Vero Rose Smith Art

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United States
Chicago, IL
Vero Rose Smith Art

Artist, curator, and educator. Multi-instrumentalist. Cat-obsessed, climate change-depressed. This glitter don’t dry.
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04/29/2024

More motivational messages from anonymous hands around my neighborhood - don't dream, do it already.
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EXCITING ART UPDATE! Since moving to Chicago four years ago, I've been dreaming of having a studio space outside of my home. Last week, after a year of semi-serious searching and after an impromptu dream manifesting session with friendleague SavvySunflower and one of our current resident artists at Cps Lives, IT HAPPENED!!! I saw a place and signed a lease on Monday, and moved in on Tuesday. I'm beyond excited and so grateful for this small space. I'm looking forward to inviting you all over for tea starting next month.
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IDs: 1. A quick snap of a neighborhood sidewalk scrawled with the words "Don't Dream, DO IT ALREADY" in sky blue chalk. 2. A gray door in buttercream yellow door frame secured with a polka-dotted safety hasp. 3. A selfie of Vero, who has pale skin and short orange hair, grinning with the excitement of studio-lease signing and double chocolate croissants. 4. A white-walled room haphazardly stuffed with a random assortment of furniture, musical instruments, and art supplies. 5. A selfie of a sweaty Vero, who has pale skin and short orange hair, smiling with satisfaction after hauling her whole creative life up three flights of stairs (with the generous help of her partner and the borrowed family van).

04/11/2024

It’s / ! Arts and culture workers, this found sculpture is dedicated to yoooouuuuu. I’ll be hanging out in the peachy-keen booth 380 this weekend - come lounge on bean bag chairs and eat apples and play ‘s board game and enjoy .12348 ‘s limited edition artist tote bags while taking in their lovely art!!!
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[ID: 1. A shopping cart full of gallery lights labeled with a handwritten sign that reads “burned out.” 2. A selfie of Vero, who has pale skin and freckles and shaggy bright orange hair, standing in front of an art installation in progress.]

03/28/2024

One year with this velveteen bowling ball. Sprongle-hunter, scrimble-scrambler, opera singer. Secret snuggler. Obsidian Bonkers is a 16-pound soot sprite, enchanted by running water and entranced by perpetual kitten-cat Buckminster. Sid is still learning how to purr out loud. Sometimes, I can almost hear a flutter-stutter when my hand is resting on his vibrating chest. In these moments, I feel incredibly accomplished. What a gift to be able to offer comfort and safety to another being. I find myself speaking encouragement to him often, even though he probably only understands his own name. Maybe. Sometimes.

So, on the anniversary of our cohabitation, I offer cat-talk that could double as supportive person-talk:

🖤 You are perfect, exactly as you are.
🖤 You are beautiful! Look at you!!!
🖤 You are very good at being you.
🖤 I love your curiosity!
🖤 You try so hard to be helpful. Thank you.
🖤 I love you, not in spite of but BECAUSE of your enthusiastic, energetic approach to everything.
🖤 It's okay to have big feelings that are hard to communicate. You are doing the best you can, and that's enough.
🖤 You ate your whole meal without throwing up! I'm proud of you! I hope you are proud of yourself.

03/27/2024

Bodies as portals, transmutable and transient. Flesh as memory. Stories, storied vessels. Threading death to death, loss to the cavernous incalculable beyond. Started this on the bus to Iowa City almost two weeks ago, worked on it through conversations with friends in our old haunts.
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[ID: a single page from a 5 x 7 in sketchbook covered in dense orange, red, and yellow abstracts marks made with markers and metallic watercolor paints]

03/20/2024

Thinking about portals. Touch points between here, there. Frenetic density.
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My tiny sketchbooks from the past few months helped me re-build a daily-ish practice. Now, I'm following the impulse to work gradually larger, teasing out new visual languages for a project idea that will likely live beyond two dimensions. This little sketch is 5 inches x 7inches.
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[ID: A single page from a sketchbook featuring floating abstract blobs in pinks, oranges, and reds, surrounded by fuchsia squiggles.]

