Dianne Smith Artist Statement

Dianne Smithwww.diannesmithart.comhttp://[email protected]

Artist StatementInitially, I created what I thought I was supposed to based upon how the world defined me. Today my art surpasses who I am as a hyphenated identity: African American, Belizean, and woman. I had to go deep within myself to find and express the real me.

Now I take license from that place inside of me that is beyond my race, gender, and ethnicity.

Granting myself permission to hear a particular criticism helped me to realize that freedom is wisdom. Once I was able to incorporate criticism into my artistic way of seeing and being, I experienced a new emergence in my work. It was pure, original, and undeniably me. While I had no connection to abstract art, what came out of me was honest versus planned from some outer paradigm.

I realized that my mission was to encourage my audience to see themselves as well as others internally rather than

externally. I use textures, tones, shades, colors, and strokes to engage my audience, inviting them to explore and embrace their innermost thoughts and feelings.

The process of finding my voice as an abstract painter was organic, just as it was with my three-dimensional work. I create assemblages constructed with any item that would ordinarily be thrown away. The sculptures are made with everyday refuse and whatever (art) materials I have. I find ways to bridge conventional material and my trash. Or, I may deconstruct an existing piece and repurpose it into another work of art.

One day, while cleaning my kitchen along with a conversation with a friend about our childhood, I began to pay attention to the size of my trashcan. What occurred to me was how large it was for one person. The next day I swapped it out for a much smaller one. However, that did not satisfy my preoccupation with waste. I became consumed with what I threw away. Suddenly, I began saving things like: junk mail, bottles,

cans, old clothes, painting rags, files, newspapers, packaging, etc.

These (otherwise) discarded materials became part of my inner dialogue--a metaphor for how I view the world. Identity: race, gender, religion, inequity and consumption in a global climate filled with economic despair are all interrelated. Yet, my personhood defines my relationship with each one. Just as it defines the relationship I have with the items I use in my sculptures. Most often, a force that is beyond me informs and guides my creative expression. I am called upon to create my art in response to the events, circumstances and times of the world around me.

Whether it is the plight of women and children around the world or the tragedy of a natural disaster or a conversation with a friend or some historical context, I am able to

Flickr: Surface and Soul

Within Shadows CastWithin Shadows Cast is a site specific installation constructed out of butcher paper for Piedmont Arts. The paper is crunched, crumpled, rolled, twisted, interlocked, woven and manipulated into the space. It’s formations and use of light creates patterns of shadows, as well as contrast of light and dark. These are just some of the many qualities

that draw me to the use of this material.

In the summer of 2011 is when I really began using butcher paper as part of my art practice. I was commissioned to create a work of art in one of the houses on the historic Governor’s Island in New York City. The artwork was to pay homage to the history of African Americans in New York. Not wanting to do a literal piece, I focused on a site-specific installation that would embody the spirit of the enslaved Africans. I chose this particular material for all that I

mentioned as well as because of it’s strength, flexibility, and fragility. I began thinking that these were perhaps some of the characteristics of the enslaved Africans. Thus the paper is a metaphor for their spirit and deplorable treatment.

Butcher paper is used for many things and tossed away once we are done. Wrapping meat, craft, shipping and the packing of merchandise are just some of its uses. When we pack things we often push them down, bunching the paper to fill corners, trying to get everything tightly secured, just as the enslaved Africans were packed onto cargo ships in the Middle Passage.

Within Shadows Cast is not only a continued homage to enslaved Africans but also it is meant to question our ancestral, historical, cultural and political past, as well as the possibilities for our future. Look at the wrinkles in the paper, think about the wrinkles in the skin of the elders in your families: What stories do they tell? What memories do they hold? Look at the ways in which the paper intertwines: How are you connected to your ancestral legacy? Look at the shadows on the walls: What are your hidden truths? What is the imprint of your personhood on humanity?

Flickr: Within Shadows Cast

Where Are We Now?It is an honor to have been asked to create this site-specific installation in collaboration with Reverend Thurman Echols. The installation is a unique blend of his Civil Rights memorabilia (along with his periodicals and photos that are pre and post), personal photos from both of us, audio, video and a (select) few of my sculptural pieces.

The concept was to create an installation that not only pays tribute to the Civil Rights movement from a Black History perspective but from that of an American History as well. Incorporating personal photos as well as other forms of symbolism speaks to the paradox between the struggle

for identity, equality, liberty, justice, humanity and the necessities of everyday life.

For instance, on the plantations the enslaved gathered and found ways to communicate…. The Juba dance was originally an African-American plantation dance, brought from West Africa by slaves. They performed it during their gatherings when no rhythm instruments were allowed because Slave owners feared that secret codes would be hidden in the drumming. Master Juba (William Henry Lane) was a free black man and the most famous Juba dancer. He was also one of the first black performers in the United States and credited for introducing Tap to the country.

In tribute to this important part of our history the video footage is of legendary dancers Cora La Redd, Peg Leg Bates, the Nicholas Brothers, steppers, and contemporary street tapers. An image of Master Juba hangs above the video screen. Their movements are another form of chronicling our history. It is important to

understand that we can exam our past or history through multiple modalities.

As such, the words of two of Americas most celebrated folklorist, anthropologist, poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist and author was important to help contextualize the installation. Handwritten wall text of Langston Hughes’, I, Too, Am America, is subtly interwoven throughout the installation, and an audio reading of Zora Neal Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by actor Ruby Dee is heard looping over the installation.

As I was flushing out ideas for the installation I was certain I would use this particular audio being read by one of our National treasures. I thought the story both beautiful and adequate. Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in the afterword, Their Eyes Were Watching God is primarily concerned

“with the project of finding a voice, with language as an instrument of injury and salvation, of selfhood and empowerment.”

I, Too, Am America begins with Hughes claiming that he, too “sings America,” after he makes reference to skin color by noting that he is “the darker brother,” he goes on to say that he is sent “to eat in the kitchen when company comes” as if he were a slave being sent away. However, the poor treatment does not stop him from laughing and growing strong. He imagines a future in which he is no longer sent to the kitchen, in which no one would dare to call him unequal. They will see him as beautiful and "be ashamed" of their previous prejudice. The poem ends with Hughes writing, again, that he (and, therefore, his race) is indeed American.

The installation uses multiple lenses to look at America today through its racial history by posing the question: Where Are We Now?

In closing, I’d like to thank Piedmont Arts for the opportunity to open this installation the very weekend of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 83rd birthday.

Flickr: Where Are We Now?