We recently connected with Evan and Stacey Smith and have shared our conversation below.
Evan and Stacey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Evan: I didn’t fall in love with art until I was in my early 20s, but this has been the only thing that has stuck with me. The pursuit of art is inherently a risk in a society that does not value art or artists, so we all have to be creative in how we pursue it. For me, that meant starting college in my mid-20s and taking one step at a time. It’s meant slowly building up my own shop and studio at home over the last ten years, and pursuing a variety of learning opportunities, relationships, and commissions. Now, as I graduate with my Masters in May, I’m embarking on an uncertain future, but I am grateful for the years of building relationships with other artists and curators. I think it is very cool that there are many paths to being an artist, and mine is just one of them.
Stacey: As an engineer raised in an academic family, the idea of pursuing art full time was odd to me. I could see that it mattered to Evan, but I didn’t understand why. Over the years of watching Evan’s artistic practice and listening to artists talk, I’ve come to understand how important art and artists are to society. My official part in this collaboration began in 2017. Evan recognized that I was contributing to his artwork by helping him with programmable electronics and suggested we become a collaboration so I could get credit for my work. Initially I said I didn’t need recognition until we visited the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, and I learned about Emily Roebling’s significant role in completing the Brooklyn Bridge construction. As a woman, it was decades before her contribution was recognized publicly, and I realized that I was heading down the same path voluntarily. I took the leap, and Evan and I are now an official collaboration.
With Evan’s graduation in 2023, we’re looking forward to what the future holds for our collaboration. We have some exciting opportunities coming soon. You can find those opportunities on our website and Instagram.
Evan and Stacey, 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?
We are a collaborative art duo from St. Louis, Missouri. Evan has been an artist for about 15 years, starting with private lessons, then attending St. Louis Community College before transferring to Webster University for his Bachelor of Fine Arts. Evan is now pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, graduating in May 2023. Stacey has been working as a civil engineer for almost as long since graduating from the University of Missouri. Evan’s art was initially a solo pursuit but now Stacey has an active part as an artistic collaborator.
In our self work and current artwork, we investigate our lived experiences, both the good and the bad, creating work that is open to viewer interpretation. We hope that our work encourages viewers to connect with their memories, especially those of childhood, in order to investigate their past to determine what serves them and what limits them. As conduits for our memories, objects can help us remember and process our lived experiences to grow into more authentic versions of ourselves. The objects we make offer an opportunity to connect with our past and explore how environment influences and shapes our lives.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
We encourage people to buy art that they like and attend art shows regularly so you can see what living artists are creating. As artists, we like it when people ask us about what we do either in the studio or conceptually. Artists usually have three or four things they wish people would ask them about their art and a lot of the time no one does.
For artists, this means supporting other artists. We have found that working with other artists, curators, and people outside of art has only made our artwork better. Having different points of view different from your own can only expand upon what you know and create. It also helps prevent you from any mental or creative blocks you might encounter along the way.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Stacey grew up in an academic family and followed a standard trajectory through college into engineering. Then married Evan, an artist with a non-standard trajectory. Speaking as someone who used to be outside the art community, I was taught a lie that artists are lazy and art is unnecessary, that some careers are more important than others, and that data and knowledge are more important that beauty and critical thinking. None of these are true.
The artists I know are extremely hard workers. Art, created by people thinking carefully about and questioning our reality, is very necessary to improving our society as artists welcome non-artists to think about those issues, too. As an engineer, I’m supposed to be an either/or thinker, collecting data and continuously moving forward. In my experience, it’s the artists that perceive patterns and anticipate issues sometimes years before the rest of us think about them. Artists help us face difficult issues and make our world beautiful. Artists think carefully about our world, and if we pay attention we could do the same.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.evanandstacey.studio/
- Instagram: @evanandstacey.studio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evanandstacey.studio
- Youtube: @evansmith1531