We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christina Elizabeth Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Christina Elizabeth , thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The project that I have found the most meaningful has been the one I’ve been working on for a couple years, which is my gold series. This series feels like it chose me and is something I am meant to be putting in the world right now.

The Amrta Gold Series is inspired by my years of being a buddhist practitioner and the profound significance and strength of gold. In Japanese culture gold is poured in the cracks of broken pottery “golden joinery,” Kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi, is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery. The idea is that when the items become broken and the gold is poured in, the item becomes more beautiful.

I believe are the same. Through our suffering, we pour metaphorical gold into the broken parts of ourselves each time we rise up from our suffering. Therefore fortifying ourselves more and more. I wants to paint everything gold as a reminder that the gold is what we have been all along. Perfect gold. Never broken, but forever breaking to get back to our purest and most perfect state. I carve into these pieces modern (and sometimes crass) statements to keep them light and humorous, but also to merge the ancient with the current, the highbrow with the lowbrow. Once again showing we are all the same deep down and we might as well have a laugh along the way.

I feel the most excited about spreading the message of Amrta and reminding everyone that they are solid gold.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Amrta comes from my deep love of mythology, comparative religion, and storytelling in general. I have always had the feeling that the ways that we divide ourselves into groups and hierarchies is completely false. Amrta is always some healing, mystic, drink of the gods. One particular myth I read, I believe it is an ancient Hindu myth, was that after the long battle of life had been fought, Amrta (Amritam) would fall from the sky as a drink of immortality. A sign that the battle was over. My life in so many ways has felt like a series of long battles. Deep wounds. I decided in that moment maybe it was time to no longer be identified by my wounds but in- stead, create my own Amrta, and regenerate myself. I do not have to wait for the world to rain down Amrta. I will be Amrta for myself. So, Amrta Art was born.

My work originally started as a way to heal myself and it sort of naturally built outward momentum. It is not about just creating something pretty to hang in your home (even though we all love that) is about creating a symbol or a totem for collectors.
My intention behind every Amrta Gold Piece is that anyone who hangs them in their space, looks at them and remembers their fundamental nature, which is perfect, profound, and untarnished no matter what the world put on them.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The resource I wish I knew about sooner… I would have to say myself.

Let me clarify, not the egoic self that wants to prove or showoff to the external world, but that part of myself, that’s deeply rooted that no one can get to. That secret part that comes through me delicately, that I have to be quiet and still to hear. That’s the resource I wish I knew about sooner and I wish I trusted sooner.

Because no matter what’s going on, when I get quiet and listen, let myself experiment and play, something beautiful happens. Even if it is a beautiful mistake, I learn and expand in a way I couldn’t if I had not listened to that part of me.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The people I meet.

Through my Gold Series in particular, I feel like I am constantly learning from people and their incredible stories of resilience. It has created a connectedness that I carry with me on the hard days. As the paintings have starting selling all over the world it solidifies how incredibly connected we all are. I am always in awe of how people observe the pieces, what they see in the abstract strokes of paint, what it inspires in them. It makes the pieces feel forever alive because each person sees something different. For that, i’m forever grateful.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.amrtaart.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/amrtaart
• Other: www.artsy.com/amrtaart