All of Kate Gaar’s hard work paid off. A steady stream of visitors arrived at Gaar's temporary art gallery on Decatur Street last weekend to lay eyes on the exquisite collection of sculpture she’d rescued from a Chalmette scrapyard .

And, instead of being melted down, many of the sculptures were purchased by appreciative art lovers.

The art was the work of the late Bill Ludwig, a master metal sculptor who created the famous statue of Ignatius J. Reilly on Canal Street.

Precisely how the eerie, surrealistic male and female figures ended up at the scrapyard remains a mystery. But the owners of W.B. Scrap Metal recognized the quality of the castings and contacted one of their art-loving customers.

That was Gaar, an art impresario who used to own the Frenchmen Street Art Market and the A

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