A Visit to the Studio
“Thirteen years to become an overnight success.” That’s how Phillip K. Smith III describes his career as an artist.
It all started three years ago on five acres of
high desert as Smith stared out the window of an
abandoned shack while tuning into the landscape. At that point in his artistic development, he
decided to take on his first self-initiated large-scale project, turning the small structure into the global sensation we now know as Lucid Stead.
Smith remembers staring for hours across
a rugged terrain without a single living thing in
sight as he watched the sunlight change color. He explained that “when it rained outside, it rained
inside through the deteriorating wood and missing door of the abandoned 70-year old shack.” It
was then that he said to himself, “We have to do
something with this place,” and began drawing out a conceptual idea on paper. Once he was able to
get the financial backing needed, he made his idea a reality.
Smith’s intention was to invite 30 to 40 friends
to the unveiling, not knowing that he would get
200 visitors the first weekend. Before long, Lucid Stead turned into a social media phenomenon.
Smith was overwhelmed with national, and then international, requests to visit the illuminated rustic spaceship that had just appeared in the
desert an hour and a half north of Palm Springs. It was a turning point in Smith’s career, earning him a spot in art history textbooks on college campuses worldwide.
The project also sparked more experiments
written by Rob Piepho
with light, in the process landing Smith an
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