Susan Harb

I look at things and they look back.

Faces in fence posts, body parts in rusted metal, the rising sun in a chrome hubcap. I can't pass up what others throw out.

The aim of my found object art is to invite a second look, to evoke a smile, to celebrate the beauty of faded paint, the patina of rust...to encourage a eco-consciousness in our highly disposable society.

My media are indigenous to rural Virginia where I live: discarded tin barn roofing, rolls of barbed wire, flotsam and jetsam and driftwood of the Maury River, abandoned cars with all their marvelous parts; cans, bottles, pots, pans, toys and mattress springs of wooded dump sites.

While my colleagues go to art supply stores, I scavenge auto graveyards and Habitat resale stores and recycle centers for my materials.

I use low-tech construction in my sculptures and assemblages: nails, screws, nuts and bolts, wire. Armed with a tin snip and a tetanus shot, a drill and a bolt cutter, I cobble my pieces together.

My interest in making art with what is at hand comes from the years I spent working with Third World artists, who out of poverty and isolation, had to create with what little they had: plastic bottles, telephone wire, dried gourds, bones, seeds.

It also stems from my rural southern heritage and from grandparents and neighbors who held the sentiment that not much needs to be thrown away.

I was shown by example that it can be fixed. Or altered. Or repurposed. That is my mission today.

https://www.susanharb.com/3rd-gallery