Local artist's "beautifully dark" creations

“My dog, my phone, my jeans, everything has paint on it; I'll buy something nice and say I'll keep it nice, but within two days it will have paint on it,” local artist Shana Smith said while chiseling pieces of paint and other debris from her studio off her laptop.

Smith has been drawing and painting her entire life and turned her hobby into an “obsession” twelve years ago. She will graduate from University of Montana with a bachelor of fine arts degree with a focus on painting at the end of this semester and plans to return to Bigfork and continue her work.

As a child, Smith's mom and fellow artist, Bonita Smith, would ask her if she had lines or shadows on her face and would encourage her to do shadowing, “even with crayons as a kid.”

Since then, Smith has moved on to oil and screen paints and just about every medium imaginable, including re-bar for a recently completed eight-foot pelican statue. Smith hopes to purchase or rent a warehouse in Bigfork and turn it into a live-in studio and potentially open a residency for other artists to join her in creating art.

“If I can have a studio in the town that inspires me, it's a recipe for awesomeness,” Smith said as she described her ideal studio with floors that can be hosed down, room for a wood shop to build larger canvases and garage doors to move them as well. Smith also hopes her future art studio will allow her to “blast music without bothering anyone” and hopefully have room for a rock climbing wall as she sites adrenaline to be a primary form of inspiration.

“It frees your spirit, and then going to paint is totally different,” Smith said. “It messes with you and then you create something different, you've got to go for intensity sometimes.”

Twice a week for two years Smith attended flying trapeze classes in Chicago in search of an adrenaline rush to inspire her art.

A portion of Smith's home has been “sacrificed” as an art studio since she started painting to fill her walls and then moved on to larger works for others. So far Smith has completed approximately 50 “solid paintings” and four sculptures, most of which took a few weeks to complete with “at least three or four all-nighters.”

One of Smith's main goals is to inspire people with her art to look inside other people and see them the way they see themselves.

“My inspiration has always been like a therapy, some like to fish, I like to paint,” Smith said. “It's a peaceful thing to do and I can afford it.”

Ben Woods commissioned Smith's oil painting of John Wayne, currently on display at Whistling Andy's, in exchange for snow tires. The painting was originally intended for Woods' home when Smith saw he owned the entire John Wayne movie collection but has since been on display at The Raven as well.

While on display at The Raven, representatives from Treating Yourself magazine noticed Smith's work and commissioned her to paint Jack Herer, a pioneer in the field of medicinal marijuana. Smith's hemp-oil painting of Herer is displayed at various hemp expos around the country.

Smith went to college with the intention of earning a Master's degree so she could be an art professor. But as graduation approaches the encouragement Smith got from her professors, family and friends to pursue her artwork has motivated her to give the art world a try.

“I think I owe it to myself,” Smith said.

Smith painted the bathrooms at The Raven and several murals and children's bedrooms, though her subject is typically people, her representation of them takes a “beautifully dark” approach.

“I paint people because they intrigue the s--- out of me,” Smith said. “Lately, people say my stuff has a dark side, but portrays the parts they might not want to see because life is beautiful.”

A large painting of a friend's injured face after surviving a motorcycle accident to show “how beautiful it is he is alive,” a baby with portions of skin peeled back to reveal sponge-like material to show that “babies are sponges of society,” and photos of the “haunted” Sacagawea Hotel in Three Forks with superimposed images of her niece fill Smith's portfolio.

“(I like best that) it's always different, I enjoy the learning process,” Smith said. “I'm not looking for a specific style, it's an evolution.”

Smith typically goes between acrylic and oil painting and has recently developed an interest in working with screen printing ink to obtain a higher level of brilliance. Smith has also started working with cement and hopes to do more with that as well.

Much of Smith's skill came from learning as she went, experimenting and earning the title of “queen destroyer of brushes.” When her budget was tight, Smith would go to Wal-Mart and get cheap tubes of paint for her work.

“Nothing in the world is more exciting than learning something new and using it a different way,” Smith said. “I figured, paint was paint and if DaVinci could do it, then so could I. …Many of the tricks I picked up are 'unethical,' but I don't think there should be any rules.”

The Pancakes and Booze art show in Portland on March 30 will be Smith's first national show, which she applied for on a whim at 6 a.m. when she couldn't sleep. More of her art can be found at shanasmithartwork.blogspot.com and on her Facebook page as well.

“My goal is to create the desire within people to get to know others; it's all so rush-rush and quick-quick that people don't think about what's inside others,” Smith said. “There's too much hate in the world, but everybody in the world has someone who loves them, so there must be something to love about them, right?”