Accumulation is a nice word for “too much stuff.” The good thing about found objects is that they can spark creativity. That’s what artistic friends Lisa Simon, Skylar Smith and Michelle Word found out. “We each went back to our studios and thought about what [accumulation] means to us,” says Simon. “We each have a different way to express that.” Simon ended up creating ceramic sculpture with interchangeable parts. Smith’s paintings “uses layers of paints to create a presence on the page,” she explains. One person’s accumulation is an artist’s mixed media project, something Word understands. “As I rummage for materials at thrift stores,” she says, “I think about the botanist searching for a rare or unknown species.”