03/09/2024

My breakfast burrito is snarfed, and I’m ready to see YOU at today, 12pm-4pm, !!!
ID: a half-eaten burrito in front of a stack of tarot cards and colorful paintings

03/09/2024

✨🌙 FRESH MAGIC TOMORROW ☀️✨(3/9, 12pm-4pm, )!
For me, the difference between luck and magic comes down to agency and action - luck just happens, magic manifests, labor and love embodied and embedded.
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It's been such a lucky, magical joy and honor to adopt out these colorful canvases that I have been carrying from home to home for years. Maybe you have a wall in need of some metallic spray-painted magic? Might you want a moon to call your own?
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This will sadly be my last for a few months as my day job's busy season blossoms. Come for the stickers and paintings, hang out for the tarot readings!
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[ID: 1. A white sign with black sans serif lettering that reads "Who needs luck when you have magic." 2. A portrait of Vero at her booth during the February Handmade Market. In this photo, Vero sits in a bright orange folding chair with legs crossed. Vero has short, shaggy platinum blonde hair and is wearing a red blazer over a maroon lace top and maroon skirt. Vero is smiling at the camera and wearing a maroon mask. Behind Vero, colorful paintings are displayed on a golden sequin backdrop.]

03/01/2024

Thinking about luck this month. Black cats have always been lucky for me! Here's a quick progress video of a little black cat and pomegranate pencil drawing I made for a friend who collects "cats with fruit art."

02/29/2024

Thanks for letting me share all my hearts with you this month! These little sketches are my bread crumbs back to making art every day. I hope you are also finding ways to live creatively!

02/28/2024

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[ID: a single page from a tiny sketchbook striped with rainbow metallic brush strokes and topped with a metallic silver heart outlined in black].

02/27/2024

Searching for a heart of gold.
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[ID: a single page from a tiny sketchbook smothered in gold metallic paint and scribbled with darker gold outlines of hearts.]

02/26/2024

Shining in the dark hearts
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[ID: a single page from a tiny sketchbook covered in dark gray metallic paint marker and topped with two black-outlined silver hearts.]

02/25/2024

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[ID: 1. a digital photographic collage featuring two cat-themed tarot cards on a background of gold sequins. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook patterned neon plaid and topped with a metallic copper heart.]

02/24/2024

While my cat friends are still learning the art of roommate-ing after almost a year cohabitating, they do share many hobbies, such as: eating, napping, sitting in windows, and snuggling. When the weather warmed unseasonably, Obsidian and Buckminster enjoyed peering out into the alley and chirping back at the sparrows. Their pose reminded me of The Lovers card from the Considerate Cat deck.
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[ID:1. a digital photo collage featuring a cat-themed tarot card and a red pleather heart-shaped purse on a pink velvet and gold sequin background. 2. a snapshot of two black cats sitting in a window together, gazing down at the alley below. 3. a single page from a tiny sketchbook featuring a swirling gold and silver background and a blue wavelike shape, over which a silver and blue heart is suspended.]

02/23/2024

Tarot cards: today, focus on temperance. You know, patience, balance, moderation, avoiding extremes.
Me: Yeah, absolutely, timely message, you got it! I'LL BE THE MOST TEMPERATE! *holographic rainbow explosions*
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Cat friend Sid is also practicing temperance by only placing *two tiny peets* on the table.
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[ID: 1. digital photographic collage featuring a red heart-shaped purse on a background of pink velvet and gold sequins. 2. a single page from a small hand-sized journal decorated with a sticker collage meant to represent the Temperance tarot card. In the center of the page, a sticker depicting a cherry cocktail pours a sparkling holographic rainbow into a decadent mug of hot chocolate. 3. Black cat Obsidian sits on the back of a dining table chair, his two front feet delicately placed on the table. 4. a single page from a tiny sketch book covered in dashes of yellow, peach, red, and pink and topped with six metallic red hearts.]

02/22/2024

Patterns, patience, impulsivity. Is my love of maximalism another expression of hating waiting?! Everything all at once forever!!!
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[Image Descriptions: 1. a digital photo collage featuring a red strap of a heart-shaped purse, wedding lace, and tarot cards on a background of pink velvet. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook a sequin background open to a page of wiggly wavy green plaid with pink and red hearts.]

