This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Davey Hawkins is an up-and-coming sculptor who doesn't get his hands muddy.

The Brigham Young University student already is earning national attention, and he's beginning to sell his unique pieces. But they don't involve digging into mounds of watery clay. Instead, he's developing a style involving a blend of old throwaway objects and video that has already garnered art-world attention, including an award from the international Sculpture magazine.

"I don't know if it's just one giant game and I got lucky," he said of his early success. "I find what most makes me tick and what I'm interested in, then I put it in a form and a mode of expression that is contemporary and unique."

Unique certainly. The BYU senior in studio art has something to say about change, evolution and the cycle of life, and he does it with objects like old tape recorders, boomboxes or an abandoned phone booth. With the smaller objects, he likes to insert small LCD screens (like from an iPod touch) into the casings and run video images.

"I'm most interested in technology and urban landscape and how things change, kind of the cycle of man-made enterprise," he said of his art.

"I like to watch things that were once innovative, had a shelf life and then went to decay and were replaced."

You also might have seen several of his other pieces along the Wasatch Front — including Provo, Ephraim and Salt Lake City — a form of street art where he transformed old, unused phone booths with lights and text. He's now working on a piece that will use his uncle's bee boxes.

"He has a pretty clear vision of what he wants to do with a medium where a lot of kids are still at the experimentation stage," said Brian Christensen, associate professor of sculpture in the department of visual arts at BYU.

"He has a very clear focus about one project at a time, and he's doing it at the right place at the right time where he's getting seen by some very important people. His vision matches that of the art world, which is pretty hard to second guess."

Davey Hawkins, 24, Provo, is a Reno, Nev., native whose sculptures can be seen at http://www.daveyhawkins.com.