Laura Walty Smith: A Portrait of the Artist

(This article was originally published December 2, 2022, in the Southern Spice section of Times-Georgian.)

The Blue Door Gallery, Carrollton, GA

The Blue Door Gallery’s eponymous door stands open this crisp fall evening, welcoming me into an airy, light-filled, collective space showcasing some of Carrollton’s finest artists. Laura Walty Smith stands at an easel, paintbrush in hand. When she turns to welcome me, I notice a swipe of red paint on her cheek. The whole scene couldn’t have been composed any better if I had staged it myself, every box checked on the list of what an artist should be. 

Except Laura Smith is nothing like what I expected. Don’t get me wrong. She’s the real deal: talented, visionary, award-winning, but her story was certainly not what I had anticipated. 

Her dark, chic blunt bob accents her youthful, makeup free face. Her speech, replete with a charming mix of dropped r’s, reflects her childhood in Quincy, Massachusetts. The childhood that she describes as “super awesome -- a Brady Bunch upbringing” provides her with a choice of subjects from urban environments that she recalls. Laura never received any formal instruction in art. A music scholarship brought her to Carrollton where she met her husband, Huck, and settled down. 

Laura Walty Smith

At 40, when her youngest child, Harry, was in kindergarten, it was as if “a lightning bolt” struck. She thought, “I think I can paint something.” And paint she did. A couple of classes at the Carrollton Center for the Arts resulted in a painting for the bathroom, and then, a painting of a hummingbird. Her first work on canvas, the hummingbird is one she keeps by her easel still. 

Midway through our conversation, two customers come in -- an older woman and her daughter. The older woman has commissioned Laura to do a painting of her house, a request she gets pretty often. 

Much of her inspiration comes from the play of shadows and diagonal slices of light. Two of her favorite Carrollton locales include the cul-de-sac by Lee Moore Appliance and the passageway behind Alley Cat. Going to a new town means Laura will naturally gravitate toward the railroad tracks and the backsides of buildings, buildings, she says “no one looks at.” Often Laura will “paint things twice” when the position of the sun at different times of day causes a unique interplay of colors and shadows, perhaps her own nod to Monet’s waterlilies and Houses of Parliament. 

Her most famous work, a painting of the Carrollton Train Depot, appeared about a year into her painting. Twenty minutes before the bus was due to arrive with her children, Laura had leftover paint that needed to be used up. She grabbed paper towels and a palette knife and worked furiously to finish before the children came home. 

She showed her paintings right away, beginning in 2018. Her first time showing art was “not scary” at all, as she experienced an abundance of support and a “confidence boost from local, established artists.”

The Carrollton Train Depot painting placed 1st in landscape in 2019 and in Artist magazine’s competition in 2020. The most significant moment of her career came when the depot painting was featured on a 20’ x 44’ billboard that traveled around Atlanta, including a brief showing outside the Hard Rock Cafe. 

And the awards kept coming, including 1st Place in the Douglasville Juried Art Competition last year, the Penny Lewis Best in Fine Art Award and the Carrollton Civic Woman’s Club Award at this year’s Art Festival of Carrollton. Honestly, her list of accomplishments and accolades is too long to include. 

If you have missed out on Laura Smith’s highly acclaimed landscapes, you can find her work on display at Gallery Row now through January 15th, 2023.  4 AM Coffee Roasters will feature her work on December 10, 2022 from 8 am to 2 pm, and she’ll be at the opening reception for the 2023 “Collecting Carrollton” Invitational Art Auction at the Carrollton Center for the Arts on February 4th, 2023.  You can always find her work at The Nest and The Blue Door Gallery. 

As we conclude our conversation, I tell Laura that I’m still awestruck by the fact she found this talent and success at age 40. Laura’s parting words are amazingly appropriate: “I hope [my story] inspires people. What else is in there? What’s in anybody?”