pieces. Her bracelets, rings, and brooches are hefty, but wearable, provided you don't do the housework in them. Her teapots and tea services are not for the weak of wrist. They are fabricated from 14 and 16 gauge sterling, with solid stands cut from 1 gauge metal. Shearing this thick metal still causes her and her supplier some headaches; its not easy to do without causing slight distortion.
      Smith's holloware and jewelry are superb performance art. Each piece or set has a theme, frequently with a silhouetted figure in a square frame surrounded by everyday objects, just sufficiently out of scale to require detailed examination and evoke a feeling of slight unease, recognition, or déjà vu. Why so many teapots—which are difficult and time-consuming to make? For Smith, they conjure memories of coziness, of growing up in a family where tea was important, and where she was taught to make and pour it by her mother and grandmother. Today, she makes sure her teapots are functional; some even have their own tea-infuser inside.
      A consistent theme of her designs is a flat, heavily textured figure, almost cut from a photograph. As a fourth-generation Californian, her brain is hard-wired to strong cinematographic and comic book outlines. When you look carefully at the foreshortening, however, her figures impart a strong sense of movement and additional dimension. By contrast, their tools, accessories, and other objects are in carefully modeled 3-D. "If I sculpted the bodies I would lose the action I get in a photograph, Smith explains, adding "I want people to bring past experiences to the pieces. They are also my reactions to situations I have been in." Many of these reflect the ordinary joys and sorrows of family life, our struggle for our own sense of place, and the private angst we all experience from time to time. Many of the little people are stuck in a box-like frame, coming, going, or just hanging. With their arms raised in despair, confusion, or exuberance, they look as though life is giving them a hard time.
      Smith's art reflects the uneasy temper of our generation. It resonates with her collectors, galleries, and several museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum, which recently purchased and displayed her tea service Too Many Tools. In the last four years alone Smith has been in 17 group shows, ranging from SOFA to the Cheongju Exhibition Hall in Seoul, Korea. Her work has also appeared in several magazines and

has been featured on the covers of Metalsmith and Ornament.
      To date, her work has mostly avoided strong political statements. In the future this may change, depending on the outcome of the presidential election, and on how she acts out her role as the family liberal. It's also possible she will tackle more women's issues, such as her resentment of "fat old men debating abortion." Meanwhile, she continues to work long days at school, and long evenings and weekends in her studio, squeezing in a little time to have fun playing with Patsy Montana, or with her two nieces and nephews, and fly fishing. Is she a workaholic? Undoubtedly! But as she says "I so much enjoy what I do. It's my life."

Jennifer Cross Gans is a studio artist and writer in San Francisco.

He Always Planned to Leave (brooch),
2004
sterling silver
4 x 3 x 1"
Photo: Anthony Cunha

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