Fine-Art photographer Mickey Smith finds inspiration by the book.

by Jessica Gordon

© Mickey Smith

Blood shot: An eye-popping image of books Smith found in a library in the Midwest.

If Mickey Smith were a book, her spine might say “Driven.”

© Mickey Smith

CLOSE UP: An image of the spine on a book from Smith’s Volume series.

In the past month, her itinerary has included a two-week tour of New Zealand with her husband’s band, QuarterAcreLifestyle (she documented the trip for the band’s photo blog). She then went directly to Art Basel in Miami Beach to check out the various galleries she’s considering for representation. From Miami, a private collector flew her in his personal jet to Lincoln, Nebraska, where she installed one of her Volume series pieces in his home.

For Smith, who considers herself equal parts artist and photographer, returning to her studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a luxury. “I’m just happy to be here for a week,” she says over the phone.

Smith’s distinct style is attracting much attention in the fine-art world, and her breakthrough work is her ongoing Volume series, a collection of wall-absorbing, installation prints of library books in their stacks. Each image is graphically clean and includes a certain angle of a cheeky, ironic or symbolic book title, derived from the journals or periodicals it contains. For example, a series of worn, tan books have “Loco” on their spines. Two black books, one imperfectly ripped simply says “Life.” And one of her bestsellers among middle-aged men is a ruddy series of textured, brown books titled “The Metal Worker”; the buyers often say it reminds them of their fathers.

© Mickey Smith

When gallery owner Jen Bekman and her panel of judges reviewed Smith’s work for the spring 2007 Hey, Hot Shot! photography competition, Bekman says it was difficult to overlook. “It makes you stop and take notice,” she says. “Also, I love work that makes you ask questions: Did she set it up? Is it real?”

“I had a great career in New York but it wasn’t my intention. I’ve always known that I wanted to be an artist.”

It is real. Smith does not set up her shots, in-studio or otherwise. The books she shoots don’t even leave their homes in library stacks across the country. She does not move the books from their original position, and there is no additional lighting or digital manipulation. It’s simply Smith framing each shot with her Nikon D200, a macro lens and a Manfroto tripod.

“It’s a hunt,” says Smith, who opts to shoot digital because of its instant gratification. “I walk up and down the aisles of libraries taking notes. I recently found in the New York Public Library that there’s a “Blood” series bound in blue—which I love. It’s bound in red in the Midwest and blue on the East Coast.”

It’s that kind of humor that connects people to her work. Whether the series comes across as an inspirational word, a character reference or a witty phrase, 35-year-old Smith is creating her own buzz in galleries and private collections across the country

© Mickey Smith

Endeavor

© Mickey Smith

Prize collection: A close-up of Smith’s “Review” shots.

Like most artists, her road to success relied on years of stepping stones. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, she began taking pictures as a child in order to escape the pain of her parents’ divorce. In high school, she took photography as an elective, offered through the industrial arts department. “The automotive repair teacher also taught photography,” Smith says, laughing.

When graduation rolled around, Moorhead State University offered Smith a $500 scholarship after seeing her portfolio. “That felt like a significant vote of confidence,” she says. Smith received a B.A. in photography in 1994 from the art department.

© Mickey Smith

Prize collection: Another one-word wonder.

Although her initial post-college goal was to become a full-time fine artist, Smith got a job offer she couldn’t refuse at Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota.

“I would travel around in a 48-foot semitrailer-turned-art gallery to schools, teaching kids about art,” Smith says. “Every Tuesday, a tractor would come and hook onto the trailer/gallery, and we would travel to a different town and plug into a grain elevator [for electricity]. I would teach groups from kindergarten through high school about art, give tours of the gallery and [lead] workshops about art-making to kids who didn’t have art programs in their schools. It was a fabulous job.”

“Everything about her—how she approaches her work, makes it and presents it—is meticulous.”

Smith continued as an arts administrator for the next ten years, moving from jobs at the Minnesota Center for Photography (at the time, pARTs Photographic Arts) to the Minnesota State Arts Board and finally to a career at Arts International in New York City. She also did freelance work for numerous public arts organizations.

“I had a great career in New York, but it wasn’t my intention,” she says. “I’ve always known that I wanted to be an artist.”

