Matthew Stephen Smith

A fashion show I participated in with 9 other designers. Organized, filmed, and edited by Bradford Mumpower

A fashion show I participated in where the theme was up-cycling found things into a new piece. A huge thanks to my wonderful models and to Shani Banerjee for the photography.

I had the pleasure of creating masks and props for the production of 'The Lavender Spell' in Fall 2014. They are an amazing group of students and teaching artists.

This video/performance from 2010 is a "declaration dance" of self love, acceptance, and an invitation for growth. I got to a place where I decided to give up trying to edit or conform myself into societal roles and expectations. I think this performance shows the struggle of trying to love oneself without knowing how.

A video/performance piece from 2010 about stagnancy, loss, and birth/rebirth. Much of this piece is about expressing the hurt and grief of losing my mother and an overwhelming sense of helplessness while trying to understand my identity within American society.

Excerpt of video/performance from 2011 about intense meditation and the self isolation it causes from others and one's environment. In this performance another person is invited into the meditative act of embroidery in an attempt to ground oneself in reality and bring two people closer together.

A lot of people close to me are sick or have loved ones that are sick right now and I feel a sense of helplessness because I obviously cant save them or cure their illnesses. This piece was in response to this helplessness and is about being bound by this internal struggle and the fear of others' (and my own) mortality. I wanted it to show the external manifestation of the internal anxiety and a sense of tending to this pain as a means to process, appreciate and ultimately accept it. I want to explore further the simultaneous weight and value of it and I want to add more handwork to push the idea of the mending and "nesting" or living with these feelings.

This costume is for a performance about a character reaching a crossroad in their life. He is trying to decide whether to stay in his current unfulfilling but safe environment, or push forward towards a more fulfilling environment that is unsafe. Its about someone someone being pulled in two different directions and stuck in between two different times. He is afraid and struggling to let go of the comforts of the present or past, but also longs for something in the future that is different. He is an Ambitious Hermit.

This headpiece and veil are for a performance about a gladiator or matador who has been sentenced to death. He enters an arena to fight a ferocious beast only to realize the beast is also him. The beast is another version of himself and a part of himself that needs to die for the rest of him to survive. The gladiator is devastated that he must destroy part of himself to survive. The performance is meant to be about the initial realization, the struggle with the self over what must be done to one part to preserve the whole, and the tender, somber last dance of the gladiator and his beast.

Special thanks to friends at Artists Image Resource for making project possible. I poured clear glitter onto a scanner and then blew up the image 1000x to create the color block background that I printed as custom wallpaper. I then projected and traced photographs I had taken of foliage onto the wallpaper. Finally, I meticulously cut out the silhouettes (with much appreciate help) with x-acto blades and installed it in the client’s home.

A book I made to celebrate different memories of my mother who passed suddenly when I was 19. I realized certain memories of her began to fade years after she had passed. I knew they would continue to fade as I got older, so this book was meant as a means to remember memories and to accept how memories change and break down over time. Each 'bark book' opens to reveal a specific memory of her. I included objects that triggered memories of her as well as flowers from her garden that slowly break down inside jars. A test tube is filled with seeds of her favorite flower which are meant to be planted. These objects are meant to act as symbols of her memory, her death, and the physical disintegration of her body into the earth. I wanted to show the cyclic nature of birth and death, and how memories change and fade as result of aging. - to remember, to forget.

A short video self portrait I made in 2013. I was interested during this time in the definition of reality and how it was unique to every individual person as well as the health of their brain and brain chemistry.