By Alison Hain
Contributing Writer
As a child, Sally J. Smith came to the Adirondacks to play.
As an adult, she came to live and to work as an artist.
Smith began her career without any professional training, developed a following.
But by 2006, she'd arrived at an impasse.
"For six months, I could do nothing. I was unable to work. I sought help."
She recognized that her salvation lay in turning to the natural world.
"Leaving the studio behind, I entered a world of magic and enchantment by learning to work directly with nature and the elemental beings who reside in all the wild places of the earth," she says in the notes that accompany her DVD "ONE," which showcase images of her faerie houses and other environmental sculptures, set to the music of Canadian composer-musician Bradfield.
SCULPTED STORIES
Smith describes herself as an active professional environmental sculptor. She emphasizes that she "is guided intuitively in design and construction. Each piece leads to more discoveries. I build mostly on site and in the moment …"
She uses only materials from the natural world — moss, leaves, branches, dried grasses, seed pods, pebbles and the like. She sculpts her "stories" among above-ground tree roots, on a ledge sheltered from a waterfall, in a snowdrift, among ice formations, lake, marshes ...
She only removes "distracting elements" from a site.
Smith's first new creation, once she shifted her focus to nature, was a faerie house.
"I have always made them," she said. "I wanted to see how far I could go with this idea."
Her fanciful houses are sizable and made of natural elements. She admits to occasionally using some glue to keep materials in place. Fanciful small woodland creatures, "faeries," may be found on a path as they walk toward a doorway of a wee house. They belong to a magical vision experienced by the artist — they do not dominate the setting; they are part of it.
ORDINARY THINGS
Bundled up in multiple layers of winter clothing on a morning in late December, Smith headed for Beggs Point on Lake Champlain aiming to sculpt with ice.
The spot that day was frigid, inhospitable.
"Temperatures by the lake were just too cold," Smith said. "You can't work with ice when it is so cold. Ice needs a slightly higher temperature to position it and have it remain in place."
Snowdrifts along an Essex roadside drew her artistic eye.
"The roadway passes between cultivated fields and at this time of the year is windswept. I've wanted to use the sculptural formations of snow and ice along the roadside as a setting. I'm also attracted by the natural light at this site. There's an element of magic that light creates. There are shadows. It's an ideal location."
Smith seeks to cast a new light on the ordinary.
"I like taking ordinary things and altering a person's perspective," she said. "The final presentation tells my story."
Smith, whose work "Chapel Pond Spiral" won the 2010 Cover Art competition of the Arts Council of the Northern, calls her sculptures of natural elements "Eartherials." Her practice is to photograph them at three different exposures, she said, "automatically through the meticulous eyes of a digital camera. These photographs are my record of my work, since I let the work naturally decay and return to the earth."
"I am leaving my work for the native spirits to enjoy."
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