02/21/2024

Heart as a vessel - what does yours carry, what does yours hold?
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This particular heart of mine might contain, on any given day: a tube of lipstick, a vintage pocket field guide, some found pebble treasures, ticket stubs, folded (rarely crumpled) receipts, a phone in a color-coordinated wallet case, gel pens, feral glitter.
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[Image Descriptions: 1. a digital photo collage centering a red heart-shaped pleather purse on a pink velvet background. 2. a single page from a tiny sketch book covered in squiggly green hand-drawn plaid pattern with a shimmering green heart at the center.]

02/21/2024

I wear my heart on a pleather strap.
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[Image Descriptions: 1. a digital photo collage showing the corner of a heart-shaped crossbody back and a strand of pearls on a velvet pink background. 2. a single page from a tiny sketch book featuring an itty bitty waffle heart on a gingham background.]

02/19/2024

Phantom roses, fading winter. Disappearing season.
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[Image Descriptions: 1.digital photo collage featuring a pink rose encircled by a strand of black freshwater pearls and garnets atop wedding lace and pink velvet. 2.a single page from a tiny notebook rendered in reds and purples, three metallic hearts floating.]

02/18/2024

Why yes, this is the Lovers card from the Star Trek TNG tarot deck featuring Keiko and Chief O'Brien.
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[Image Descriptions: 1. digital photo collage of a still life arrangement of heart-shaped sunglasses, wedding lace, and tarot cards on a pink velvet background. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook featuring a watercolor spiral of teals, blues, and purples and a swirl of blue hearts.]

02/17/2024

Confused crocuses. Mud too soon. The average lifespan of a house sparrow is three years - a generation of warmest days and warmest months and warmest years. Knowledge shifting - when to forage, where to nest.
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[Image descriptions: 1. digital photo collage of heart-shaped sunglasses, tarot cards, and strands of pearls on a pink velvet background. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook showing a series of six minuscule green hearts floating towards the top of the page.]

02/16/2024

Roses! Lace! Velvet! Pink!!!
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[Image Descriptions: 1. digital photographic collage featuring a pink rose at the center surrounded by lace, strands of red cultured pearls and garnets, and heart-shaped sunglasses on pink velvet. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook covered in metallic paint swooshes, a blue heart in the upper right corner.]

02/15/2024

A professional in the eyewear industry once informed me that these silly heart-shaped sunglasses are physically incapable of protecting eyes from the sun - something about the curvature and shape of the lens. While that particular functionality may be lacking, these sunglasses enable me to beam love at everyone on the street without making accidental eye contact, so still a fashion win in my estimation!
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[Image Description: 1. digital photo collage of a series of heart-shaped sunglasses in different colors, arranged on a background of wedding lace an pink velvet. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook emblazoned with metallic watercolor arcs and a small red heart in the upper right corner of the image.]

02/14/2024

A friend recently expressed surprise that I didn't display my own paintings around my home. There's not really a reason for this, other than limited wall space. And I guess some shame and sadness at not having the time to dedicate to making work over the past few years. Moving and losing my dedicated studio space and teaching middle school and big life shifts and moving again and leaving teaching for arts administration and and and so many other excuses/reasons = very little artistic production, and definitely zero consistency in artistic production.
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It's easy to miss creative acts of the everyday.
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Even though I *feel* like I've made almost nothing in the past four years, as I look around my home, I see every room stuffed with lovingly made and arranged elements. My partner and I refurbished or built much of our furniture together, and I sewed many a pillow strewn throughout our apartment. I think of the beautiful meals we've made, the games (thought exercises? meta games?) we've designed and sent out in our monthly gamesletter, the 25 courses I designed and taught for middle and high schoolers, the two collaborative exhibitions I've been fortunate and honored to contribute to, the countless hair coloring experiments - maybe I haven't been making paintings with the same intensity as before the pandemic, but I HAVE created a vibrant life.
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Yesterday, I swapped out the mirror over our couch for my favorite work from my 2016 Mediated Moons series. Cat friends-approved interior design decision!
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What evidence of your own creativity surrounds you?
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[Image descriptions: 1. digital photo collage of tarot cards, heart-shaped sunglasses, and strands of freshwater pearls on a background of pink velvet. 2. photo of a large colorful painting on a dark green wall over a chartreuse velvet couch. Two black cats laze on the couch. 3. a tiny sketchbook opened to a single page featuring a red and purple plaid-patterned heart on a background of metallic watercolor swooshes.]

