Working intuitively, Stumpf builds her sculpture with nontraditional and found materials such as piano parts, salvaged wood pieces, found metal objects, and discarded plastic. Sometimes they are left raw in their assembled state. Still, more often, they are coated with the paper from steeped tea bags and then atop a coating of either sand, sometimes wax, acrylic paint, or, more recently, a thin layer of concrete and reactive rust paint. The process is akin to alchemy — imbuing and transforming humble heaps of material into an elevated state of being. Abstract and symbolic, Stumpf’s sculpture has an otherworldly quality and is akin to memorial urns or ritual objects and reference decay, lost time, and a deep sense of the sublime.

View a selection of Stumpf’s sculptures below.