By JANE GLENN HAAS
COLUMNIST
FOR THE REGISTER
A couple of years ago, life was sweet for Laurie Smith.
The Lake Forest artist had this body of work she regularly loaded into a U-Haul and schlepped around the Western States. Bronzes, most of them. She was getting known for her artwork, she was making a living, and she was having a good time.
Then her back started to hurt. Rivers of pain that sent her to a specialist who ordered lumbar surgery. He also found that vertebra in her neck was very closed and she was told by doctors that if she fell, she could be paralyzed.
"My whole lower back was bad but we had to start on the neck," she says. She had a titanium plate in her neck and spent three months essentially doing nothing, Then they cleaned up the lumbar with rods from the waist down. It was more than six months before her muscle strength was restored.
"I figured my career was over," she says. "I didn't know how to get going again."
Then, of course, she ended up being in the right place at the right time. (But you knew that, didn't you?)
St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano – where her granddaughter is a student – was beginning to construct a performing arts center and middle school. Her son, Ron Smith, suggested his mother create the crest for the front sidewalk. In fact, he suggested she create it in bronze. The school agreed.
He built a 12 x 9 foot frame for his mother, a canvas for her art. They had to take the doors off her house to maneuver the piece into her living room, which became her studio.
The frame was screwed into the ceiling and an image of the crest was projected onto the canvas. Smith glued three-quarter inch foam onto the canvas, drawing the design on the soft surface before she could begin to sculpt the surface into the school crest.
Because the piece was to be installed on the ground,
Americans with Disabilities Act limits the height of the projections to no more than a quarter-inch thick
The design also had to include texture for non slipping, and she had to figure out a way to make water drain off."I'd never worked with foam before, and I knew this also would challenge the bronze foundry, which ended up cutting the finished piece into 20 pieces before casting." Each weld had to hide the seam and duplicate the textures and design.
It took about three months of concentrated work but was spread over seven because of vacation, where not decisions could be made, and, she was asked to stop and begin another idea she proposed for the donor wall. This major construction of a middle school and performing arts center would not be possible without the generous donors.
Between the school bronzes, she'll be working on relief photos for clients. "People give me special photos and I replicate them like pictures but in bronze." She says. "They last forever. They are not much different from the Crest, which will be around long after my children's children are gone."
Hurrah for another successful artist, right? Ah, but there's more.
Smith is launching this new phase of her career at age 78.
Why isn't she retired? "Because I want to sculpt," she says, simply.
"I want to create works others can enjoy.
"I left a marriage in 1989 with no money and spent several years working with nonprofits, none of which had contributing retirement programs.
"So it was up to me.
"When, at 70, I decided to make a new career as a sculptor, I had to decide how much I could invest before I needed a profit. This wonderful commission is the opportunity that will finally put me in a positive position. Not much, but enough to be very proud."
Passion and purpose?
We're lucky to have that any time of life.
Passion and purpose and income? Even better.
Proving the good times never end?
The best.