FINDING STUFF: When I was in grade school I walked from home to school every morning, passing through the parking lot behind a laundry and a gas station. There were treasures lying about waiting to be collected: broken twists of wire, rusty nuts and washers, unrecognizable things that had been squashed under car tires … the usual urban detritus. I kept the best fragments in an old cigar box. I don't remember if I ever used them for anything but they reflected an early taste for broken, neglected, weathered objects. Years later they turn up in my artwork. Of course I'm not the only one who enjoys the pleasure of the found. In this exhibition 17 artists are showing work that incorporates found materials. Looking at the pages of our past shows on this website, its obvious that most of the artists exhibiting here share a taste for battered, busted, weathered, lost, torn, rusted, disassembled items, especially discarded old books and papers. left: Mary Hull Webster, Lucia Library, mixed media |