Smith’s turning point came after listening to another artist’s lecture about changing careers at a conference in New York in 2001. “She said, ‘I knew the best parts of me would die, and the rest wouldn’t be worth much,’” Smith remembers. “It just hit me like a truck; I packed up and left New York and came back to Minneapolis to make my work.”

© Mickey Smith

Prize collection: Aseries of books with “Vogue” on the spine.

Continuum

Once back in Minneapolis, Smith was driven to live the life of a professional artist she had envisioned in college. The Midwestern city has a bustling arts community and not only welcomes artists with resources but also has numerous opportunities for funding. Smith continued to freelance and started looking for inspiration.

While at a women artists-in-residency program at Oberholzer Island in northern Minnesota, she had a breakthrough idea, which was drawn out of boredom. “I had been going [to the residency] for years, and I said to my husband, ‘I can’t go and photograph another flower,’” she says. Knowing the island’s library was home to more than 15,000 volumes of books, Smith’s husband suggested she concentrate on the stacks. “I had just gotten a new Nikon D100, and I thought it would be a good technical exercise,” she says. “When I came off the island, I had the very early beginnings of the project Volume.”

© Mickey Smith

Prize collection: Smith with work from the Volume series in the background.

Smith returned from the residency inspired. She contacted the St. Paul Public Library, showed administrators her images and consequently photographed their collection. She was immediately drawn to the library’s utilitarian publications, including bound journals and periodicals. “I fell in love with these things because they were so graphic and simple yet contained so much information,” she remembers. “They were something that was quickly disappearing from the library system.”

Part of the depth of Smith’s work lies in photographing objects that are either dying out or changing form, as libraries opt for digital records or microfiche. In fact, when Smith returned recently to photograph one of the titles, the librarians said it was no longer on the shelves. “They said, ‘Oh, it’s been sent to the caves,’ which are actually deep storage caves along the Mississippi River.”

© Mickey Smith

Book worm: A “Spectator” series in baby blue.

Progress

Smith’s first significant print sale was to the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota in 2005, but she still wasn’t fully assured her work would be widely saleable. The turning point came after four years of expanding and perfecting Volume (supporting herself by freelancing and running a small design company with her husband). Smith received the McKnight Artist Fellowships for photographers, worth $25,000.

“I received it on my 33rd birthday and almost fell on the floor,” she says. The prestigious fellowship created buzz and notoriety in the art world. Smith’s first important show was at the Deborah Colton Gallery in Houston, where her work hung alongside artists including Lawrence Wiener and Yoko Ono in a show called “WORD.”

© Mickey Smith

Book worm: Smith discovered a series of tattered books with the word “Loco” printed on their spines.

“To be included in that group was incredibly significant for me, to feel like I was on the right track,” Smith says.

Of course, in order to support herself, Smith needed collectors to purchase the work—and because of her background in arts administration, she knew just how hard that could be. While a few U.S. galleries currently carry her work, Smith has sold most of her pieces to collectors (most recently a big private collector from Lincoln) who contact her directly.

According to Bekman, that’s no coincidence. “She has her editions worked out, her pricing figured out. She knows how she prints her work, the size of each print, how it’s best presented and has her artist statement together,” Bekman says. “But she’s also flexible. It makes it really easy to publicize the show and sell the work because you have everything at your fingertips.”

CAMERA: Nikon D200 LENS: AF Zoom-NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED COMPUTER: MacBook Pro SOFTWARE: Adobe Creative Suite

While Smith’s next move is to a new apartment in New York City, she will continue to work on Volume as well as two other projects: Forever Govern Ignorance, close-up photographs of microfiche cards that contain millions of government records, and unaccompanied Minor, documenting children’s means of travel between their divorced parents. She was also asked to create a piece for the Contemporary Art in Traditional Museums Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia for September 2008.

As Smith brushes up on her Russian literature, she will continue to shop around for gallery representation in New York, and given her inherent energy and determination, the art scene is sure to see more of her.

“Everything about her—how she approaches her work, makes it and presents it—is meticulous,” Bekman says. “There’s lots of attention to detail, but it’s also not mechanical. And above all, her work is really stunning.”

© Mickey Smith