Bottlecap Snake by Bill Cunningham, c. 2000s

Handcrafted from recycled white bottle caps, this striking 68-inch serpent by Ohio folk artist Bill Cunningham coils together ingenuity, humor, and Southern roadside vernacular into one unforgettable form. Known as “Bill Montana” or “The Bottle Cap Man,” Cunningham has spent decades transforming discarded materials into ambitious works of outsider art, including the world’s longest bottle cap chain, now in the collection of Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Orlando, Florida.

Equal parts folk sculpture and upcycled artifact, the Bottlecap Snake embodies the spirit of self-taught American craft traditions—where resourcefulness and imagination turn the everyday into something extraordinary.