Creating In Alignment with Frances Smokowski

*Artist, Frances Smokowski with drawings featured in EDGEWALKERS, Cavin-Morris Gallery, NYC. May, 2023. Photo by Ernest Burden III.*

In this interview Oakland-based artist and writer, Leora Lutz, engages with New York-based artist, Frances Smokowski, about creating her biomorphic abstractions through intuition and spiritual connection.

Born in Western New York, Frances Smokowski has primarily been recognized for her contributions to the field of Art Therapy. Her work with neurodiverse populations began in the late 1980’s at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and continues today, though the format of her offerings has changed. In 2008, she took a leave from the field to pursue additional training in historic painting and drawing techniques in New York City. Since securing her MFA in 2010, Ms. Smokowski has built a thriving private practice providing individualized art instruction for students of all levels, including those with exceptional giftedness and/or special needs.

Throughout her career as a facilitator Frances has maintained a vital, and highly personal, studio practice. Over the course of four decades she has produced work in series, focusing from time to time on analog collage, mixed media works, drawing and painting, among other things. She gives herself permission to create “as needed.”

*BETWEENOX, acrylic over archival pigment print, 2022, 5-1/4 x 3-13/16”, Antique Mahogany frame. Courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery, NYC.*

Leora: In describing the making of your work, you use the term “intuitive receptivity” - I really love this as a concise synopsis of being open and allowing form to develop without preconceived ideas.

Frances: You’ve understood correctly—being open, allowing the forming to happen without preconception—that is how I work. In meditative states, including focused writing sessions, I do land some wonderful things, statements that feel right to me. I find intuitive process more captivating than rendering out things I can already see, or designs already planned.

Similarly, on your IG you state: “I believe in co-creatorship. That Humans collaborate with Nature, Energy, The Animating Forces…”

Yes. There’s an integrated “embedded-ness” that living things have, bodies inseparable from Nature and Matter. Humans as living creatures are by birthright as completely supported by Nature/form/matter as other living things. I experience an Animating force, the energetic, the something larger that organizes material and reflects existence, that grows us, heals us, and mediates our return to the non-physical. I’m by no means an expert in metaphysics, but I have explored, Soul Searched, read, experimented, studied with masters of various modalities and disciplines. I see the power of mind/logic/reason as a tool, of emotion as a guidance system, of body as an exquisite sensate instrument for the expression of both uniqueness and connectedness to the Source, the Great Mysteries, the Energy and Light beyond material existence.

*AETHERSCAPES, Left: #4-WINDFALL; Right: #1-LINK, Graphite on Rag Paper, 8 x 6” each, 2023. Courtesy of the Artist.*

This [co-creatorship with “Nature, Energy, The Animating Forces”] resonated with me when I read that while creating your newest series you "received" the word "Aetherscapes." Can you elaborate on your process of co-creatorship and receiving information?

Well, to begin, there’s my general understanding that Souls create their own experience (consciously or unconsciously), the World itself providing context and physical support, whereas other Souls are collaborators.

My drawings are “thought forms,” my way of wondering and creating wonderment visually. They are contemplations, but also invocations and intentions answered—typically in a phenomenological mode. Actions, changes, choices unfold and evolve through shapes. But, it’s illusionistic volumes I find most compelling and, as you say, resonant.

On one level, when I use the term “co-creating” it speaks to my Humanity connecting with my larger Spirit, my Over Soul, my Higher Self…the larger Wisdom within, inextricably and eternally connected to Source. Ego functions tend to divide, separate, sort, limit, restrict, etc. Early in my adult life I had periods of disconnection from Spirituality, belief systems, and from trust in the larger me. My attempts to disconnect came at tremendous cost and resulted in very painful experiences. I came to trust Spiritual connection because in every way it has worked better for me, and it feels true. This energy I work with and through now has brought me healing, grace, confidence that ego driven prove-your-self activities have not. Can not.

On another level, I refer to co-creation as an intimate process of expressing relationally with Source. The experience of connecting with a sense of origin, of whatever encompasses and empowers the All and Everything (Creator energy) drives my own creative process. Considering myself a discrete individuation, a unique part/expression/emanation from that—these thoughts have been empowering, healing, worth living into, and for. I enjoy collaborating with that, being instrumental for something never-before-seen, and uniquely mine to come through.

Simply put, co-creation means alignment….

What do you think the difference would be if you owned or claimed that word (or imagery) as coming from you, as opposed to receiving it from an outside entity/force?

