Summary
In this episode of Painterly Life, host Shannon Grissom interviews artist Laura Schwarz Smith, who shares her journey from a childhood influenced by loss to a successful career in textile art and painting. Laura discusses her artistic evolution, the importance of the creative process, and the influence of nature on her work. She offers valuable advice for aspiring artists and reflects on the ups and downs of an art career, emphasizing the importance of self-compassion and perseverance. Lura truly embraces the magic in all that she creates.
Takeaways
- Art can be a healing connection to loved ones lost.
- Supportive parents can significantly influence an artist’s journey.
- The quilt world is a vast and supportive community.
- Transitioning mediums can reignite the passion for art.
- The creative process is where the magic lies.
- Nature and personal experiences deeply influence artistic expression.
- Navigating an art career involves ups and downs.
- Self-criticism can hinder artistic growth; be kind to yourself.
- It’s important to paint what you love, regardless of others’ opinions.
- Future projects can be inspired by past themes and experiences.
Chapters
00:00 Igniting Creativity: An Introduction to Painterly Life
01:11 Laura Schwartz-Smith: A Journey Through Art
04:36 The Evolution of Textile Art
07:41 Transitioning from Textiles to Painting
10:50 The Influence of Nature and the Labyrinth
16:50 Navigating the Ups and Downs of an Art Career
21:44 Advice for Aspiring Artists
24:55 Future Aspirations and New Projects
From Lura
My art is inspired by both the literal world around me, and the inner world of dreams, meditation, and imagination. As an artist, I am interested in exploring imagery, both playful and evocative, to express the inner spirit through my work.
The use of rhythm and repetition creates movement and the flow of energy. Storytelling is an important aspect in much of my work, in both realistic and more abstract styles.
About Lura
Lura Schwarz Smith has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art, emphasis in painting and drawing, from San Francisco State University. She produced textile art and mixed media work from 1975, originally showing in California galleries throughout the 70s and 80s. In the 90s she taught, showed art quilts, and received awards at national and international levels. One of her art quilts was named one of the “100 Best American Quilts of the 20th Century.”
Over the past ten years, Smith has turned her focus to oil painting, exploring both realistic and more abstract and fractured approaches, drawn to the directness and immediacy of paint on canvas. Exploring the imagination and inner life through figurative art are primary themes in her art.
Fresno Vernissage hosted Smith’s first solo painting exhibit, and also had a two-artist show with her husband Kerby Smith there. Her most recent solo exhibit was at the Art Center Gallery in Oakhurst in 2022. In 2023, the husband and wife artists had another duo art show at Scarab Creative Arts in Fresno. Among other venues, her paintings have been shown at the Carnegie Art Center, Turlock; Scarab Creative Art Center and Sorensen Studio Gallery, Fresno; Yosemite Museum Gallery, Yosemite National Park; Tree Top Gallery, Mariposa; Kings Art Center, Hanford; and MCAC Circle Gallery, Madera. Smith’s work has been honored with numerous awards, including several Best of Shows. Her work can be seen at Yosemite Gateway Art Center, Gallery 6, in Oakhurst.
Smith is a member of Madera Arts Council, Mariposa Arts Council, and Yosemite Sierra Artists. She is current chair of the YSA Portrait group, and often attends the Plein Air group outings. To see more of her work, visit www.lura-art.com
Links
Website http://www.lura-art.com
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lura.artist/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LuraSchwarzSmithArt
Inspired and ready to paint? Check out this link to a great starter set: https://amzn.to/3EkvZrv 149Pcs Deluxe Artist Painting Set with Aluminum and Beech Wood Easel, 48 Colors Acrylic Paints, 24 Colors Oil Paints, 24 Colors Watercolor Paints, Art Paint Supplies for Artists, Beginner & Adults. Note: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
Transcript:
Shannon Grissom (00:05.71)
Hi, I’m Shannon Grissom. Are you looking to ignite your creativity? Or how about be inspired by a steady stream of muses? Welcome to Painterly Life, the podcast that celebrates those who create, inspire, and innovate. So whether you’re looking to spark your next big idea, reignite your passion, or simply soak in some creative energy,
This is the place for you. Painterly life, where every guest is a new muse. Just for you.
