We recently connected with Barbara Lee Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Barbara Lee, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I am in my 80s, and that’s okay. In fact, I am enjoying this part of my life. I am telling you this because I was a ‘girl’ in the ‘50s and was encouraged to learn only what was a safe choice. I loved music, but Home Ec was the choice in college. In addition to singing with every chorus I could, I also had one (ONE!) art class. I found what I loved right there. In fact, I was good at it. Who knew? I loved working with color, the theory, the paint mixing. I loved composition. Who knew that all those illustrated reports I did in the 5th grade would have been based on some innate love of design? Next door to the art studio was a gallery where I saw New York based artists of the time, and still remember my shock at what was new. I grew up in a beach town along the Atlantic and there was a needlework store on the boardwalk. I hung out there, and spent my extra money on threads and kits (blush) and needles. Who knew that later on I would decide that the reverse side of a canvas was more interesting than the front? That it was okay to not tie off all the threads? Rules were meant to be learned and then bent in a new direction. Mistakes repeated become a process.

My biggest learning, however, was in teaching and writing. I learned the most from listening to my students’ questions. I learned even more interviewing 100 artists for my book Celebrating the Stitch: Contemporary Embroidery of North America (Taunton Press). The book spun off into an exhibition that traveled internationally for three years. I learned by watching people as they were engaged by different works. I learned by asking the artists anything I wanted to know, because I was ‘interviewing’ them. What a pleasure.

I continue to learn from what I see and hear around me, but also from revisiting some of the basic questions that have always been front and center in my mind: How can art heal, both the maker, but mostly others who spend time with it? How can I be ‘in’ a place? How can I, without words, communicate my concern for the earth, its power and its vulnerability? How do I grow from one work to the next? I’ll be exploring those questions for the rest of my life.

Barbara Lee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have always loved fabric and thread and needles and the sewing machine. I learned my craft slowly, since at the time, textiles was not encouraged in art courses. However, there was a marvelous underground of organizations that taught all sorts of textile techniques and even had small exhibits of their members’ works. I remember the first exhibit when I was a young mother with two kids. Seeing some of this work encouraged me to try my own hand at something with a needle and thread. I was hooked! Someone signed me up to teach an adult education class without my knowledge, so I was committed to learn and teach almost simultaneously. I found what I loved: working with adults to help them increase their creative sense and knowledge. Over the years I have taught in many countries and learned that textile techniques have a language that all who practice can communicate with one another. In fact, when I was teaching in a small Mayan village in Mexico, we accomplished more when the translator (Mayan to Spanish to English) wasn’t present. We had our hands and our eyes and smiles and stitches and true learning and communication occurred.

I wrote Celebrating the Stitch: Contemporary Embroidery of North America, at a time when most needlework books were of the How To variety. I had been listening to my students’ questions and I wanted the focus to be on Why To, not How To. I am proud that it helped many artists in their careers to have been featured in my book. I am grateful to so many artists over the years who welcomed me to interview them as I continued to write for various craft journals. I remember writing down a New Year’s goal that I wanted to put embroidery and needlework on the art world map. I think I have helped do that.
I chose to let others take the teaching reins a few years ago when my husband was ill. I began to listen to myself and what I would say to students, and my own work has grown accordingly. It is featured in a number of museum collections now, and I continue to work and exhibit my work to this day.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Here’s a story about a Rule for Life I adopted. More on the Rule in a bit, but first let me tell you what happened. While I was researching and writing Celebrating the Stitch, I had the idea of developing an exhibition of the artists’ work. However, time, connections and money were all issues. Luckily, I had a publicist at Taunton Press, my publisher, who thought it was a great idea, and without much support from the company, she was able to find a venue near Boston. That was it. A show at the Newton Arts Center came about, and it was a fine show. While I was there for the opening, I had a book signing in Salem, Massachusetts. It was a snowy Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, and one person attended the signing. Being both embarrassed and disappointed in this not so great attendance, I stuck around the shop and chatted with the woman who bought a book. She asked if the show was going to travel, and I made a comment about while I wished for that, it didn’t seem to be coming together. I commented that the artists were from many different places and it would be great to have the show in different states. “What about Texas?” She asked. I told her that there were a couple of artists from Texas, and her response was that maybe her daughter could help. Having no idea what I was getting into, she said she’d contact her daughter. This woman had both museum and airline connections, and she flew up to see the show. Having told her husband she was going to be busy for some time, she started arrangements with a Dallas museum as well as American Airlines. The upshot was that the show of over one hundred works of art traveled to many venues in four countries for the next three years! The contacts made over that time were very important to me and to my career, as well as those in the exhibition. My editor commented: You never know who’s in the room.” I couldn’t agree more. Say what you want. Ask questions when you need to. Offer help. It works.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I don’t think about resilience, per se, but I know that over my lifetime I’ve had to respond, rearrange, revert and renew in the face of whatever life tossed my way. I guess that’s resilience. I know that everyone reading this has had their resilience challenged in the last few years, so let me just talk about some of the ways I’ve dealt with some of what has come my way. Oddly enough, I’d say that it’s important not to get stuck in the rut of success. There are too many ways that you can spend your time just repeating what you’ve done for years. That’s boring and when we’re bored, it’s hard to grow. Experiment. Explore. Make mistakes and see what you can learn from them. I had one teacher who wisely told me to work big, so I’d see my mistakes faster. Listen and learn and share and get feedback. The internet is fabulous, and I have learned to love it. But the internet also encourages rapid reaction rather than thoughtful reflection on many occasions. Just slow down sometimes, and avoid the need to be resilient. The biggest challenge to my resilience was a few years ago when my husband of almost 50 years died. I lost all interest in working and did nothing for several months. Then I realized I was paying rent for an empty studio and told myself I had to spend one hour a day in it. I figured I could read or clean or whatever came to mind, but I also sensed that I would become bored with that and would need to begin to create again. I did just that, and the work I made as I began to reassert my vision is stronger for it. Finally, set what are known as BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals). Write them down once a year and asses them at the end of the year. Your resilience will show up in all you did and gained and gave to others. That’s sharing resilience!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.barbaraleesmith.com
• Instagram: Barbaraleesmithartist
• Facebook: Barbara Smith

Image Credits
Tom Holt and Samantha McClayton