RAND SCOT SMITHEY
Rand first began to understand the impact that art would have on his life when he was given a set of watercolors and started painting the islands and water of Southeast Alaska. Later, while studying literature and science at Western Washington University he was fascinated by the collection of outdoor sculpture on campus, including extraordinary works by contemporary masters in fabricated steel and stone. These early influences have never left him. He has lived all over the northwest, from Oregon to Alaska. He has worked as a potter’s apprentice, an orchardist, a printer, a software maker, a metalworker, and a writer. Throughout his life the study and creation of art has been the one constant.
All these sources have come together at his studio outside Bend to support his work in painting and metal sculpture. Rand works with oil, acrylic, charcoal, crayon, wax, steel, and wood. The sweep of motion in space from a sculpture can become a gesture in charcoal on a painting. Each provides inspiration for the other and together they create a conversation that moves the work forward.