Artist: Nancy Cook Smith

Medium: Fabric collage

Size: 20″ x 17″

Being deaf, I didn’t have the same means of communication as other kids, so creating something physical and visual became my voice. I describe my work as a fabric collage. My approach is simple: take found fabrics, cut them up, and put them back together in a new composition. Conceptually my collages follow two paths. Most pieces center on a formalist concern where a “chaotic” composition is grown over an often-obscured geometric skeleton. Order (or lack of), movement, color, shape, and mood are my main focus. In others, I construct a surrealist narrative where items create a dynamic but unclear story and sometimes these two paths merge.