We were lucky to catch up with Ali Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ali, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The first of a few meaningful projects that changed my life and my career was my first book Laws of the Bandit Queens (Three Rivers Press/ Random House). It’s not the best of my books in that I was much younger and less experienced ( I would have done it much better now), but it’s full of heart and pure intent!

Up until that point, I shot photo jobs sporadically here and there, but I was primarily a musician, playing and touring in an otherwise all male band. I was becoming overwhelmed by the maleness of life on the road and often felt out of step with the sexism around me (not in my band particularly, but woven into the fabric of the world I walked in.) I felt the need to gather evidence that I, as a woman could be unusual, adventurous, off the beaten path and still carve out a meaningful, successful career for myself.

So I reached out to women I was inspired by who’d accomplished a tremendous amount while belonging to one of those aforementioned categories. With the wide-opened eyes of an optimistic child, I twisted and turned along every innovative path imaginable to reach women like Alice Walker, Janeane Garofalo, Sandra Bernhard, Lydia Lunch and others, bypassing the usual routes that often lead to publicists and dead-ends. And these amazing women said yes! 35 of them. I’ll never forget their kindness.

I took their portraits and asked each for a “life law” by which she lives. The resulting book was meant as a “woman-festo” for a more inspiring life philosophy by which I might carve my own path and career. I was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s television channel and the book received a ton of press and, most of all, I heard from women all over who were inspired by it. I quit the band and started shooting much more. It put me on track with my true self and what I’d like to contribute to the world.

Ali, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I forged my photography style in the underground music scene of New York City, my home town, and my only home before moving to the UK almost two years ago with my family. It’s been called vibrant, alive, edgy and I like all of those adjectives. Photography has been the main way I earn my living for two decades. I’ve shot extensively for magazines and newspapers internationally, including The New York Times, The Guardian, People Magazine and more. I’ve also shot hundreds of book covers, a celebrity cookbook, advertising, and family and portrait commissions. If you’re in the game long enough, you learn to shape-shift towards the work as your industry changes.

I’ve written all along- contributing not just photography but text to my two award-winning photography books, Laws of the Bandit Queens and Momma Love ; How the Mother Half Lives (Called a gift to moms by Gloria Steinem, and featured by the New York Times.) I’ve also written for publications like The Guardian, The Village Voice and others, usually about subjects closest to my heart: social justice, environmentalism and feminism.

My most recent book — The Ballad of Speedball Baby – is a memoir about my years in the male centric underground music world of the 90s, surviving the slings and arrows society reserves for women who refuse to comply. It is the culmination and convergence of my many lives lived in music, punk, photography and writing, including photos and (in the audiobook) original music.

I brought my full, multi-disciplinary self to my memoir, which is really what I bring to every project and job I do. At this point in life, a day wasted feels unacceptable to me. So any opportunity to create for and with someone is a gift I relish. I love the creative life I’ve shaped for myself and feel that’s apparent when I create, either for a job or a passion project.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

At this point in time- when we are warned daily about the increasing irrelevance of the human influence – committing to a life of creativity feels like a radical act. I am proud to align myself with other creative people who believe in the power of creation over destruction, connection over coldness.

Something I say often when I teach, do portfolio reviews or lecture at colleges and universities is that the arts are neither extraneous nor frivolous. Once basic needs are met, the arts are what we turn to – in the form of movies, books, music, comedy, dance – in order to make sense of, and find meaning in, life. If a person doesn’t think that’s essential, they and I are from different planets.

What a society – its citizens and, maybe more importantly, its officials who allocate funds – can do is to believe in this inherent worth. To give children the gift of emotional intelligence that comes from art in their schools. To facilitate expression. To enable communities to form around creative impulses in the form, at the very least, of offering spaces in which that can happen: artists’ studios, music equipment seen as important as sports equipment in schools. Most of all, society can stop pushing a narrow narrative about what success and worth look like.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I guess it’s possible non-creatives might think all creatives do is throw paint on themselves all day and roll around dreaming. :) In other words, I guess we could be accused of refusing to grow up and work hard.

If someone is trudging into a job daily and they see me at a coffee shop looking at a laptop while sipping a coffee in no rush after dropping my kid off at school, they could be forgiven for thinking I’m a lay-about. But I can assure you, I’ve worked full-time jobs. I’ve picked strawberries on a farm. I’ve worn a hairnet behind the scenes in a hospital cafeteria. I’ve bartended in dive bars. I’ve done all manner of stuff for money. And I don’t know that I’ve ever worked more hours with less security than I have as an artist. ( In fact, if you aren’t careful the hours never end. At least when you’re working for yourself. ) The primary difference being when things have worked out as an artist, I feel much more satisfied that my life is worth while. That’s according to my measure of it. Not everyone is the same.

I can only speak for myself, but I have worked very hard with little to no security for decades. The rewards have been multiple and enormous in terms of freedom and satisfaction, but I’d never lie and say it’d been easy. So… I guess I’d say that we may be working a lot harder than it seems when you see us in the coffee shop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alismith.com
• Instagram: mommaloveAli
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alismithphoto/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alismithphoto/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6U9a5z7K71awJ598V2p_YA

Image Credits

All photos ©Ali Smith