Frond of mine for Palm Aire artist

Walking through David Skaggs’ Palm Aire home is much like touring a museum. Life-sized carousel horses, antique clocks and furniture and other unique items draw attention.

They are pieces his wife, Deborah Skaggs, keeps around until she’s ready to sell them at her consignment store.

But woven into the mix are David Skaggs’ own artistic creations. They include a variety of fish, birds and other wildlife sculptures that hang from walls and from the ceiling. They perch atop tables and stand from the floor.

At 54 years old, David Skaggs has found his life’s purpose in creating art with what most people consider trash — palm tree fronds.

“That high I feel making art is the same feeling as when I played competitive sports,” said David Skaggs, a collegiate springboard diver. “It’s that adrenaline rush. That’s really what the art has given me back.”

He was a home remodeler when he suffered a massive heart attack in September 2013. Doctors told his wife he wouldn’t survive, but he did. The couple closed his business. He couldn’t work.

Depression gained its foothold.

About eight months after the heart attack, David Skaggs started working part time as a maintenance supervisor at Golf Pointe, a condo association within Palm Aire. He watched the crews trim palm trees and suddenly, one day, an idea came.

“I thought, ‘Hey, I can make a fish out of that,’” David Skaggs said. “I started putting them aside.”

Deborah smiled.

“He was bringing them home by the truckload,” she said.

He made a table lamp first. Then, fish and other animals.

David Skaggs pointed to a floor lamp much like the first table lamp he created. From a 3-foot-tall basket emerges a bloom, its green leaves tipping over the sides with a yellow calla lily bloom shooting upward from the center. Creating this piece is what triggered his palm frond obsession.

“This lamp started it,” David Skaggs said. “This is what God showed me.”

At first, he’d excitedly pulled the palm frond pieces together, but didn’t secure them. Deborah Skaggs thought the piece lacked balance. Trying to fix it, he caused the lamp to collapse. He was frustrated and angry.

“Later that night I was staring at it, and it was like I was looking over myself doing it and all of a sudden all of the pieces fell into place,” David Skaggs said. “I got it all done and it looked like this right here. God made my hands do it.”

“That was the beginning,” Deborah Skaggs said. “Then it went wild.”

The couple’s Palm Aire home slowly transformed into a storage space for David’s finished and unfinished work. Empathetic to David’s depression, Deborah obliged, pretending the piles of fronds and unsorted messes didn’t bother her.

“He was so depressed,” she said with a shrug. “Anything to give him happiness back.”

He created lamps, fish, birds and other creatures, working on several pieces at a time. He waited six months to find the perfect pieces for the alligator he envisioned and recently completed.

The finishing touches — dots to line the gator’s back — were shells he found while walking on Siesta Key Beach. When he saw them, he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“My pockets were stuffed like a chipmunk,” he said.

David Skaggs also is proud of his mermaid, modeled after Kim Kardashian and “those hips.” She is more than 7 feet tall. Her head is made from a crushed mannequin head he bought, her body covered in scales made from rubber tree leaves and Siesta Key Beach shells. She took about a year to finish.

“She took a lot of time because she has a lot of elements,” he said.

Currently, he’s working on what he calls a “golf octopus,” a giant octopus with tentacles grasping golf clubs. It’s a work in progress on the Skaggs’ lanai.

Deborah Skaggs said the art has given her husband his life back.

Now he channels his focus, excitement and passion into each piece, whether large or small.

Those pieces go to Deborah Skaggs’ internet resale and consignment business, Dray’s Gallery, although David Skaggs does commissioned pieces, as well. Most pieces cost a minimum of $250.

During the past three years, David Skaggs, who does business as Dave’s World Art, has created more than 150 one-of-a-kind pieces. More than 40 of them hang from walls, sit on coffee tables or stand on the floor of the couple’s home.

Deborah Skaggs said she’s ready to have her house back. With friends headed over for the holidays, he will have to  limit his collection to four pegs on a wall of their living room. The lanai  must be transformed from a jungle of palm fronds to something more presentable.

David Skaggs shrugged. “She takes good care of me,” he said.