Meet Carrie Smith Libman

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carrie Smith Libman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carrie, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

I got my BFA and MFA back-to-back and experienced a good deal of burnout after leaving school. Finding inspiration outside of a semester-by-semester construct was new and different for me and I had a difficult time finding my footing. Despite feeling a bit untethered in my studio practice, I continued to make in short bursts of time at my kitchen table or living room floor. Without a studio space, I traded sculpture for drawing, collage, and small paintings. It felt scattered and unserious at the time, but the point wasn’t perfection, it was to keep making and to keep my hands moving.

During the years after graduate school, I built a separate career in a corporate job, furnished our first home, and welcomed our oldest followed very shortly by our second. After giving birth to our second child, I was overcome with an urge to start making again in a formal and serious way. Where I used to find inspiration in museums and design books, I now found it everywhere in our home, from a new born sock to the glow of a nightlight. I took over our basement bedroom and created a studio in the house, making work during nap time and after bedtime when the rest of my house was asleep. Having a space that I did not have to set up and clean up each time I had a minute to make dramatically propelled my creative practice forward. Easy access to my materials (a crayon, a pencil, a piece of paper) fostered my ability to work quickly and make fast decisions. I also now had the ability to have in process work hung up, where I could pass it doing laundry or leaving the house in the morning, prompting me to think about it throughout the day.

Having young kids and a home studio, I have created a practice that is very much a direct and indirect collaboration with my children. I invite my kids into my studio. We make work together. Sometimes we work on the same piece, sometimes just next to each other. All three of my children join me in my studio and I find endless inspiration in the overlaps and intersections of motherhood, my corporate career, and my studio practice. I realized the more I stopped segmenting, and started integrating, the different aspects and roles of my life, the more creatively inspired I became.

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first artist residency at Bischoff Inn in Tamaqua, PA. It was an incredibly meaningful week and my longest period of uninterrupted studio time since grad school. I explored my visual vocabulary and found connections between work I made in school, the florals from my kitchen table, and my current grid paintings. I realized it really is all art. From taking a walk with my kids, to making pancakes, to painting a room, to the friendships I engage in and books I read, it’s all art.

I think about my time now as direct and indirect studio hours. I take photos throughout the day to catalogue later; a flower, a sun glare, a shadow, construction tape, green ferns in an orange shopping cart, the pattern on my daughter’s leggings, the curve of a chair. I also collect objects to collage later in a few short minutes of studio time; a birthday balloon, a bright pink post it note, a piece of text from the mail, a no longer used toy, a toddler scribble. For me, widening my definition of art, having a dedicated room/shelf/box for making, and integrating rather than separating the different roles in my life, has continually expanded my creative energy and well of inspiration. I’ve realized creativity begets creativity, like a stone rolling down a hill, it gathers speed with the smallest push. Whenever I’m stuck, I’ve found the best answer is always just to make the first mark.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am an artist/mother from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With a background in sculpture, I now use found images, household artifacts, pattern, and collage to document my children’s growth alongside my own rebirth, each piece a study in chaos and control. Cut and torn images are collaged onto painted panels, then worked back into with acrylic paint, pencil, crayon, and pastel, a mix of free and measured marks. Window panes, houseplants, seedlings, and grids have become my visual vocabulary for these early years of motherhood, watching my children grow, nourishing and being nourished, and balance. The work is an artifact of these first few years, a rebirth and reframing, of holding tight and letting go, of learning when to lead and when to follow.

I spent time in the Midwest, Southeast, and abroad before returning to Pittsburgh to raise our children. I hold a BFA in Sculpture from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Florida where I also taught Sculpture and Drawing. I am fortunate to have work included in private collections across the US, and am an active member of Pittsburgh’s art community through Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors, and Flock Artist Collective, a group of Artist/Mothers dedicated to showing work in the region. As a compliment to my studio practice, I work in healthcare strategy. I finds endless inspiration in the intersections and overlaps of my creative practice, corporate America, and motherhood.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I believe drive, consistency, and balance have been incredibly beneficial on my journey. It is critical to understand your own definition of success and be open to updating that definition as your life evolves. I’ve recently changed my own definition of what success looks like to me now. Though the definition has changed, I know my drive and dedication to a consistent practice, no matter how small it may look some days, will help me get there. For balance, my relationships, work, and art practice have always suffered when I am too focused in one area for too long. Balance and short breaks are key to recharge and reflect.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

Earlier this year I attended my first artist residency. Even though I have always considered myself an artist and have maintained a steady studio practice for years, I felt like investing in a week away to focus just on my work reshaped the way I thought about my practice. I was giving my work the time, space, and credibility it deserved. Many articles or interviews you read talk about imposter syndrome and it is very real. I came home with 26 new works on panel and paper and countless ideas I am still developing. Investing in a residency was as much an investment in my practice as it was in my confidence of who I am as an artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.smithlibman.com
• Instagram: @smithlibman

Image Credits

Michael Will Photographers