Michelle Stitzlein creates large scale artworks from found materials. In her wall pieces, she uses plastic tubing like a painter uses paint to create colorful compositions. She states on her website:
“My work is created with recycled and found materials. Items such as old garden hose, electrical wire, computer cables, piano keys, mini blinds, china shards, license plates, and bottle caps are utilized to create imagery and abstractions born in my imagination….These objects, once assigned and confined to a certain function or task, find a new decorative incarnation within my work as color, texture and/or pattern.”
Rust Tea Pot is a large sculpture that includes a teapot placed on a “doily” with a “steam cloud” coming from the spout. Michelle Stitzlein used found objects to make the rubber tire handle and apple shaker finial. She fabricated other components from found materials. The steam cloud is a wire armature holding shards of glass. The doily is a platform of pieced sheet metal from printed containers. It has a lacy trim of metal chain and bottle caps.