Sacred Pulp: Two Dead Smiths + Two Live Smiths

Sacred Pulp: Two Dead Smiths, Two Live Smiths

This retrospective of Smith(s) will be on view from February 10 – March 31, 2012, with opening receptions on Artwalk nights February 10 and March 9. Join us Saturday afternoon on March 3rd at 2PM for a special reading with guest poets Kate Sopko, Cavana Faithwalker, and Lady K & Smith, along with ambience provided by Strawman.

Visit Agent of Chaos for all things Smith.

Mother Dwarf a.k.a. Florence Elizabeth Smith, 1926-2005 Born in 1926 in the Texas panhandle, she arrived in Cleveland in 1990 via  California, Washington, Idaho, Michigan, Las Vegas and other roadside attractions. Her art story runs from sewing her family's clothes and quilts in the 1950s through owning a ceramics shop, doing mail art, making ArtCrimes collages, to her first one-woman art exhibition in Cleveland at age 68 in 1994, and her fifth and final solo exhibit 'Once Upon A Time'' in 2005 at Brandt Gallery in Tremont just before her death. "Florence E. Smith, a tall woman known in art circles as Mother Dwarf, came from Las Vegas to join her son, Smith, at his insistence when she was widowed in 1990. A former ceramist and quilter, she does assemblage art. Her stamp is brightly appealing narrative pieces with fairy tale themes."  -- by Helen Cullinan - The Cleveland Plain Dealer - 9.30.1993

Cat Smith aka Vincent Allen Smith, 1957-1987 Cat committed suicide shortly before his second one-man art show in Las Vegas Nevada. Before that he was a brick, block and stone mason working with our father Pappy Smith.

Lady K Smith , 1972 - ? Poet-writer-artist-shaman-philosopher interested in the reintegration of soul, the reclaiming and renovation of all concepts new and old, especially Mother Earth and the increasing of the happiness quotient. In my artwork it is important to me to reuse found items by letting them express themselves as manifestations of the ecstatic, mysterious & divine. Had her 1st one-woman show aty the Brandt Gallery in 2007.

Steven B. Smith, 1946 - ? Was born. Am living. Will die. Poet 48 years, artist 47 years, publisher 26 years, blogger 6 years Published 21 issues of the acclaimed undeground Cleveland art poetry journal Artcrimes since 1986, losing $20,000 of my own money in the process. Great artist, lousy businessman. His first one-man show was at SPACES; his last in 2006 at the Inside Outside Gallery, which was in the space now occupied by Mastroianni Photography & Arts.

Smith's memoir covering the first 60 years of his very odd life will be published by Lady's City Poetry Press this spring. Stations of the Lost A true tale of armed robbery, stolen cars, outsider art, mutant poetry, underground publishing, robbing the cradle, and leaving the country by Smith & Lady

Smith & Lady sold their studio in 2006 and from August of 2006 through March 2009 lived out of backpacks in 10 countries on 3 continents: England, Holland, Poland, Croatia, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco and Mexico before retuning to Cleveland in 2009. Thus will be their first major art show since returning.

Smith taught Cat, Mother Dwarf and Lady to do collage and assemblage art. He is also self-taught as far as poetry and art go. You might call it Smith's Cleveland Found Object and Trash Skool of Art "Steven Smith is both a crack found-object collector and a genius at putting objects together in a way that is all at once poetic, raw, perhaps lugubrious, and at times biting or potentially offensive." -- Helen Cullinan, Plain Dealer, 1987 

Cool Cleveland referred to the AgentOfChaos.com website as "collage, mixed media, photography, guest artists and everything your mother warned you about. He has consistently refused to be conditioned by the public, and it's a good thing; we love his contagion of undiluted underground art/lit/philosophy/abuse. - Tisha Nesmith, Cool Cleveland, 2003