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Fine Online at
Northwest
Louisiana Art
Gallery,
featuring Contemporary Art by Lisa
Smith.
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the artists work found on this site are Copyright (c) Protected. For
information on how to purchase a work of art, please contact the
artist through the "e-mail" link, or contact the gallery
at info@nwlaartgallery.com.
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For information
on how to purchase a work of art, please contact the artist through
the "e-mail" link, or contact the gallery at info@nwlaartgallery.com.
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"Fraud or Malice"
Oil on Canvas Board 30"x40"
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"The River"
Oil on Canvas 36"x48"
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"Look Better,
Feel Better" Oil on Canvas
36"x48"
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"The Loved One"
Oil on Canvas Board 30"x40"
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Exposure: Many media are fair game for artist's
canvas August 3, 2006
 Shreveport artist Lisa Smith, a teacher at Montessori School of
Shreveport, in her home studio. (Robert Ruiz/The Times)
A couple of examples of the miniature art quilts Smith makes.
(Robert Ruiz/The Times)
By
Jennifer Flowers
jenniferflowers@gannett.com
No
medium is too strange for the canvas of Lisa Smith.
The artist works in
oil but also loves collage and word plays. She also periodically raids her
mother's sewing basket for beads, buttons and unusual fabrics.
Smith, 42, graduated with a fine arts degree from LSU
in Baton Rouge. She is a fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at Montessori
School for Shreveport.
The Louisiana native participates in Montessori
School's annual springtime art auction and recently donated a piece to a benefit
for Scott Griffin, a local artist who is struggling with cancer. She also has
exhibited her works at artspace in downtown Shreveport.
Smith lives in
Shreveport with her husband, Dragan Kuzmanov, and their 11-year-old daughter,
Staveley Kuzmanov.
QUESTION: How do you like
teaching?
ANSWER: Teaching is fun. It's very exhausting, but I
kind of compare it to going to a party every day with 24
people.
Q: Does your job influence your work?
A:
Definitely. Kids' conversations are kind of like free form. And you really do
kind of relive your youth when you teach, especially the grades I teach because
they are coming in as 9-year-olds and they leave as 11- or 12-year-olds. You get
to see them change from childhood to preadolescence and it can be pretty
dramatic.
Q: How would you describe your work?
A: I
would say that my paintings are light collages in that I kind of cherry pick
elements to put in. It's kind of the same process as making a collage just on
paper, cutting out things and putting them down. And I love collage. Collage is
probably one of the first art experiences children have, just cutting up things
and gluing them down with Elmer's.
Q: On average, how many
paintings do you produce?
A: Try to do two a year because the way
that I paint is pretty time-consuming. I go in and I block everything out with
big shapes of light and shadow, and then I go back and really add a lot of
detail, highlights, lowlights, that type of thing. Then I do the final touchup
phase, so, really, I'm painting everything three times.
Q: How do
you put a piece together?
A: Just a lot of vintage ephemera,
vintage buttons, any kind of scraps that I find. I try to find catch phrases
that just stick in my head and try to incorporate that into the visual stuff.
Like the piece that I donated to Scott Griffin's benefit, I knew I wanted to do
something medical but not like cancer sucks or anything like that.
So I kind
of skirted the edge. It's just a bag and it has a picture of an anatomically
correct heart. The catch phrase is open wounds from the cutting
edge.
Q: What do you like to paint?
A: I really love
painting portraits and I really gravitate toward costumes from the '50s. Clothes
back then were just really constructed to the nth degree and there's a lot of
details that you can put in. And the hairdos were really sculptural, the way
they had all the pin curls and the waves and that type of thing. That's fun to
paint.
Q: Would you say your work has a message?
A:
I hope it's uplifting. It would be really easy to get really, really political.
One of my favorite artists is a British artist named Banksy, and he has an
amazing Web site. He's a graffiti artist, very political. He uses really strong
images and phrases just to catch people's imagination. His latest work was going
to the wall that Israel was erecting and going to the Palestinian side and doing
these fantasy scenes on it.
Q: What deters you from political
themes?
A: I just really wish that somebody would come along who
is ready to get people together instead of splitting them. I feel like this
country is just fifty-fifty. I think that if you go through your day, you
probably know people who are Democrats or Republicans that you really like a
lot, but the politicians and certain news media will just have you think that
they're the enemy whoever they are, and I wouldn't want to be a part of that. I
just think it's time people kind of accepted each others' differences and
stopped the madness.
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©The Times
August 3, 2006
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