Artists she admires and studies include Andrew Wyeth, Howard Terpning, John William Waterhouse and William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Her influences include her sister Linda Graves, her friends and people she meets while out in nature or attending pow-wows, festivals and fairs.
#Image smith asheville series#
“My reference files are so extensive that I will probably never paint all that I want to paint,” she says, “but I’m working on it!” A recent series features women with hair represented by elements of nature: feathers, antlers, sticks and seashells. “In some paintings, there is a story I want to tell.” At other times she photographs a person or place she finds moving and then files it away for future use. “My process for paintings usually starts with an image I have photographed or an idea sparked by a feeling I get when I view something or someone,” she says.
Marcia still finds inspiration for her paintings and drawings in nature. “He was instrumental in teaching me about his culture,” she says, “introducing me to indigenous friends and helping me get back the confidence to create art after being told for years that I was no good at it and shouldn’t even try.” Today, she works full-time at the Southern Highland Craft Guild’s Biltmore Village shop. She also spent years learning about the Tuscarora culture from a friend. Photo by Studio Misha PhotographyĪlong the way, she raised her son Hank to appreciate and respect nature with hikes and walks in the woods.
One of her jobs while in school was working at an arts, crafts and hobby store that she would later manage, a job that took her all over the state for 27 years. She attended East Carolina University, where she majored in illustration. “We would often visit the mountains, which I loved because it reminded me of the mountains in the Berkshires,” she says. When she was 15, her father’s job brought the family to Conover, NC. “I love finding treasures-acorns, feathers, pinecones-on my way up to the top of a mountain trail,” she says. Marcia grew up exploring the nature around her home: climbing trees, picking berries and collecting feathers, rocks, sticks and flowers-a pastime she continues to this day.
“His mother was an artist and I remember visiting Grandma and Grandpa’s house and loving that paintings hung on almost every inch of wall from floor to ceiling in every room.” In addition, her mother, a nurse, did needlework her older brother makes jewelry and her older sister is a children’s book illustrator and fantasy artist. “Dad was an electrical engineer and enjoyed painting,” she says. She grew up in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts ensconced in a family of artists. Each book told about the life and ways of their cultures.” The one I loved most was a set of books about eight children from different tribes. “When I wasn’t outside, usually in winter after ice skating or sledding,” she says, “I would spend hours looking at the Native American books my parents had. Marcia Dockey Smith not only discovered an interest in art at a young age, but found a source of inspiration then as well that informs her work still today.
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