These Sculptures Are Made From An Everyday Item

Artist Augusto Esquivel creates sculptures using not only an unexpected medium, but also an unexpected way of using them. To create his life-sized, three-dimensional pieces, he uses buttons and thread. But he doesn’t sew the buttons to anything. Oh no. Instead, Esquivel hangs the buttons on the thread to create a 3D sculpture using nothing but meticulously sorted colored buttons.

Esquivel’s sculptures explore appearance and expectation versus reality, with the strings of buttons masquerading as a solid, substantial objects. But in reality, they’re just a fragile arrangement of parts.

Esquival’s sculptures run the gamut from still life objects of varying sizes to miniature landscapes to abstract forms. He can even create portraits using strands of buttons hung in a two-dimensional, curtain-like arrangement. Even though on their own they might seem insignificant, the buttons come together, each one playing a vital role in the final product. “Like an atom in a molecule, each button serves and shapes the whole,” Esquival explains on his site.