Elan Gallery Features Sculpture Artist for Taste of Summer

Stacie Smith, a fourth generation Oregonian was born in Salem in 1945 and was raised in the Willamette Valley. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest most of that time, her career as an artist spans four decades in which time she has completed 100 sculptures.

 Her greatest artistic influences include the cave painters of Chauvet and Lascaux, prehistoric sculptors, the Inuit and the native carvers of totem poles and masks. Smith notes, “The alabaster stone I use is quarried in Utah and Colorado and occurs in an astonishingly wide range of colors, textures, and translucencies. Alabaster teaches me to wait and watch. Using basic manual tools, I remove only as much material as is necessary for the stone’s inherent story to come through.  When the piece is complete I finish it with beeswax polish, which creates a lustrous surface and allows the viewer to see deep into the stone’s color, texture, and heart.”

Smith says she’s always loved metallic gold and other reflective pigments and has used them often in her paintings and prints. Now, she is finding that stone is also a wonderful vehicle for the reflective and light-enhancing qualities of precious metals. Over the last few years, she’s been applying metal leaf to stone in an effort to create the illusion of bronze, copper, or gold, and to stimulate the sense of wonder that comes with unearthing an ancient artifact.

You are invited to meet the artist at Elan Gallery during the Taste of Summer event on Saturday, June 9 from 11-4 and see a mix of Smith’s unique sculpture on display. Elan Gallery is located one block west of Old City Hall at 245 West Main. Call 541.899.8000 for more details.