Richard Zane Smith


Richard Zane Smith is a Wyandot sculptor who grew up in St. Louis Missouri and learned the art of pottery at the Kansas City Art institute. Smith's works draw from his ancient Wyandotte heritage as well as Pueblo inspired designs that incorporate coils and layers within the clay. Smith utilizes the influences of many Southwestern pottery styles, including the Navajo and the Ancient Puebloans.

Personal life

Richard Zane Smith was born in 1955 and is of the Wyandot peoples of Oklahoma. He was born in Georgia and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Smith specialized in ceramics when he attended the Kansas City Art institute.
Smith was introduced to art at a young age. He and his four siblings would gather around and listen to many stories told by their parents throughout their childhood. Smith found an interest in clay during his high school years. In addition to clay, Smith would work with many natural materials, such as wood, leather, and stone, and the main media for his art was clay. During these same years, Smith also formed an interest with his Wyandot roots.
Smith has also advocated for the rebirth of the Wyandot language. Having gone officially extinct in the 1930s, Smith began teaching the language to Wyandote people who live in northeastern Oklahoma.

Cultural inspiration

In 1978, Smith traveled to Arizona where he worked as an art instructor at a Navajo mission school. This was his first contact with native clays and Ancient Puebloan potsherds and fragments. He incorporated such ideas into his works and bore a new style of pottery. Smith's pottery has been described as reminiscent of pre-historic corrugated pottery from the southwest as well as resembling the ancient basket-works of the Wyandot people. It is also cited as being unique to Smith as well as a representation of his roots in Anasazi pottery as well as his Wyandot heritage.

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