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<\/a>The minute I enter the reception area of\u00a0Gibbs Smith Publisher<\/a>, among the expected stacks of books I am struck by the large oil painting of southern Utah hanging on the wall. It is by the publisher, who, in addition to running a successful publishing house for over 40 years, is an avid painter. Gibbs Smith has twice moved to Utah from California, most recently in 1973 when he moved with his wife, Catherine, to set up Gibbs Smith Publisher in a converted barn in Kaysville. He ushers me in to his office, a spacious, warmly-furnished room with a window looking out on a landscape of trees and snow \u2013 a perfect setting for an environmentalist who for five years was the president of the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club. Paintings, memorabilia and bookshelves line the walls. Among the photos Smith points out a black-and-white shot of Maynard Dixon in his smock, next to one of his paintings. Dixon, a painter Smith studied when he was younger, is the subject of three books published by Smith, two of which were part of last year\u2019s catalog. Looking through the company\u2019s\u00a0Spring 2011 catalogue<\/em>\u00a0I see two of Smith\u2019s paintings, on the front and back cover. The subjects are two of the many bookstores he has visited all over the country and which appear regularly in his catalogs. His 2009 publication commemorating four decades in the business,\u00a0The Art of the Bookstore<\/em>, includes 68 of these.<\/span><\/p>\nSmith first came to Kaysville as a young boy when his family moved here from Berkeley, California, because his father wanted to be a small-town dentist. Gibbs says his mother was passionate about art \u2013 \u201cshe was a wonderful Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) artist and did windows for Gump\u2019s and the like in San Francisco\u201d \u2013 so when the family met local artist LeConte Stewart they developed a friendship and Smith\u2019s mother began taking lessons. \u201cI was always tagging along,\u201d Gibbs explains. He describes sitting at Stewart\u2019s knee at age 12\u00a0watching him paint, and Stewart\u2019s response when he asked him who the best American painters were: Maynard Dixon and Edward Hopper. Stewart would take Gibbs for rides around the back country, driving very slowly, stopping to point out various aspects of the landscape, saying things like, \u201cJust look at that pattern of snow on the asphalt, black and white \u2026.\u201d and asking Gibbs what he thought was the darkest element in a landscape, then answering for him \u2014 the trees. \u201cAs I grew up,\u201d Smith says, \u201cI became more and more interested in how one could paint landscapes, through him. Although I wasn\u2019t particularly drawn to landscape painting myself, I WAS interested in seeing how he did it.\u201d And so he decided to practice what Stewart was telling him and to study Dixon\u2019s and Hopper\u2019s work. \u201cI really didn\u2019t want to be another LeConte in my style and I really didn\u2019t want to go to art school, because I always felt like I had a unique self and could express what\u2019s inside of me rather than be trained to think like someone else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Smith developed friendships with several artists in Salt Lake City \u2013 Denis Phillips, Bonnie Posselli, Randall Lake, Earl Jones \u2013 all of whom took him under their wing. He says he kind of grafted himself onto them, trying to learn what he could from each. \u201cBut I really suffer from not having disciplined myself in terms of formal training, because I\u2019m not a good drawer, but I do understand the emotional impact of a painting \u2013 I know how to pull it off . . . sometimes. I haven\u2019t regretted what I\u2019ve done but I could use more technical training.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy core belief is that I have to listen to myself, expose myself to a lot of things, and see what I like, to experiment,\u201d Smith says of his autodidacticism. \u201cAnd so I studied art history on my own just to see what I liked.\u201d What he liked was the French painter Pierre Bonnard for his loose drawing style and ability to capture his subject better than any one Smith had seen. He admires Bonnard\u2019s humility, his painting only what he liked, his being not terribly concerned about selling his work. Another French artist, Albert Marquet, appealed because of his ability to capture in a single gesture whatever he wanted to convey.<\/p>\n When looking at Smith\u2019s paintings, it\u2019s easy to understand why he likes Bonnard and Marquet. Smith is a sensualist \u2013 he loves color, the smells of turpentine, canvas, linen, and oil paint (he says each pigment has a different aroma). He feels art\u2019s connection to nature. \u201cI love the buttery feel of oil paints \u2026 it all connects with the earth. Those are natural earth things that symbolically get packaged up so that we can use them.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith also enjoys the sensual aspect of his day job. He loves the smell of new books, the ink, the paper, the binding. Aromas are important to him and he loves to cook (cookbooks make up a substantial portion of his publishing portfolio). He got into the business after attending college in California. He was inspired by a meeting with Alfred A. Knopf, of Random House Publishing. When they met in New York Knopf told him that the best way to grasp what it takes to be a publisher was to look around his library. Smith did just that, spending the whole day in the library. A lifelong friendship developed between Knopf and Smith, and a decades-long career began for Smith when he and his wife published their first four books \u2013classics on California \u2014 in 1969.<\/p>\n Publishing and painting are intimately connected in Smith\u2019s world. It seems as though the two can\u2019t be separated in terms of his life outlook and values and aesthetics. He likes the combination and has no wish to retire from publishing or from painting; nor does he particularly wish to sell or part with his paintings. He sees them as old friends. \u201cWhy I do bookstores is obvious \u2013 I\u2019m a publisher, and I want to celebrate book-selling. Bookstore owners are really interesting, always, and their creation, physically, of their little drama with their store is something I try to appreciate through the paintings. And they like it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always thinking about paintings, even when not painting. What I paint isn\u2019t what\u2019s out there, isn\u2019t reality. It\u2019s my dream of the reality. I paint my dream of the city at night \u2013 it\u2019s not actually representing what\u2019s there, it\u2019s the feeling of what\u2019s there. My paintings start with conjuring up a dream, days before getting a brush out. I either sketch or make photos, then start thinking and dreaming about it, then I sit down and try to pull it off.\u201d He says it\u2019s not like LeConte Stewart who could take his easel outdoors and come away with a finished piece in a single afternoon. \u201cI don\u2019t like that, I enjoy what I do better.\u201d He finds painting to be a very contemplative act. When asked how he knows when a painting is finished, he says that he\u2019s learned to hold back a bit, to not make it be finished. He\u2019s learned the value of layering and feels that he can add depth by being patient and doing more. \u201cBut I do quit eventually, just say, \u2018OK, it\u2019s over.\u2019\u201d He trusts his inner self rather than obeying rules. \u201cI\u2019ve never been good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/31-536x800.jpg\")
<\/a>Smith\u2019s not likely to take up any formal training, however, having always preferred to find his own path. Ever since he was young he has paid attention to what he responds to personally. Early on he loved big cities \u2014 like New York or Chicago \u2014 at night. He trained himself in the Ashcan School genre and started thinking about nocturnes.\u00a0\u201cThat really turned me on \u2013 I liked that.\u201d He especially liked city pavements in the rain, with light reflecting out of windows. He was drawn to abstract art, attracted by its emotional power, and mentions getting to know and like Lee Deffebach and her work, and admiring her love of Tuscarora, Nevada. In the end, though, he acknowledges that it really wasn\u2019t him. \u201cI kind of think \u2026 that if I paint a city street at night, with rain and the lights reflecting, that I\u2019m a little bit like an abstract painter in parts of the painting . . . So I still have these other traditions in my mind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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