To answer your question more specifically, when I receive words, and also the images, I DO OWN THEM—that’s the co-creation part. They are my energy interacting with the material, and the non-material.

I’ve a unique set of attributes and aptitudes that Spirit/INspiration comes through and the adventure of the never-before-seen unfolding at my hand; that keeps me captivated and open. It is improvisation, something created in the moment, unrehearsed, unpremeditated. I don’t get hung up on which entity or what you call the force. I prefer to not know…better for arriving in the wordless place to have less to think about.

For many years I drew while listening to Sanskrit chants. I’ve drawn to medieval polyphony, Latin prayer, shamanic drums—nuances of the cultural influence or an invoked deity reveal themselves in various ways—but the drawings are always recognizable as mine.

I don’t experience insight/poetic phrases or my images as coming from an “outside entity or force” quite the way your question implies. The voice I receive internally is almost always my own, the same voice I think with for pedestrian thoughts. The wisdom I receive is beyond my normal thoughts, though, but it comes to me, through me, and feels meant for me. I don’t particularly care if guidance comes from Higher Self, Angels, Bodhisaatvas, Saints. I appreciate and love them all. The energy of ALL, is comprehensive. I focus on energy, not entity. I focus on connection, while relaxing into receptivity. I tune in to what feels right and safe and true and life-enhancing. I became a willing receiver, a transcriber of forms.

Put another way, my pencils move to the rhythms I pick up energetically, as vibrations, which transmute into imaginal form . . . co-creation is simply coordination, composition, orchestration. I understand all inspiration as being something greater coming through . . . a breath from “outside” received and used to move things within and beyond.

*SPECTRAL ILLUMINARE: acrylic over archival pigment print, 2022, 8.5 x 6” on 11 x 8.5” paper. Collection of Mediumistic Art, Munich, Germany. Courtesy of Dr. Elmar R. Gruber*

Musical instruments [particularly the flute] come to mind. Wind/breath, player and flute, together, make the sounding. Composition requires a sense or understanding of musical principles and operations in time, tone, rhythm, meter, etc. A song differs from mere sound or noise in having some structure and organization, skill.

Who owns the wind? As I direct the air through my body it becomes my breath. If I manipulate the holes that the wind is released through, it’s my music as well as belonging/being absolutely to/of the air. I become flute and musician to the flow, wind, energy. It becomes OUR energy. I’ve no life without the air I breathe and release. Making art of it, is a choice, and a discipline.

Dr. Elmar R. Gruber has shared with me his thoughts on “conscious channeling,” a state of connection with energetic presences in a collaborative agreement that does not involve trance to the point of unconsciousness. It’s a kind of automatism, of surrender, but still being aware and able to respond in a manner that a specialized skillset or technical knowledge is effectively employed. My commitment to palpability in my art—a convincingness, is a factor. Emotional realism is what I dubbed it long ago in my journaling. I’ve invested heavily in developing a level of technical mastery. It is a great pleasure to use those skills, especially in concert with the Flow.

You refer to the act of drawing as "Sustained Effortlessness." That is a beautiful way to phrase intuitive rigor required for sitting with the materials and keeping the body aligned with movement, to allow the forms to surface on the page.

Thank you. That’s my truth. Mostly…it’s keeping body aligned with Spirit, to move inspired.

You describe the process of drawing as "blessed release from verbal thought and ego functions.” Can you talk a little bit about the relationship of your body and mind while drawing?

My body is my tuning fork. At times, if it’s a slow entry into flow states, I just start to draw and then the feeling comes. In that case the forms are more rigid and hard edged, my static, my baseline and then I work through and beyond into expansive states. Other times I pray, and wait until there is a clear impulse, the energy flow arriving before marks are made. My mind does wander from time to time. I have mind’s eye visions that generally provide next step guidance or sometimes a glimpse of the gestalt or the larger design. Mundane stuff intrudes on occasion and that usually forces a break for realignment— a reboot. At such times I return to body centering, deep breathing, qi gong movement, sounds I make. Non-attachment is the key.

I do not see body, mind and spirit as separate. I see bodies as manifestations of Spirit, as instruments. Mind (depends); it’s where choice, [one’s] will, attention and focus serve to integrate or disintegrate the matter. But there is also the perfection of the healing space, the Grace that holds everyone whole and within the All, regardless of the individual karmas and events suffered. That is where Mind serves Spirit, and Body well.

