Whimsical Woodland Worlds with Allison Smith
Allison Smith with her autumnal display of paper-clay sculptures.
Welcome to another conversation with our visiting artist of the month! This October, we’re getting to know Allison Smith, a Geneseo-based sculptor building her own world with paper clay.
This blog post was written by Skylar Blaine, our SUNY Geneseo intern.
Allison has always identified as an artist, however it wasn’t until last year that she found sculpting. I asked what sparked this inspiration and how she landed on 3D form. She responded: “Last year I had a run in with beautiful, petrified wood in the garden outside. I was unearthing all these treasures that were forgotten and got really inspired by all of them. I nerded out and had a ‘summer of rocks’ I call it. I was obsessing over all of these prehistoric wonders that I found in my back yard literally right outside my door.”
For years, these natural treasures went undetected and ignored, until Allison discovered them and saw something deeper. Enamored by these natural wonders, the whimsical woodland world displayed in The Gallery began to emerge. Allison’s art became centered around these petrified natural treasures. “I started coming up with an idea to make them into art. They were already art to me, because they were so gorgeous, but if I could maybe create counterparts for them, that was the basic idea, a collaboration with Mother Nature, if you will.”
Allison sculpts with paper clay. Paper clay is a hybrid of paper mâché and air dry clay (you can even make it at home!). “I fell in love with it because of the detail you can get and because of how it takes paint. It’s very lightweight.”
In addition to paper clay, Allison uses all kinds of materials for her sculptures, from recycled trash to broken items. She finds beauty and use in these otherwise discarded and ignored pieces. “What I love about sculpting, too, is that everything you see here was a piece of junk at one point. Everything is made out of garbage or trash or broken ceramics, broken objects. Things change and shift throughout time, in such a beautiful way, and they may not be in their original form, but nothing is left with one purpose.”
The largest piece in the display is a sculpted music note. “The music note is based on a tattoo that me and my little brother share, which is based on a drawing, a doodle that I did for our band, Daydreamer's Nightclub. I wanted it to be big and dreamy, I wanted its eyes to feel big and kind of saggy with the moon dust and yesterday's dreams on it.”
Allison’s sculptures sometimes include eyes where you don’t expect them, or their eyes are missing where you do expect them. Take for example her blooming demon sculpture:
“This one was a little bit more personal. It looks off of La Vie en Rose, a song and mantra that's near and dear to my heart. But also kind of about demonized emotions, and how the feeler can be hated and haunted as a monster. I purposely wanted to leave off the arms because I wanted this sense that its feelings were its limbs. I like taking inspiration from traditional old folklore history. I was thinking of a gargoyle at the time that I made it, just kind of this misunderstood creature that's supposed to be stoic and hard and set in stone, but instead it is kind of the opposite. It's the feeler, and it has the full spectrum of feelings. I put the rainbows on its frills because it represents the spectrum of emotion and the beauty of emotion, giving us life and meaning. That was the goal with that was the seer, this feeler and protector, ultimately that sees life at the crux, as rosy, as beautiful, with eyes full of color. But also, the darker parts of that. Feeling is hard. And it sometimes makes us feel incapacitated.”
When you look at Allison’s sculptures, the eyes are striking and mysterious. “I think the eyes, like they say, are the windows of the soul. We show the most emotion through our eyes. There's something just so beautiful, so riveting, even the loss of life behind one's eyes, even that is so noticeable. And so, I think with the color and depth and what I try to do with the eyes, it's to show both sides of that, not just the life, but the loss of life, and sometimes how eyes can be expressive without a positive cheery emotion. Sometimes you can look into somebody's eyes and see something deeply resonant, deeply painful, but also beautiful.”
A few final thoughts from Allison on the vibe of her show:
She says the general goal was to conjure “Alice in Wonderland, and also healing one's inner child. I think that that's why this world, that's why this aesthetic. It’s because it's healing something within me, of course, as the artist, but, that's my goal is also to create a world of escape, and a world of understanding one's own story, and playing out one's own story. There's a certain realness that I want all of my characters to have, like, this feeling you know them. You’ve met them, and you've sat down and had coffee with all of them. I think there's something so sanctimonious, beautiful, about clay for that reason; it holds memory. And so, I think that's why I've chosen this medium, and that's what I hope anyone would get from my artwork, is it's something that they can hold and be with and remember.”
She is absolutely succeeding in her goal, the front wall of The Gallery has been transformed into an immersive, whimsical, woodland environment. If you are near Main Street, pay a visit to The Gallery and step into Allison’s world, on display through the end of October.