First collaboration on a full art piece with my partner Sarah, as we participate in the group show at Gallery Project in Ann Arbor in the show “Food For Thought” November 2 – December 11 . Here is a review of the show by AnnArborNews.com, Food For Thought

Participating in group exhibition “OIl & Water” at Gallery Project in Ann Arbor, MI.
May 18 through June 26.

Showing at Gallery Project in Ann Arbor MI, with exhibition, “Unhooked From Time”

A review of the group exhibition, Unhooked From Time
by the Ann Arbor Observer, written by by Grant Mandarino

My work is an investigation of our influence on the land and the land’s influence upon us. Currently I am particularly interested in the land surrounding the Wyoming homestead where I grew up, where I first experienced the natural forces of the world, and how this place might fit back into my research and studio work. Or possibly it is an investigation to see how I might fit back into this place. With the help of my partner, Sarah, we have chosen to go back to the land, while there is still a chance, and find a sustainable life lived on the land while simultaneously striving to nourish it.

Through this ongoing transition, it often has felt that by choosing to leave an urban area we are choosing to leave the social support structure of an artistic practice by leaving galleries, museums, universities, institutions of culture all behind. Can an artist exist in the isolating open spaces of western mountains, dirt roads, and oil fields, cut-off from easily accessible cultural networks? I do not know, but I have relocated my studio and life hoping so. I hope that through the harsh reality of this project I will have all the more legitimate voice to put out in the world.

Sarah and I have relocated to the small acreage high-dessert ranch that has been in, and of, my family for generations. Together feel that the source of our society’s natural real food and use of land to produce food is one of the greatest challenges to face. We are driven by our notion that Art, in part of its integrity, is actively lived rather than passively portrayed. One of my favorite art critics Dave Hickey (if who, by the way, were to advise me would surely tell me to go to New York City) once said in a lecture I caught (surrounded of course by the ideological comforts of an academic community at the University of Michigan’s school of Art & Design) that “Art is a cure for what we are as Americans”. I love what Hickey is saying, even if extrapolated by my own interpretation, which is that Art in its: un-predicability, its crazy, its un-confinability, and its un-disciplinary, is a cure for the American monoculture sickness of consumerism and nationalism. Art can point toward what should change or points out what is wrong, absurd, and overlooked in society. I see an Art that is actively lived, in contrast to the images and trend-driven, resume building, happenings of cynicism pointing to the absurdities and social wrongs from a distance. So I am going to try to be productive as an artist with all the space to explore imaginable but far from any outlet.

The work in the studio, the making, and the objects will be on hold for a little bit. I am building a new studio and a new home. Our next project is to setup an existence on and with the land. To begin, our biggest project will be to develop a sustainable relationship with the land that inspires, nurtures us, and upon which we build home as close to natural cycles as possible. We have found our critical voice in the issues of land use, compassionate animal handling, and turning toward real and natural food production. We see a need for social change and advocate for understanding of the food we eat and the impact it brings to the land we live with.

There will be a studio, there will be a calving barn, there will be a home, there will be many hikes and many sunsets, there will will be a natural grass-fed beef and livestock operation, there will chickens, there will be horses, there might be a milk cow, and there will an evolving understanding of our place and imprint upon this earth. As I develop a ranching business plan, plan gardens and a hand-built home, material sculpture and object making waits. However, concepts and ideas grow beginning from the very soil we can touch and live upon. We will build a synergetic existence giving time to work professionally in the studio and in the pasture where agriculture, land improvement, grass farming, and art production become reciprocal, related, influencing and improving each other.

I set out to take a very close and personal look at this land that I love so much and change the momentum of cycles that I see which are off natural course. I intend to look at and utilize the land holistically from the nutrient diversity in soil, to the animals and wildlife that graze the fruits of that soil, and to the way that we collectively impact, imprint, and borrow the land. As I work with the land I will document the process in words, in action, in images, and in the art and objects that I make. To take up the family cattle ranch, to become a grazier, to actively become a steward of the land, becomes the project itself and is my art. Studio making and land management will mix together. How the objects of this art and its process take form or finds it audience, will only be answered in time and the possibilities of stepping out into the unknown open spaces.

Two works installed in the 2nd annual, year long, outdoor sculpture exhibition in the heart of downtown Chelsea Michigan. Sculpture Walk Chelsea is presented by the River Gallery in Chelsea. The exhibition runs until May 2011.

Seems like I’ve had a hard time as of recent keeping this news feed up to date. I am hoping to improve that. Since the last post I have participated in a circus of an art show/competition called “ArtPrize” which took place city wide in Grand Rapids Michigan; and I curated and participated in an exhibition at Gallery Project called ‘Landscape and Memory’. Landscape and Memory has come and gone already, but the show turned out to be quite a success. I showed artists from across the country (San Diego to Brooklyn) and the exhibit received an enormous amount of positive feedback and interest. Quite honestly this show is the probably the best and most cohesive exhibition that I have curated to date.

Specific to “Landscape and Memory” I began a project called Time & Place Collectors which I am looking forward to continuing in idea and evolution. It would also be nice to get that project a little more exposure. There are several project ideas to be wrapped up in the studio, and several website updates I am planning to make in the very near future.

The Winter Solstice Waiting piece is currently on display at Gallery Project in an interesting exhibition called “Shrines and Altars”

This welcomes the launch of my new web site.
I would like to thank my talented friend, Jason Simanek, for all of his professional collaboration and work in making this site come together. I should definitely also thank my brilliant partner in everything, Sarah, for all of her patience, editing expertise, and unconditional support.

This site will serve as the digital housing of my studio, commercial, and academic work. There are many ideas in my head and projects on the shop floor, soon be added in the ongoing archive of work and thoughts on this site. I will keep images of new projects posted and updated as they develop, are finished, and continue to evolve within this body of work.

If you have any questions or would like to contact me regarding this work or any project, please send me a message via the contact tab.

I will use this section (news) similar to a blog, keeping anyone interested, posted on the current events in my life, especially those events that have to do with the process, ideation, and exhibition of my work. It may also serve as a great little spot to throw out a few temporary thoughts I may have on the state of our current changing world.

These news postings are open for comments or dialogue if you are interested or have any applicable thoughts and/or events to add.

I look forward to a new year of change, work, and productivity!

-Joshua Ray Smith