Shannon Grissom (00:50.08)
Welcome to Painterly Life. I’m your host, Shannon Grissom. Today we have a phenomenal artist, Lura Schwartz-Smith. She’s an author. She’s done multimedia, multidimensional art, and just an incredible human being. Welcome, Lura
Thank you Shannon. Thank you for having me.
you’re welcome. You have won tons of awards and you’re always so humble. Were you always an artist as a child? What was your childhood like?
Well, I was incredibly lucky that I had parents that were so supportive of my art efforts. I actually had an older brother and he was very gifted in art and I just idolized him and very sadly he was hit by a car. He died when he was 14 and I was 10. So to me, art was this incredibly strong connection to my loved brother that we lost.
I think maybe my parents just really loved that I was working in art as well. He was very, very gifted. So I was so lucky that way. Having a lot of early encouragement, that was so fortunate.
Shannon Grissom (02:14.538)
Art is so healing. Well, you went on to graduate from San Francisco State University with a degree in fine art painting was your emphasis. Can you tell me about that experience?
Yeah, was a San Francisco State. was during the years Bob Bechtel was there. He was my advisor and it was a really good art department at the state university level. And I was really grateful for that. And I’d had a wonderful community college experience first up in Santa Rosa. They had a fabulous art department for a junior college. We called it then back in the dark ages.
So I felt very, very lucky to have great art experience. The kind of funny thing is though, even though I adore drawing, life drawing and drawing and painting, but I kind of got a wild hair because I was still playing with fabric a lot. I was making terrible, terrible bed quilts, baby quilts, bed quilts with my mom, my quilt buddy. And so somehow for my final senior painting,
project in college at State, I did my first wall piece. And that was my final deal. It was a textile art piece, very odd now that we think of the quilt world, but that’s what got me into the textile arts, which was to follow for many years. That final painting, I put it in a little show in Sausalito Gallery and it sold and I went on to play with textiles for many years.
Well, you really blew it out of the water with your textiles. mean, you had incredible success. Weren’t you named one of the top 100 quilts in the United States?
Lura Schwarz Smith (04:06.19)
Yeah, um, it was kind of, it was back in the, oh yikes, 95, was 1995, and I had joined a local group of quilters and discovered, oh my gosh, they have their own, I’ve been selling in galleries, you know, I continued with these kind of odd, I called them bas relief, they were lightly stuffed, they were really different, but I sold, Kenny Loggins bought two of my pieces out of the Santa Barbara.
where I eventually, think 85 maybe had a solo show there. So I was totally unaware of the emerging quilt world, which is actually a very huge deal. But I had no idea of it growing and becoming a big deal. I was just on my little merry way, doing my little thing. And then when I joined the local gang, then I learned about this big support system of the quilt world. And so I noticed they have competitions and jump in the deep end.
There was one that was Quilt a Modern Fairy Tale and it was one of these biennial ones they do off in Europe. so I entered my first one, I got a second place and they made it into a cookie tin in Denmark. And then the next one rolled around. anyway, I think that’s how I got the Degas quilt I did. And it went on to be named one of the 100 best American quilts.
of the 20th century. This is not something you enter. was just, it was voted in by a big group of people. So that was amazing. And that set me off on my teaching career as well for art quilting, you know. So I did that for a long time.
You wrote a book about your quilting technique?
Lura Schwarz Smith (05:56.462)
Well, Kerby and I later, I am married to a great guy, also an artist. He’s a pro photographer and now mixed media artist as well, which his work usually incorporates some sort of photography because that’s his strong point. And so he is the tech guy of the team.
And he began to be interested in printing on fabric and I played with that and then he kind of joined in and we did. We ended up producing a book with the big quilting publishing group called C &T Quilting. And so that was way back when. And so we both taught at really big, I taught a lot and he taught as well at like Asilomar the big five day conferences and.
So it was a great ride, it was. For me it was like 40 years in the quilt world, yeah.
Yeah, it sounds amazing and your quilts are beautiful. So now you’re painting and how did you make that shift or what prompted that shift from textile as a medium to paint?
Right, well, I’d always envisioned myself finally, I’m going to paint one day, but I got so busy teaching and producing and, you know, time sweeps along and we came to a really hard year. I was totally overworked and health things happened and I had a commitment and an unexpected commission, which was a huge deal from Children’s Hospital to do a huge textile piece. And I met, I meet my deadline.