02/13/2024

Seeing the world through heart-shaped glasses. Cats and kantha quilts.(Actually two different cats! You can spot Buckminster by his dashing white whiskers. Obsidian is about two Buckminsters in weight).
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[Image Descriptions: 1. digital photo collage including a long stemmed red rose, strands of vintage glass pearls, red-dyed cultured pearls, and garnets, a tarot card, and heart-shaped sunglasses on a velvet pink background. 2. Buckminster the black and white-whiskered 13-year-old perpetual kitten cat snuggled under an orange kantha quilt on a chartreuse velvet couch. 3. Obsidian the large black cat stretched out over a blue kantha quilt. 4. a single page from a tiny sketchbook adorned with rainbow swirls of metallic watercolor and a small copper heart in the lower left corner.]

02/12/2024

Snug rug bugs, spaces between awake and asleep.
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Last night as I slept, I met the person who steals into my subconscious and paints the backgrounds of each dream. A muralist, a scenic designer, a magician. The work is elaborate, the details infinitely permutable. When the stage is set, the artist wanders and waits for me to see.
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[Image Descriptions: 1. photographic collage featuring parts of heart-shaped sunglasses and heart-shaped necklaces resting on a plush pink velvet background. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook with swooping lines of metallic teal, purple, and red. A minuscule metallic teal heart lined in red anchors the center of the image.]

02/12/2024

Thinking about art as oracle, about how so many artists historically turned towards systems of divination. Collecting tarot decks is one way to support living artists. The card on the left is from one of my all-time favorite decks, Q***r Tarot by dynamic design duo Ash + Chess - I love the neon affirmations of these cards.
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The card on the right is from infamous Surrealist Salvador Dali - narcissist, fascist, sexist, iconic. Thinking about cancel culture and canonical culture.
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[Image Description: 1. photo collage featuring two tarot cards and a charm bracelet against a background of pink velvet and cream lace. 2. a single page from a tiny sketchbook featuring delicately layered washes of metallic watercolor and a small metallic heart.]

Address

Chicago, IL
60610

Telephone

+16306317218

Website

http://verorosesmith.com/

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Videos

Thanks for letting me share all my hearts with you this month! These little sketches are my bread crumbs back to making art every day. I hope you are also finding ways to live creatively!

January Sketches

All the little sketchy-sketches from January - fun to see these miniature experiments all together! I limited myself to five minutes for each sketch, so this video represents a cumulative 155 minutes of January art-making, or an eyelash over two and a half hours. There are worse ways to spend time. ⏰ ⏰ ⏰ Thanks for following along with me! Your projects and prompts and reflections and comments encouraged me to stick with this new habit. ⏰ ⏰ ⏰ [Image Description: a looping video of 16 tiny double-sided pages from a small sketchbook, flipping to show both sides.]

January Sketches

Halfway through January! When I assembled my tiny sketchbooks for this sketch of the day project, I was torn between painting the back of the surface that became my pages or just leaving it blank. I chose to leave it blank, but quickly realized that in the five minutes I alot to creating these bitty baby color studies, I was having a lot of fun responding to the shapes and colors already on the page. So, I dissassembled the sketchbook and added some quick neon ground, with the expert help of studio assistant and cat friend Sid. 🍓 🥭 🐈‍⬛ Though I often create work about the urgency of climate change, I generally use fairly environmentally unfriendly materials (spray paint, acrylic paint, various adhesives). High falutin justifications for these material choices include something about havign to work from the world we live in as it is towards a more sustainable future, or maybe something about capturing the materiality of the moment, but a more honest reason for these choices is my innate love of all things bright and sparkling. This year, I'm thinking about how to continue working with the gorgeous and decadent completely manufactured colors and finishes I love in a way that is more aligned with the environmental advocacy of my work. Poke berries? Local mica?! So many experiments await. 🍓 🥭 🐈‍⬛ Do you make your own pigments / paints from local materials? Tell me your secrets! 🍓 🥭 🐈‍⬛ [Image Description: Short looping video detailing the transformation of 16 small paper sketchbook pages from blank to slashed with bright neon pink and orange paint)

Sketch of the day!

More dragon scales this morning. Anyone else read Fourth Wing? 🐉 🐉 🐉 [Image Description: ten second video showing a single page from a tiny sketchbook from different angles to catch the metallic glint of the shimmering silver scale shapes]