Behind the Cover with Payton Smith

Payton Smith is a third year Graphic Design BFA student here at LBSU. Smith, 20 years old, is from Northern California, but moved to Long Beach to attend school and establish herself as an artist and graphic designer. Her art takes inspiration from music, the beach, and human stories. You can follow Smith’s art journey on her Instagram: @artbysmittyy

Q: What was the process behind creating this piece?

A: This piece was drawn digitally, but before I even picked up my stylus, I did some research. I needed to figure out exactly what kind of story I wanted to share. I knew I wanted to create something empowering, and I wanted to take the opportunity to represent womanhood without restricting or confining any woman into a stereotype they don’t belong in. After some thumbnail sketches, I felt proud of what I’d come up with and was ready to start my digital drawing of the cover.

Q: What were your inspirations behind the piece?

A: I drew inspiration from several aspects of the women’s suffrage movement of the 1860s to demonstrate the courage and power of women. A woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote for the first women’s newspaper The Lily, under the pseudonym “Sunflower.” Her work inspired many of the initial sparks of advocacy for women’s rights following Seneca Falls. Shortly after, suffragists in Kansas adopted the state flower, the sunflower, to become the symbol of their early movement, and it became the official symbol of the National American Woman Suffrage Association by 1896. Embroidery is a traditional domestic craft that was known to represent the expectations of women, as it is a hobby that requires patience and facilitates silence. Though it formerly represented a barrier that confined women and their aspirations, this century has seen a rise in “craftivism,” or the reclaiming of domestic crafts for the purpose of activism. Now, embroidery is often used by women as a platform for advocacy and to express their needs and frustrations. The idea of taking one of the only hobbies women were given, which was originally intended to show ample submission, and instead using it as a medium to demand change is one that inspires me as both a woman and an artist.

Q: How did you first approach it versus how it turned out?

A: My initial approach involved experimenting with colors and textures to get as close as possible to the embroidery feel in my drawing. I’ve never drawn embroidery before, so initially I wanted to place base colors and then add shadows for definition and to get the three-dimensional effect. This worked somewhat well for me, but it took some observational studies of the way embroidery floss looks in the light and twists around itself to figure out how I wanted to shade each stitch. Ultimately, this worked well for me in getting the feel to be as close as possible to actual embroidery. Adding in texture and some shadows to the embroidery hoop helped tie it all together for me as well, and I was happy with the way I was able to capture a sense of realism in my own graphic art style.

Q: Was there a main message that you wanted to get across?

A: Yes! I want this cover to be a symbol of empowerment for women. I created this cover to honor the women who fought for our rights and to inspire the women who continue to live and breathe life into our world today. It’s never been easy to be a woman, but the beauty of womanhood comes from challenging stereotypes and having the courage to defy what is expected of you.

“The best protection any woman can have is courage.” – Elizabeth Cady Stanton