LOST AND FOUND CIRCUS CAN BE FOUND AT THE BARNUM MUSEUM

Two Whimsical Creations by Susan Tabachnick in her Lost and Found Circus

When Susan Tabachnick of Bridgeport found a flange in 2007, she took the unusual piece home and put it on her windowsill.  Months later she saw a copper toilet float and fit the two pieces together perfectly.  Thus began an avocation or hobby that has been occupying her spare time and has led to her first artistic exhibition:  The Lost and Found Circus A Creative Balancing Act.  Bridgeport's Barnum Museum will be showing off her work through the end of August, from Thursday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Tabachnick sees humor and personality in the pieces she assembles, metal or wood or ceramic, for they become her "toys" and "building blocks" as she fits them into an object of interest.  Rather than soldering them together, she places them in a pleasing arrangement and balances each part until her eye tells her it is finished.  This balancing act can become a problem if she disassembles the parts and then tries to reassemble them, unless she has taken a photograph first.

Attracted by shapes, sizes, materials and color, the pieces speak to her and tell her how they need to be combined.  She "marries" these odd discarded items together and has no idea what most of the stuff is.  For her, it's an "intuitive process" that responds to how she sees each piece.   It's "totally imaginary" and she is often amazed at "how the pieces come and create a dialogue."

Always good with her hands, she got her love for artistic handiwork when she learned to embroider at the age of five.  Using her hands to create something new is both "joyous and fun."  She doesn't think of herself as an artist but rather as someone who enjoys taking things apart and putting those same items back together.

Even though Tabachnick doesn't name her creations, her associate George Carsillo of Design Monsters does.  He designed posters for her 3 ring circus like Mesmerizing Spinning Giant and Amazing Unknown Whirling Creature.

To give herself inspiration, she attends estate sales where she might buy three carloads of objects for $20 or pay $40 or $50 for only one item.  The fun is in the discovering first and the creation second.  The goal is a balanced union and she doesn't alter or fit anything permanently.

To try your own hand at this small sculpture design, attend a workshop "Inventive Play" with Susan Tabachnick on Wednesday, July 16 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.  Bring your own "found objects" or use the ones provided.  A donation of $5 per family is suggested, for ages 8 to adult.  Go to www.barnum-museum.org.

Come see Susan Tabachnick's imaginative circus sculptures and discover clowns and monkeys or whatever you "see."