Artist on the Rise: Greta Smith

Looking at a list of interests of University of Sioux Falls (USF) student Greta Smith, you might assume she’s approximately seven different people. But when it comes to the arts, she’s not interesting in limiting herself.

Greta Smith

The visual artist—who happens to dabble in music and theatre as well—puts those skills to use on a constant basis, whether it’s designing magazines for the University, dressing the set for the original play she wrote herself or simply casually admiring the world around her.

Smith came by this mentality thanks to a passing interest in art that turned very much active once her family got involved.

“I went to an arts magnet school through fifth grade,” she said. “We would have art block at the end of the day, and that’s where it all started. I really loved my elementary art teacher, and I remember painting Water Lilies in her class.

“I remember one year, my family gave me exclusively art supplies for my birthday. A family, a school and a placement that was able to assist that growth in me. That’s my origin story.”

And though visual art took a back seat through middle and high school, she rediscovered her passion for it thanks mostly to a break—the gap year she took before she started at USF a few years ago.

“I think it was the fact that I knew I could do anything,” Smith said. “In my gap year, I made enough money to pay for four years of school if I kept working summers. I had a plan. I think that year changed my life in a lot of ways. I didn’t want to do it originally, but I found a couple jobs, worked 60-70 hours a week to get the money I needed. And from that came the sense of ‘you can do anything.’ And also the idea that you need to like what you do.”

That job took the form of working in a deli, waking up early in the morning to deal in meats. “I hated it—every single day getting up at 6 a.m., and slicing ham. It was the worst thing ever—I’m a vegetarian now!” But it was once she experienced an unlikely form of artistic expression at the corresponding bakery that she realized visual art needed to reenter her world.

“We were creating tarts and melting ganache and dipping hazelnuts—everybody was so intentional with their decisions, and it felt like art to me,” Smith said. “Art makes life livable and enjoyable, so I think that’s part of it in a big way—I learned in that year that, if I want something, I have to try really hard for it. I don’t want to get up at 6 a.m., unless art has something to do it.”

When it comes to tools of choice, Smith finds herself largely leaning into painting, despite some internal tumult with the process. “I love paint, and the nature of paint, but sometimes I make a piece and if I can’t achieve what I want, I hate it. Painting has this strong pull for me in its beauty, but I have a tangled relationship with it, because I usually end up hating what I do.”

That love-hate relationship has kept her busy exploring other avenues of artistic expression, namely graphic design, videography and photography. “I’m able to succeed more often with that,” Smith said of her graphic design experience at USF. “Maybe that’s because there’s more convention. You can work from a grid, and it’s so fast to experiment. I consistently find that graphic design is one of my assets.”

But not to be held back from other pursuits, Smith has also spent some time on the USF stage, performing in various productions and even, most recently, debuting an original play, directed by senior Devin Wolthuizen. In addition to writing the play, Ruby, Smith designed the set, which included 35 works of art, from photography and collage to graphic design and painting.

“I think the main pull of theatre is to tell a story,” she said. “What I’ve been finding is that I’m more of a writer/designer than I ever was an actor. I love to sing and I love to act, but there’s something about the competition that’s a whole big ball of mess and feelings. 

“But I do love the fact that theatre and music are in your whole body. They use your physical being as a means of making art, as opposed to a painter with a brush and paints. I love the idea that the art comes from within you and out through you.”

Looking well beyond the now and into what’s next, Smith herself struggles to commit herself to just one lane moving forward. Though magazine design seems like a sensible option for this art, media studies and English major, she also sees painting continuing to be a key part of her life.

“I think I’ll be painting forever, regardless of whether anyone would want to buy it. I also want to release an album.” (Did we mention Smith just so happens to have recently opened for a vocalist on the Levitt Sioux Falls bandshell?)

But as far as what life holds, her response is simple. “Everything—I see everything.”