Lura Schwarz Smith (07:41.358)
So I met them. But at the end of that year, and we had two shows at the, Kerby and I together had two solo shows at the two California Quilt Museums, Visions down in San Diego and up in San Jose. But at the end of that year, I was totally burnt out. I was not happy with the quality of what I was able to do for the second museum show.
And I just said, I am taking a break. I never knew that it was gonna turn out to be kind of the end of that life because it was such a piece of my life. I was really deeply into that world and loved it. But I started, you know, I had started drawing and painting with our local wonderful group, the Yosemite Sierra Artists They were at that time still known as the Yosemite Western Artists
But upcoming, think we’re gonna have our maybe 54th anniversary art show. It’s a long standing, wonderful group. And I knew a lot of people that attended our portrait sessions. And I started going to those toward the end of my quilt life. And I realized, I love this and I love drawing again. I always marked and drew on fabric. That was kind of my deal, but it’s different. And then I started painting. And I realized that this is…
what I want to do. I looking back on it, I realized, you know, I’ve I’ve fallen out of love with the process. And I do think that we can all kind of take a second and think about how important the creative process is. That is where the magic lies. You know, we love our end products. We can hang them on a wall. We can hide them under the bed. You know, we can do whatever happens to them. But I think if we think about it, that
absolutely magic feeling when you’re gonna start your creative process, whatever it may be. And I think it can be in the kitchen, it can be in the garden, it can be at an easel or on the stage. But the deal is that it’s that process and if that process loses the magic for you, then I think it’s time to look for another process. So I did and there it was waiting for me.
Lura Schwarz Smith (10:06.526)
I love pushing paint around, you know, and I realized I’m going to put my time into this. It happened kind of gradually. I think, well, maybe I’ll do another art quilt. No, I’m going to do another painting and, know.
Shannon Grissom (10:22.092)
Well, looks like it’s just been a fun ride. I see I notice that a common thread through all of your paintings is a huge, great, epic sense of movement. And then it dawned on me that you and your husband, Kerby, had built this amazing labyrinth on your property, which is itself a great work of art. And…
So I was wondering, do you have some sort of tie-in? Do you use that as a contemplative place? Does that influence your work? Tell me about the labyrinth and how that works with your work.
Yes, it is a magic thing to me. We built it, I think, only about five years ago. So I have done some labyrinth paintings. I have a couple. we do tend to walk at most nights, sunset, because it’s kind of a little 360 view. It’s not huge, but we built it. Kerby, he carried up over a thousand pounds of river rock up a steep trail.
and backpack by backpack, because I weighed them. I said, don’t carry so much, you know. And I slapped it down. We already had this wonderful six foot post rock in the center, Kansas post rock. You can look that up. It’s a fascinating deal from the 1800s. And so we had that up on the knoll. And so I’ve always wanted a labyrinth. And so I found a pattern. I figured I could fit in about a 30 foot wide knoll there. And we laid that. So yes, walking that every…
evening and I find that very, very important, very renewing. I do think there’s something about a labyrinth. And we recently, I helped lay one up at Yosemite Gateway Art Center. It’s very small because we had a finite amount of space, but it is there. And so anyone visiting the Yosemite Gateway Art Center in Oakhurst can walk our little labyrinth up there.
Shannon Grissom (12:29.528)
What a great blessing for them to have. So did the labyrinth influence Nightfall or Hunter’s moon or any of your moon paintings or are they just all interwoven?
I think so, you know, I mean, I do try and pull from the inner life in my work. And I love that you talk about the motion because I think there is something magic to me about feeling like things that there’s movement and that there’s, when I’m fracturing work, which I sometimes work more realistically and sometimes I do what I think of as lightly abstracted or fractured in that I want to explore the planes of a surface, like on a face.
or in a landscape and I figures and animals, break up the surfaces, I try to use extended lines, somewhat echoing lines and pushing the surfaces around and just exploring the way that light and shadow form onto forms. And it’s playful to me and it’s fun and it’s it’s.