*VAPROTENT: drawing from “The Book of Apperceptions”, 2014-2016, graphite on flocked paper, 8.5 x 6.” Drawn on NY City Public Transportation. Courtesy of the Artist.*

Tapping into the collective consciousness can feel overwhelming and burdensome or heavy, and as you say, can even be “unsafe” to take on so much external feeling. What do you think are some of the intrinsic differences of channeling Spirit vs. "feeling" the collective consciousness?

Channeling Spirit is an experience of pure, buoyant Bliss. It’s total calm, conflict free and effortless. The collective is fraught with issues, struggle, stories, characters, dynamics… hardly effortless, though enchantment, metaphor and other positives can be there, too, but within the challenges of duality. Spirit transcends, supersedes, transmutes duality and conflict.

As an Art Therapist I have witnessed, worked with and facilitated healing through connection with the pre-conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious material. It’s powerful and effective but takes considerable time and effort, and has a different feel. Spiritual process can be a part of therapeutic process. But, in my personal experience, Spiritual connection, energetic process worked readily where psychological paradigms fell short.

You mention that the picture plane is a “mirror” – I assume you mean that the page is mirroring you.

On one level, you assume correctly. It’s a foundational principle in Art Therapy that the image reflects its creator, reflects the artist’s conscious and unconscious content, including drives, conflicts, identity, beliefs and defenses.

But as I type, that phrase “reflects its creator” if creator is capitalized, that is also worth consideration . . . the wind, air, spirit coming through the flute . . . the music reflecting simultaneously instrument and the flow, the Nature of Life and the Life of Nature. The work of Art truly does reflects the Artist on every level, including in choices, karmas and destiny.

*POLYCHROME COMMUNICODA WIP, Acrylic over archival pigment print, 2022. Image area cropped to 16.2 x 7.5.” Framed work available through Cavin-Morris Gallery, NY, NY. Photo by the Artist.*

But conversely, the viewer is then looking at your rendered mirror.

In a way, yes, of course. But in many ways, not quite. People project. They may see what they want, what they are used to, what is familiar, reflexive, affirming of what they believe, and that’s natural, inevitable. Some will feel the images. Mirror neurons and empathy functions get mobilized in witnessing. Yet, there are viewers who read energy, who resonate, who receive information on deeper levels. They will experience my work differently than the projectors or the judges.

In my experience, an energetic transfer to the viewer through encounter with the forms I draw does happen. Collectors write me about interesting experiences they have had living with the work. I treasure those messages. The common thread they convey is feeling uplifted and enhanced from being with the work.

What do you want people to see or hope that they see when they look at this rendered mirror?

I hope people experience wonder, awe and a suspension of pedestrian thought, a break from opinion, preference, the burdens of judging. I hope people feel the healing serenity that unfolds the work. Einstein observed how problems cannot be solved on the level at which they were created. Envisioning unprecedented alternatives is necessary.

My metaphors are phenomenological. Processes are going on; growth patterns, expansions, proliferations, echoes and soundings out pictured. The drawings are meditations on what works, imagining origins and operations beyond pain, conflict and suffering. They are ontological, for meditation on Being in Balance, harmonized, in and of the flow of personal uniqueness. They guide the eye, like Yantras.

My drawings are ceremonious energy healings that have forwarded me on my path of recovery from illness, trauma, karma. I have been told by the Shamanic healers that have helped me, that there is a parallel purpose of the work that brings healing energy and empowering thoughts to others as well, and that is an important reason for bringing the work forward and not just keeping it for myself.

STUDIO APPERCEPTIONS, Above: Untitled, oil on canvas 8 x 8”, 2014; Below: SOONIMBUS drawing from “The Book of Apperceptions,” graphite on flocked paper 8-1/2 x 6” (single page) . Drawn on NY City Public Transportation. Photo by the Artist.

Leora Lutz is an Oakland-based interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on the intersection between language and human connection. Most recently her practice includes using fabric and metal as alchemical bridges between materiality and spiritualism: metallurgy as symbolic of transformation through fire, and the act of sewing as a metaphor for the esoteric missive “As Above, So Below.” Lutz is a published author of numerous art essays and critical reviews for galleries and news magazines including Surface Design Journal, The Art Newspaper, Art in America, Elephant and SF Arts Quarterly. Her artwork has been seen at galleries, museums and public spaces in California, Japan and elsewhere, including CCA Wattis Institute of Art, MoCA Los Angeles, The Palm Springs Art Museum, the US Embassy in Belgrade, and Angel Island.

To learn more about Frances Smokowski, please visit her website: www.francessmokowski.com

To learn more about Leora Lutz, please visit her website: www.leoralutz.com