Artist's Talk: Philip K. Smith III

I recently took another trip to Southern California and one of the highlights occurred on the day we arrived - an artist talk at Pitzer College in Claremont California by Phillip K. Smith, a sculptor.

I was not familiar with him by name, but I had seen the image of his cabin on the slide behind him circulating recently.

The work is titled "Lucid Stead" and is/was located in the Palm Desert area near Palm Springs. If you are unfamiliar with his work, Smith is a trained architect who studied at RISD and fell into sculpture well into his architecture career. He was inspired by light and space artists James Turrell, Dan Flavin and Robert Irwin. Anyway, if you do not understand this piece, it is simply an old homestead cabin in the desert on a piece of property that Smith owns. He's replaced every other clapboard with a mirror. The windows and doors are fitted with a mirror faced LCD screen so it changes color at night as seen below.. Quit the effect!

His work as been at a number of the Coachella festivals in the Palm Desert area.

There is plenty to see on his website! Click here to visit.