About Tricia
It all started with a box of tangled, broken and unfettered sparkling bits and beads given to her by her Nana K. She spent hours on her grandmother’s plush wine colored carpet unknotting fine chains and reassembling earrings and reattaching clasps. Her Nana thought she was simply helping her granddaughter be productive while they watched “her stories” together, but she was inadvertently sparking the start of Tricia’s relationship with jewelry making.
She believes that there is something special about how we adorn ourselves. Personal adornment has been her primary art form since 1990. Wearing jewelry is empowering and emotionally rooted in our lives. The pieces we collect and choose to wear can be narrative as well as feel protective. Hand crafted jewelry is imbued with the value of the labor, imagination, and intention of the maker and this specialness is what keeps her making.
Artist statement
The progeny of a family of jewelry lovers, my obsession with the magic of creating jewelry started with my grandmother. Time spent on her plush wine-colored carpet in front of the TV opening jump rings with my fingernails and closing them with my teeth will always be the moment that I identify as my origin as a jeweler. An abiding love for both “costume” and “high” jewelry inspires my studio work. Trained in traditional metalsmithing, I imbue meaning and value through the commitment of time (which I find more valuable than money) using hand fabrication and forming processes. I use materials that call attention to themselves not because of their monetary value, but their ability to catch light, physically or metaphysically comfort the wearer, and bring an element of elegance and empowerment to personal adornment. I use play, intimacy, and narrative to build my work. Educated as both a traditional silversmith, and a postmodernist - I emerged from my education a little lost. I recovered my maximalist roots and embracing my sense of whimsy I continue to strive for beauty and embrace decorative functionality and joy in adornment.
Artistic Education and career
Tricia K Smith is a teaching artist and metalsmith. She makes jewelry in her personal art practice. She teaches high school art and occasionally is able to share her metalsmithing skills with her students. She leads her work and her teaching with a firm belief that making and experiencing art is a vital tool in developing the mind and the transformative power of imaginative play.
Studying at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA in the metals program she received her BFA in Craft. Working in the Philadelphia jewelry industry and briefly as a bench jeweler for Paul Morrelli, a local fine jewelry house, she then left for NYC. A year later she decided pursuing an MFA might be a better plan. She finished her degree from the Program in Artisanry at UMASS Dartmouth in 1998. After graduation she decided to stick where she landed in Southcoast Massachusetts.
New Bedford, MA is a diverse area of working waterfront, art, history, and stunning natural beauty. When she isn’t in her own studio, she is an avid nature wanderer and popular culture consumer, arts advocate and active community member.
photo credit: Liv Haines Gauthier
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Where it started.
It all began with a piece of iridescent stained glass and a little skill and imagination. Bracelets - stained glass and transistors 1987.
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For Peekaboo
A memorial piece for my Mom when her favorite cat passed away to memorialize him. Polymer Clay, silver, quartz, magnetite, howlite, 2018
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Sans Studio.
No studio, no problem. Over the years I have had my tools packed away and only a table to make work on. I have had luxurious studio space and not enough money for supplies. Through it all I have been determined to keep making.
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2D
Everything started with drawing. I have picked up so many skills along the way. As a high school art teacher, I have the great privilege to share my passion with others and pay forward the care and inspiration of the teachers I have had in my own art journey.