It’s more challenging and yet more rewarding to me in a way than working realistically. So yeah, maybe the labyrinth and the circling and the re, you know, a walking labyrinth isn’t a maze. There’s one way in and one way out. And you just be in the moment step by step by step. And that’s kind of, I guess the way I…
like to try and feel what I’m painting, you know, in the process. I’m not a planner. I don’t plan out ahead what I’m actually gonna end up with. I may have a sketch and usually stray wildly off that if I do. I kind of like to explore it on the surface as I go to a certain extent. I often in the middle of when it’s hard, you know, how you get those points like, now what? I think,
Lura Schwarz Smith (14:36.59)
planners are so smart, people who plan it out and they know where they’re going. But I like the hunt of it, the chase of it, you know, on the surface. So on the animals, yeah, I really love the wildlife that we have in our area here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. within a, we’re a day trip into Yosemite Park. What a wonderful place to live. And that’s very influential, I would say.
to probably all of us living in this area that are in the creative life, how important and how fortunate we are to have this beauty and this wildlife, you know. There are bobcats, mountain lions, fox, bear. We had a lot of bear scat and a big old bear track right across our property recently. so you never know what you might see. And I like to celebrate that in my paintings.
I think celebrate is such a great word. Besides the movement in your work, there’s a lot of sense of play, especially in your animals. They’re very joyful and it’s just great to see. when I noticed, speaking of that, I believe it was, I think it was Raven’s Dance had Yosemite in the background. So I definitely saw some influence there.
Well, you talk about the creative process. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some years where it’s kind of like the old Dire Straits’ song, but maybe not to this degree. Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. But I’ve had ups and downs in my art career. I’d like, I guess if it was a graph, it’d be, I don’t know, it’s always going up, but there are some dips
And so when, if it does happen to you, how do you address the low points? How do you address the challenges that being an artist brings?
Lura Schwarz Smith (16:50.798)
That is a very excellent thing because I think, know, gosh, I’ve been thinking about this lately because as it happens, I had a down year in certain ways this past year as far as sales go. And, you know, I consider myself a pro. I’ve been at this game a very long time. No matter what medium you’re in, you carry things forward. You know, all that I did is in the art quilt life,
it really counts on what I’m doing now. It’s my toolbox. Everything I’ve done is in my toolbox. But so some years we know when we’ve been in it a while there are definitely the ups and the downs and the ups and the downs. And I think that this, I’ve been thinking a lot about this as exterior validation. And it occurred to me, it feels like this kind of dangerous, sweet narcotic, you know, you get a lot of.
Yeah, know, accolades, and I’ve been very fortunate in my art career in that I have had, sometimes without seeking, just hitting at the right moment and hitting at the lucky time and, you know, the judges, whoever it happened to be, and I have had a fortune. And then maybe there’s years where things aren’t so sweet. And I really love thinking about it like this. It’s like,
Ooh, it’s so lovely to have all this frosting on the cake of people buying your work and getting awards and getting into the shows that you go for. And then there are periods where, ooh, that wasn’t my year maybe. But it’s a valuable thing in that let’s think about like, and I’m talking to the pot here, the pot and the kettle here, that why do I paint? Why did I leave this very successful?
I had a big career in the art quilt world back in the day. And it ended for me because I lost the love of doing it. And again, it reminds me, why do I paint? Do I need other people to tell me that they love it they wanna buy it? It’s sure nice. If that doesn’t happen though, I am having this opportunity to think, you know, I am painting because I love the process and there is the creative power.
Lura Schwarz Smith (19:16.718)
and that I am gonna paint what I wanna paint at this stage in my life. know, certainly time is my most precious commodity, time and energy. And I’m going to use that to do what is important to me to speak with my art. And I think it’s a really great, you know, kind of like, you know, wake up, you know, who are you painting for? You know?
And if I’m not selling this year, then I’m not selling, but am I making what I feel good about? And so I think it’s a great opportunity when things maybe don’t roll the best that you, we all are gonna have these ups and downs. And to just get stronger in your own space and say, is what I wanna paint. And this is what I wanna create. This is important to me.
And hopefully I will find the right person, walk through and say, ooh, gotta have it, you know? And maybe I’ll get into this show. You know, I’ve got stuff out, getting into shows maybe or maybe not, you know? You get juried into shows, that’s a validation, you know? And so we’re always riding along that rail, I think. But it’s a good opportunity, I believe, to reassess and get stronger about why you are doing your creative life, you know? And…
just own the power of that creative process.
Yes, and for me, no matter what’s going on, there is nothing like strapping on that apron and just getting in the zone. It doesn’t get any better than that. So what advice would you give people starting out? What did you wish you knew when you first started painting or creating?
