BARB SMITH received her B.A. in Fine Arts and Art Education from Purdue University in 2003 and her M.A. in Photography and Related Media from Purdue University in 2005.  After teaching jewelry, metals, and design at Purdue University for three years, she moved to New York to pursue an M.F.A. in Metal under Jamie Bennett and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray at the State University of New York-New Paltz.  Following her graduation in May of 2010, Barb has embarked on various freelance research and writing projects for publication.  Her current project concerns the relationship between hacker ethics and DIY as it relates to theory and practice, art, and craft discourse.

Any moment, any fleeting presence, has the potential to be relegated to the realm of the forgotten or unnoticed. Our familiarity with the platitudes of the everyday often renders its traces invisible; in their invisibility they escape. There is an implicit frailty within such mundane, ambiguous, and repetitive moments. These moments leave impressions upon spaces, objects, and bodies. These marks contain susurrations of narrative decoded through acts of careful looking and noticing.----In response to this sensation of being caught up in the pulse of time, I create an informal archive of objects concerned with the metaphysical. My archive is an exaggerated collection of moments of both being and nonbeing; the archive is both absurd and irrational in my attempt to accumulate evidence of the ephemeral. Unsettling in its sense of incompleteness, those who observe the contents of the archive are witness to a strange aftermath. Care in looking and making is given with no clear reason. Function is subverted through repetition and material shifts. Objects are reconfigured to create a sense of wonder and a need to look.-----I treat all of the objects with consideration of their ontological status and collect them to keep them from going out of existence. Through making, I ask where I exist; I reconsider the etherealness of the individual moment and the power of collective experience. Observations and collections are translated and transformed to create a space for interrogating the artifice. This space for reflection prompts an engagement in a conversation with a moment that has passed. In searching these objects for latent content, one begins to understand that the details are elusive; the specifics of someone's presence have disappeared. BARB SMITH 2010

Bundles "334", "1110", "1124", "1125", and "1915" , 2010.

Copper, sterling silver, steel, vitreous enamel, cotton, paper, masonite, pine, paint
56" x 34" x 5 1/2"

8/20/08, 9/12/08, 9/13/08 (12), 9/21/08, 10/20/08, 10/22/08 (2),10/25/08, 11/1/08, 11/5/08, 1-3-09,1/5/09, 1/6/09 (3), 1/7/09, 1/15/09, 1/29/09, 2/1/09, 2/10/09, 2/12/09, 2/18/09, 2/19/09, 2/25/09,3/1/09, 3/3/09, 3/4/09, 3/5/09, 3/7/09, 3/10/09, , 3/12/09, 3/13/09 (5), 3/14/09, 3/20/09, 4/5/09 (4),4/10/09 (2), 4/11/09, 4/19/09, 4/20/09, 4/21/09, 4/25/09 (2), 4/26/09, 4/27/09, 4/28/09 (6),  5-15-09,5-16-09 (3), 6/8/09, 6/9/09 (127), 6/11/09, 6/13/09 (11), 6/18/09 (2) , 6/19/09, 6/20/09 (3), 6/27/09,6/28/09, 7/5/09, 7/6/09, 7/8/09, 7/10/09, 7/12/09, 7/13/09, 7/14/09, 7/16/09 (4), 7/17/09, 7/19/09,7/20/09, 7/23/09, 7/25/09 (22), 7/26/19 (3), 7/29/09 (2), 8-20-09 (5), 8-21-09, 8-23-09, 8-24-09, 9/1/09(3), 9/2/09, 9/3/09, 9/14/09, 9/15/09, 9/17/09, 9/18/09, 9/20/09, 9/21/09 (7),  9/22/09, 9/23/09,9/30/09, 10/1/09, 10/2/09, 10/4/09, 10/5/09, 10/6/09 (55), 10/7/09, 10/9/09, 10/17/09, 10/20/09,10/21/09, 10/23/09, 10/30/09, 11/1/09 (5), 11/3/09 (3), 11/5/09 (14), 11/6/09, 11/12/09, 11/13/09,11/16/09, 11/17/09, 11/18/09, 11/22/09, 11/26/09(18), 11/28/09, 12/1/09, 12/2/09, 12/3/09,12/18/09(3), 1/14/10, 1/15/01, 1/18/10, 1/19/10, 2-3-10, 2/18/10, 2/19/10, 2/20/10 (3), 2/21/10 (18),2/22/10, 2/23/10, 2/24/10, 3/1/10, 3/3/10, 3/4/10, 3/6/10, 3/8/10, 3/10/10, 3/27/10 (62), 4/5/10,4/6/10, 4/11/10, 4/12/10, 4/15/10, 4/17/10 (2), 4/18/10, 4/20/10(6), 4/21/10, 4/29/10, 5/1/10 (2),5/3/10, 5/5/10, 5/6/10, 5/12/10, 5/13/10, 5/14/10. 2010.

sterling silver
40" x 40" x 1"

100% COTTON
COTON
MACHINE WASH
COLD WITH LIKE
COLORS ONLY
NON-CHLORINE
BLEACH IF NEEDED
TUMBLE DRY LOW
WARM IRON
DO NOT IRON PRINT
AN 75654
CA 50316 , 2010

100% cotton, copper, vitreous enamel, debris, masonite, pine, paint
37" x 13" x 4"