Barns fascinate me for their openness, history, and working spaces. I love the way light filters through the walls of barns and the beauty of the evidence of being in constant relationship to the elements. Walking into a barn feels almost cathedral-like to me, a great symbol of our dependence on the land and a place to give thanks for all the
land gives to us.

This series of paintings is inspired by the tobacco barns of the Connecticut River Valley, with their slatted sides and striking geometric forms. In this work, I explore color, texture, and abstraction, reducing these familiar structures to bold, minimal shapes that invite viewers to see barns in a new way.”
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Jo studied art in college and lived off-campus twice, once in NYC with 2 artists, (Elaine Reicheck and Niki Berg) and once in Kenya with the school for international training. “My focus in Kenya was on a cross-cultural analysis of art through field work with the Pokot tribe and in Kisii, at a soapstone quarry. I became deeply interested in undeveloped and unschooled forms of art as well as the universal need for art and self-expression. I started to think deeply about my time in NYC and my time in rural Africa”. It was the juxtaposition of “high art” and the universal human need for expression that dominated Jo’s mind. She was heavily influenced by artists like Joan Miro whose playful forms and bright colors crossed the cultural barriers and talked about such dualities and contradictions. These themes are still part of her work today. “I am constantly being pulled between making “good art” and just allowing myself to paint intuitively and focus on self-expression and our human experience”.

After college Jo started teaching art.  In 1994 she moved to Western Mass to paint full time. In 1995 she went to graduate school for Art therapy as she became interested in the unconscious mind and its contribution to art making. She continued to focus on understanding that there is a deep drive within all of us to be creative and that this drive is ancient and crosses all cultures but she also started to believe that art making is essential and healing.

Even as Jo became an Art Therapist and worked with clients in psychiatric settings she was painting. “I have always had a studio of
my own, it is essential. I am constantly in conversations about one’s relationship to self, others and the community. It is the intersection of the human condition and the creative drive that fuels my own
creative process.”

Jo currently works and paints at Jo Smith Studio Gallery located at 9 market street in Northampton, MA. Her gallery is open to the public the 2nd Friday of the month (during Northampton Arts Night Out) or by appointment. “Being open on Northampton Arts Night Out gives me the opportunity to interact with our local community and have these
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