It’s taken just four years for this ambitious artist to decorate his yard with elaborate archways and rambling fences, all built from collected hubcaps.

Nickerson says he’s travelled as far as the Valley in search of the hubcaps, hitting a bonanza of 52 in a Meteghan field one day last summer. But he won’t pay anymore than $2 each for them.

“I do it as a hobby so if I paid more, I’d be in debt,” he said.

Last year he didn’t have to collect any. People have started dropping them off to him. A man from Amherst left him a dozen on his steps.

Nickerson got the idea for building a fence when his son left him some pallets one day. “They were in the way. I started standing them up and putting the hubcaps on them. I wanted to get rid of the pallets and get rid of the hubcaps and it came out all right,” he said.

He says he’s very curious to find out the different makes the hubcaps belong to.

“I’ve searched bookstores and the libraries. Somebody must have a book on those hubcaps,” he said.

In the beginning, he didn’t mind “exchanging” hubcaps with those who needed a missing one.

“I just told them to bring me back one to replace. I don’t care if they take a Dodge and bring me back a Ford. But they never brought them back. I was ending up just giving them away. I had to stop doing it. Now I tell ‘em if they want one they have to bring me one in place of it.”

Nickerson worked as a postman for 42 years and as a security guard for Sea Life fisheries when they first opened up.

“All the fish plants in Woods Harbour? I worked in every one of them,” he said.

He lost one of his legs to cancer when he was 12-years-old.

“They gave me six-months to live and I’m still here, that’s all I know,” he said.

The hubcap art keeps him busy, although he’s not exactly sure what he’ll create next.

“I’ve got 150 – 200 out behind the barn. I don’t know what to do with them. If you think of anything, let me know,” he said.