Sydney LaSasso was submerged in the arts from a young age. She grew up in a home littered with construction materials and art supplies, displacing the living room furniture for months at a time, while the current project was in progress. Trips to museums, galleries, and performances were  strategic and mandatory as she was being groomed for a sensible liberal arts college education. When she declared at the age of thirteen that she was going to be an auto mechanic, there was no reason to believe that it was anything other than a childish, rebellious whim that would soon enough be forgotten. And yet, following high school, she did, in fact, enroll in automotive college earning a degree in Automotive Technology. While repairing – and, more significantly, dismantling – cars she became entranced by the beauty and possibilities of the myriad parts that make up an automobile. Odometer dials, copper wire, ball bearings, crush washers – each piece beckoning to be saved, and inspiring a project that had nothing to do with its original purpose. Fragments from shattered windows became sparkling earrings, lamps emerged from discarded tailpipes. Car Part Arts was born.

As the name implies, Sydney’s art and Jewelry is composed of used and discarded automotive parts and packaging. With the care of an archaeologist, alternators, radiators and brakes are painstakingly disassembled and cleaned, revealing the hidden gems that will become elegant or whimsical pieces of jewelry or sculpture. While she does enjoy making a statement with her work; that statement is rarely, “I’m a car part”. Each brilliantly unique piece draws attention for the sophistication and beauty of its design. That its components were once vital yet invisible parts of a car is a tribute to the machinists and engineers that must have secretly wished to be artists.