Keri Smith//Hannah Lokken
Keri Smith calls herself an author/illustrator turned guerilla artist. How awesome would that be? She is a free lance illustrator so she has worked for many different clients from all around the world. For example, she has produced work for Random House, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ford Motor Co., the Boston Globe, Galison/Mudpuppy Press, and Hallmark. Thats the kind of stuff she works on in addition to her guerilla artist lifestyle.
A graffiti artist is also known as a street artist. Her first experience at graffiti was during her first year of art school. Students had to create some form of graffiti. “There is something wonderfully sneaky about leaving some form of art in public places”, she says.
Keri Smith isn’t always running around being devious, she also gives lectures and workshops on a variety of topics for The Learning, Arts and the Brain Summit at Johns Hopkins University and other schools across North America.
The greatest thing about Keri Smith that I find so inspiring is the fact that she is the author of several bestselling books about creativity. Some of her books are Wreck This Journal (2007), How to be an Explorer of the World-the Portable Life/Art Museum (2008) and This Is Not A Book (2008). They all have a handmade astetic to them including her own handwriting and illustrations.
Keri Smith also keeps a blog, which is a great way for her to be creative every day. It has a huge following. She spends most of her days “playing with her husbpand and son and divides her time between upstate New York, and the country side of Canada.”
I admire Keri Smith because she is a woman who has a zest for life and who follows her ambitions. In an interview she says “We need to become drunk with the process of living.” She tries to do as much living as possible. I think this is fantastic advice because in the end, isn’t that all anyone can do?
