Texas Catholic Newspaper

Terrell Artist Shares Talent With Her Parish

 by Marty Perry

Terrell.  When Shelley Kolman Smith was creating her award-winning sculpture, "The Living Water," for St. John the Apostle Church, she was acting out her faith.

"I feel as if God has given me this gift," the 44-year-old artist said.  "This is my was of giving it back."

St. John parishioners have the opportunity to view those God-given gifts at Mass.  Last year, Kolman Smith donated to her parish the life-size sculpture that features Christ from the waist up, hands outstretched with water flowing from one hand to the other.

The statue illustrates John 4:13-14:  "In answer Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again.  He, however, who drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water \that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting."

"It's an amazing piece," said Father Michael Forge, pastor.  "We are honored to have it here."

Kolman Smith's journey that led to her artistic career is the stuff of movies.  A military brat who dabbled in architecture in college, she admits, "I had artistic ability, but I never had any drive."

After a lackluster job as a draftsman, she opted for an adrenalin-laced job with the Dallas Police Department.  Her assignments ranged from patrol to dispatch and an undercover job posing as a high school student.  She met fellow officer Patrick Smith, who she later married.

After several moves, Kolman Smith and her husband, now an attorney, have settled with their three children, Neil, 16, Emily, 14, and Ellen, 11, on a 17-acre spread in Poetry, a small community near Terrell.

It was the birth of her first child that led Kolman Smith down a path she had never dreamed of before.

"I had always been artistic, but I had never felt an overwhelming desire to created portraits until I looked into the miraculous face of my beautiful child," she said.

Kolman Smith's pencil drawings caught the attention of friends and neighbors who asked her to draw their children, turning her new hobby into a money-making venture.  After seven years and the birth of her two youngest children, who also became her models, the artist realized a need to challenge herself.

She took up watercolors.  Within a year her paintings were hanging in the Monticello Gallery in Highland Park.  She enjoyed success in the medium - including winning first prize as artist of the month for Southwest Watercolor Society in 1999 - and was commissioned to do portraits of several prominent Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston families.

The self-taught artist also used her gift to help others.

She has donated paintings to local charity auctions, including the Cattlebaron's Ball, Ursuline Academy of Dallas, St Rita School in Dallas and the school her three children attend, Terrell Christian Academy.

Again, the need to challenge herself arose.  Her choice: sculpting.

"I took lessons and it just clicked," Kolman Smith said. "It was amazing, the tactile experience of playing in the mud."

Daughter Ellen served as the model for a sculpture of a young girl wearing anel wings, a tutu and cowboy boots, holding a doll similarly dressed.  She was pleased with the results.

"I feel as if God has groomed me along the way," she said.  "It's phenomenal.  I think if God has given you a gift and you don't use it, I think you've kind of let Him down."

Kolman Smith said it is important that all of her works have a message of a story told in them.  She has a penchant for portraits of children, especially her own, but she also paint the horses, cow and chickens on their homestead, affectionately called "The Flying Paint Ranch."

"My paintings depict not only a likeness, but portray the personality of my subjects," she said.  "I want them to say more than just here's a pretty girl.  I want the viewer to think of the emotion and the situation that went into it.  I want my paintings to reach different levels of consciousness."

However, she added with  laugh, "The chickens are pretty much just flat chickens."

Kolman Smith is a fairly prolific artist who usually has several commissions in progress.  She has painted more than 150 portraits, a good many portraits of her children and the rest mostly commissioned works.

She has completed about 15 statues and busts.  Her favorite is a 28-inch tall, 60-pound statue of angel called "Serenity," that sits on the dining room table.

"It was interesting and I may do another one someday, but it was so heavy that before I do it, I may have to work out first," she said with a smile.

Another special piece, she said is "December 25," a bust of Mary with the newborn Jesus cradled under her chin.

"I didn't plan it that way, but when you photograph it at different angles, her hear appears to trun," she said.

Portraits are her bread and butter, but her preference is for liturgical art.

"There's a tremendous satisfaction in portraits in getting the personality to come through," she said.  "But with statues I can use my imagination.  I'm not bound."

The idea for the church piece was conceived several years ago when Vincentian Father George Weber, then pastor of the Terrell parish, asked her to paint the number of the New Year on the church's Paschal candle.  After performing the annual update over the next few years, Kolman Smith wanted to do an unrelated piece of art that was more elaborate.  the priest and sculptor worked together to form the design.

The initial product - smaller and in terra cotta - impressed Father Weber so much that he wanted a larger version in bronze.  He contacted the Vincentian priests for funds for the bronzing.

Kolman Smith said she was happy to donate the piece.

"I couldn't not do it," she said, adding that she sells other art pieces. "I'd do it all for free if I could find someone to pay my children's way through college."

Although she eschews art contests because she's not a big fan of art being judged, she was prompted by a fellow parishioner to enter "The Living Water" in a contest conducted by Ministry and Liturgy magazine, a primary resource for liturgists and pastoral ministers.

The bronze was one of the three to receive the BENE award - one level below Best of Show.  The prize was 100 copies of the magazine.

"I didn't mind that there wasn't any money.  the publicity was worth it's weight in gold," Kolman Smith said, adding that it had led to recognition by the art community and several leads on commissions.

To her amazement, her bronze was featured on the cover of the March 2004 issue.

"The cover was a surprise," she said.  "It was totally cool.  And for my first bronze to get that kind of attention was really amazing."

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