Alison Foshee sees the beauty in everyday objects. With meticulous attention to detail, she directs thumbtacks and pushpins to explode into extravagant floral arrangements, staples to trace the jagged contour of a leaf and office labels to spin out in hot, firecracker explosions. Over the past 15 years, she’s created her own distinct style in revealing something about each material’s original function in the shape and content of her creations.

To Alison, the entire process of creation is both art and adventure: “In search of my muse, I enjoy scouring our urban city centers, like an orchid thief in the Amazon, for weird and marvelous products like the next generation of folder dividers or the latest technology in bendable pencils. I find these readymade oddities ever fascinating because of their dual nature as consumable goods. They are simultaneously indispensable and without value; perhaps, a not-so-subtle metaphor for culture’s subjective/plastic definition of what is precious.”