Lura Schwarz Smith (21:14.446)
would say for most people, and I taught a lot actually, and I taught art to people who said, the A word was like, no, don’t. I taught people to draw a human face in the first half hour. had everybody freehand follow my little exercise and draw a freehand face because it’s intimidating to people. Especially I was dealing with people who were coming from a fabric, a textile, a quilt world into the art quilt world and that involved.
making imagery. So what I saw so much and for beginning people especially is be easier on yourself. It is a crippling thing to be so hard on yourself. When you are starting out, for me drawing came naturally. I was extremely lucky that way. I could draw from a very young age. It just there’s, you know, in a classroom of little kids you’ll see a couple that have that natural tendency. But
The others will look at it and say, I can’t make a teapot that looks like a teapot so I can’t draw. And they label themselves very early. And it was painful to me as one who could to see other people putting down their pencil forever. And then I’d get them as adults and they would bemoan that moment that they saw in their past. I would say, if you are starting on a creative path, go for it and be easy on yourself. Self-criticism is crippling, you know?
Just try to say, and everybody is doing their personal best, whatever level that may be on the creative path. Very powerful to keep reminding yourself, I am getting better and better. I’m working at it. Just don’t give up and be a little easier on yourself. Do an exercise, throw it away if you hate it. But it’s actually really, I had people save their.
work efforts and do it again, do it again, do it again and look at how much this time you got this just so fabulous here, this worked here. You know, you can learn from your mistakes, of course, we all know that. So just keep going, I’d say.
Shannon Grissom (23:25.742)
That’s great advice. Definitely people need to hear that. I know I needed to hear that. I struggled early on in my music efforts and if I had let the criticism back then get to me, I’d not be doing it now. So yes, so important. I actually had a teacher tell me that I should, now that I think about it, that I should never paint a landscape.
that I should stick to portraits and I had no business painting landscapes. And you know what? And at first, the person was a publisher of a national art magazine, so I really took it to heart. But I wanted to paint some landscapes. I I didn’t want to limit myself as far as what I was painting. So I did, but I always felt that little nudge. Well, the interesting thing is…
I’ve sold more landscapes than anything else. So paint what you love. Just keep going. And I wasn’t as good with them. The portraits came more naturally to me. So it’s a really good point that if you’re not good at something right away or you’re judging yourself, you know what? Just keep going. Time under the brush.
Lura Schwarz Smith (24:42.338)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, so what’s next for you? Where do you see yourself going or what’s on the horizon?
Well, I have a bunch of big canvases, not big for you Shannon, who I know you were. Up to now, I think my largest is like 20 by 24. And I have some like bigger than that. And I know they’re harder to sell, but I’m going to give myself the gift this year of doing some larger paintings. I love mythology and I love figurative stuff. And I’m thinking of maybe a series of mythological, especially women and myth and
I have done some versions of things that I might like to revisit. Remember that spiral thing. I really have come back to some concepts that still interest me. I think maybe I still have something to say about that. So I’m thinking maybe I’ll just play and work bigger and do that for the joy of it. That’s my thought.
That sounds great. So if people want more information about you and your art, where can they go?
Lura Schwarz Smith (25:55.202)
Well, I have an all new website. It’s www.lura-art.com. And also on IG, I am lura.artist. And on Facebook, I’m Lura Schwarz-Smith and Lura Schwarz-Smith Art. I have two pages there. And my work is shown in person.
ongoing up at Yosemite Gateway Art Center. And right now I have work over at the 480 Lighthouse, a huge 10,000 square foot gallery over in Pacific Grove. That’s a treat to walk in and you can click likes on things. They have these little counters. So that’s very cool. I just delivered one over there. And the exciting upcoming news is that
Our own Yosemite Gateway Gallery is having its own brand new gallery right in Oakhurst we’re going to be so happy to have another gallery in our little town here. So if you’d like to go to my website, I would love if you would like to sign up for my occasional newsletters and any new art alerts. And thank you.
Well, it sounds good. You’ve truly been an inspiration. Thanks for being here, Lura.
Thank you, Shannon. It’s been really fun.
Shannon Grissom (27:33.056)
And thank you all for joining us. Please visit our website, painterlylife.com, and all the places that you can get podcasts, like, subscribe, and share. We’ll see you next time. That’s a wrap.