Visiting Barbara Lee Smith

I’ve been on a week’s vacation prior to teaching at the Pacific Northwest Art School next week. I am lecturing on Tuesday night so if you are in the area, come by and visit with us. It’s free!

Barbara Lee Smith is one of the most influential artists in my field. (There’s a hard one to define – Surface Design? Textiles? Mixed Media? Gosh, when are we going to get past the need to Name?) The author of the groundbreaking Celebrating the Stitch, she was instrumental in guiding textile processes into new and uncharted territories. I had the great luck of collaborating with Barbara in 1997. Our exchanges – literally, as in real time mail - and figuratively, as artists, colleagues and friends – profoundly influenced my own development as an artist.

Barbara’s studio in Gig Harbor is a place of shadow and light, which is appropriate, since her work is all about shadow and light; color and nuance. She was working on new pieces for a one-person exhibition at the Gregg Museum in the fall, and she graciously invited me into her space while she was working. The photos tell it all. The importance of organization, the impact of being surrounded by the things we love, the exchanges that consume us as artists when we are engaged by both material and subject matter.

I was reminded that Barbara has been working with Lutradur for over twenty years. Only surprising because if popular advertising were to be believed, one might think Lutradur was just invented yesterday.

Which led me to two strands of thought and the message of this essay.

First, an acknowledgement of humility, and an encouragement to learn something about those artist folks who were working in the field long before some of us came along. I’ve been guilty of it. Witness your history. Find something out about it and be grateful. We so cavalierly assume we are the cutting edge, the new world, the Now. If you don’t know where you came from artistically, do a little Googling. We have a rich and fascinating recent past and it’s definitely worth exploring.

Second. Pick something and then stick with it. While I was in the studio I admired one of Barbara’s pieces and this is what she said. “I think I am finally getting somewhere.” That’s probably with at least five hundred completed works under her artist’s belt. Daunting yes, but anyone can do it. You just have to begin. And not swerve. I love silk Habotai and when I get home, I’m going back to it. I see there must be more to discover. I welcome the opportunity.

Thank you, Barbara.