| Artist's Statement |
"When I got the instinct, I was a kid in Louisiana about nine years old,"
says self-taught artist Isaac Smith. I would follow my daddy around in
the woods hunting, and when he'd shoot something, I'd pick it up and
turn it over and see how it was made. Daddy used to say, 'You're
gonna catch something from those animals, boy.' But I just had to
look at 'em. I knew that I could make that animal.
More than 40 years later, Isaac Smith is still spending time looking for
animals. He sees monkeys, rattlesnakes, crocodiles, and saber-
toothed tigers in the branches of the walnut tree in his backyard, in
a hackberry by the roadside, in old stumps that others might only
look to for firewood. When Isaac was a boy growing up in Louisiana,
he didn't know why he was so fascinated by animals, but now he does.
His "instinct," as he calls it, is to sculpt and paint raw wood into
remarkable forms of animal life with as much energy and charm
as their entertaining creator.
2008 |
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