Today we’d like to introduce you to Barbara Lee Smith.
Hi Barbara Lee, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
When I was ten, my minister father moved our family to a seaside town. That tells you a couple of things about my story. I was raised in a traditional home and time when ‘girls’ were not expected to do much more than marry; perhaps teach or be a nurse. The other more important thing is the seaside location. A couple of blocks from the ocean with sand, seaweed, and shells, the expansiveness of nature entered my life and never left. I l live in the middle of urban, downtown Durham, North Carolina, but nature still has a hold on my memories.
One more important element is music. I learned to read music before I could read words, and I see music in the mix of color, rhythm, light and dark when I paint, collage with painted elements and add lines of machine stitching that flow through the work, holding it in place both visually and technically.
I have worked with fabric, paint and thread for over fifty years, and have had a studio wherever I have lived. My current workplace is in my loft home at The American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham. I love the light here and the stimulation of this vibrant community.
Over the years I taught, wrote and lectured as well as exhibited my work in many countries. One of my goals is that my work helps to heal those who experience it. So I guess I’ve followed up on those expectations of marriage, teaching and healing from the ’50s. These days I devote myself to my studio work, and the ideas just keep coming. I’ve lived a lot of years and experienced a lot of changes in attitude about the role of women, and I have loved riding that wave right into my studio.
My studio is open by appointment, and I welcome individuals and groups to come and see the work in person.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I like to set up challenges in the studio for myself. Use the same white fabric; the same brand of paint; the same straight stitch on the machine; find a way to make the fabric stable instead of flexible. Make magic with just a few materials and techniques. This approach has kept me creating for many years.
I am in my late eighties. I respect that I’m slower physically, but the years of work behind me helps to propel me to the studio and new work every day.
Once the work is made and ready to be seen, I often flounder at the marketing elements. I love to have the work seen; owned by others, of course, but I really just want to get back to work on whatever the next piece will be. I rely on Sam McClayton at jsconsultingco.com to help with cleaning up my photographs and arranging my website.
Gravers Lane Gallery in Chestnut Hill, PA also carries my work.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
These days I think about ‘weathering’, using that term in its many meanings to focus my thoughts as I prepare a work. I explore the passages of aging; seeing beauty in the rusting hulls of boats.
I focus on nature; the strength and fragility of land and sea; decay that feeds growth.
I take a long view, but concentrate on the details close at hand. My method suits this intent.
The passage from idea to finished work involves slow steps. The process begins by painting with acrylics on an industrial fabric made right here in Durham. I use the painted fabric to collage over a canvas of the same, but unpainted fabric, then draw lines with a sewing machine that both visually and literally unites the elements. Music fills my studio as I work, and this slow process of making provides me time to think about the healing power of art, whether it’s with notes or words or brush strokes or stitches, through all the high and low passages of life.
What are your plans for the future?
Remember the film, Saturday Night Fever? Remember The Bee Gees? That’s my future plan: Staying Alive! Staying Alive! I feel more than ever that my work has a place to help heal; to offer moments of contemplation in the midst of major concerns around us; to suggest that optimism is a must. My most recent work is titled “Room for Hope”.
Over the years I aimed to help bring art made with fabric and thread into the main stream of the art world, and promoting the work of the artists involved. I wrote*, taught and lectured, and I think I made some difference there. Even the oldest textile in history is making the news as the Bayeux Tapestry makes a trip from France to England. Imagine! Embroidery in the news at last.
My own future plans are to see my work become part of public collections. Several museums own my work, and I hope that more will join that list. I have had work in hospitals, retirement centers, hotels, and even more important, in private homes. I love knowing that these works will outlast my life. Right now I’m thinking about how my work may fit in with multi-media presentations.
I am working on documenting years of work and finding ways to donate materials I no longer use to up and coming artists. Documenting is tedious. Donating is fun. Plenty to do while Staying Alive!
Pricing:
- Downstream 44 x 30″ Price on Request
- Sanctuary 54 x 76″ Price on Request
- Weathered Wall 49 x 79″ Price on Request
- Water’s Edge 48 x 78″ Price on Request
- Weathering 1-3 26 x 18″ each Price on Request
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.barbaraleesmith.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbaraleesmithartist
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barbaraleesmith?
