Artistic alchemy

Susan Tibbles is an artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in the opinion pages of The Times since 2000 (as well as elsewhere in the paper). According to Wes Bausmith, an art director at the paper, her work “doesn’t merely parrot the content of printed words” and her use of discarded everyday items -- clamps, nuts, bolts, alphabet blocks and eggbeaters, among other things -- “brings a distinct visual vocabulary to her art.”

Tibbles has two exhibits coming up. One will be Oct. 14 to Nov. 19 at the Laband Art Gallery at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The other will be Dec. 9 to Feb. 6 at the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard.