Discover Delmarva Arts: Creating steampunk designs

OCEAN CITY, Md. – Lisa Scarbath isn’t your average artist.

She doesn’t make pieces out of clay or papier mache, but instead finds purpose in the tiny, sometimes overlooked items.

“One of the things that I like to do is when someone has discarded jewelry, like one earring lost, or they lost a loved one that had a lot of jewelry and personal items, I can actually use them, take them apart, and repurpose them in one of my steampunk and embellished creatures,” Lisa said.

Lisa creates crab sculptures out of just about anything. Broken clocks, imperfect jewelry and charms with words on them, like joy and faith. She’s made a living out of her hobby at the Ocean City Art League.

“The first few that I made, I brought them here and they sold the very next day in the gift shop, so I said, ‘OK, this is what I’m doing now.’ I transitioned from a professor to a full-time artist,” Lisa said.

It takes Lisa about 10 hours to make one steampunk piece, a true labor of love. She said she plans to continue creating art for as long as she can and she encourages others to uncover their inner artist.

“Art can be made from many different kinds of materials, it’s just how you combine them and present them,” Lisa said.  “It’s great to reuse things that are already out in the world.”