastime, but Baltimore has been known to celebrate its quirky side. The city is known for director John Waters, whose offbeat films earned him the moniker of the "Pope of Trash," and it's also home to the American Visionary Art Museum, which is nationally recognized as a repository for the work of self-taught artists and intuitive art.