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== Works ==
Harvey's sculptures are made of found materials, predominantly wood branches and roots, which she then decorated with paint, glitter, jewelry, and other materials. Though she worked primarily with wood, Harvey also created sculptures from clay and some works on paper.<ref>{{cite book |title=Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South |date=1999 |publisher=Tinwood Books |pages=41 |url=https://archive.org/details/soulsgrowndeepaf0000unse/page/40/mode/2up?q=bessie+harvey}}</ref> She began creating art in 1974, shortly after her mother, Rosie White, passed away.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Simmons |first1=Frederica |title=The Gift of Humanity in Bessie Harvey's Art, An Interview With Faye Harvey Dean |url=https://hyperallergic.com/710283/the-gift-of-humanity-in-bessie-harveys-art/ |website=Hyperallergic |access-date=07/20/2023}}</ref>
Harvey's work belongs to a larger tradition of black vernacular art created in the [[American South]]. The assemblage aspect of her work, the use of found materials, and emphasis on religious themes are common to the black vernacular art tradition. As a creator of visionary art, she often claims that God is the main source for her work, even to the extent that He is working through her: "I’m really not the artist. God is the artist in my work; nature and insects, they shape my work for me, because they belong to God. I belong to God, and all things belong to God, because it’s in his Word that all things are made to him, that without him there’s not anything made."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Harvey|first1=Bessie|title=God is the Artist|url=http://soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/bessie-harvey|website=Souls Grown Deep|access-date=8 March 2015}}</ref> According to Harvey, God allowed her to see anthropomorphic forms within the wood she worked with, and with that help she could give physical shape to the spiritual presences within these tree roots, limbs, and pieces of driftwood. Her interest in nature was due in part to her belief that she could access or see the spirit of her ancestors within trees, for example, and her general belief in [[transcendentalism]].
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