A Journey through the Heart: Arianne Vota Smeets

“A Journey through the Heart”:

Arianne Vota Smeets

As you entered Arianne Vota Smeet’s exhibit, you saw heart-shaped objects 

mounted onto canvases on the walls. Music played and as the tracks progressed, a lamp with a sign that read, “now playing” was placed in front of each canvas.

The crowd eagerly followed the lamp, absorbing the multi-dimensional pieces constructed of clay and other materials such as fabric and dirt on the canvases in front of them.   
 

 

Smeets, 30, created her debut collection, Aorta Transformata and it was displayed at Kendall College in September. The exhibit depicted sculpted hearts combining the use of clay, paint and decorations through various mediums specific to each piece.

The collection included thirty-three pieces total; twenty-four pieces displayed the heart through various stages of life including life, death, rebirth and openness. Nine pieces stood alone telling their own narratives including one in remembrance of her dog and another in honor of her brother and a cancer patient survivor.

 

 Five culinary students created dishes that interpreted five pieces from the show. One of the dishes included spicy blackened chicken over bitter mixed greens, topped with colorful fruit salsa and was paired with a piece titled “ A Conflict of Interest.”

 

The exhibit, which chronicles the various stages and relationships that Smeet’s has gone through represents the different phases she has been through to get to where she is today. For Smeet’s friend Lisa Fairman, the exhibit has served as a guide through her life and believes that it will do the same for others. “I remember going over to her apartment and I would know where I was in my life depending on what heart I was attracted to,” she said.

 

 A former middle school teacher and now culinary student, Smeets didn’t plan to become an artist. In fact she’s never planned to become any one thing. But Smeets has been able to incorporate her natural creative sense in order to reinvent herself again and again.

 

 “I don’t like to define myself as just one thing. I kind of think of myself in layers because there’s different layers to who I am,” she said. “There’s a teacher layer, there’s a chef layer, there’s an artist layer. It doesn’t just have to be one thing.”

 

 Smeets’ best friend Kristine Kavanaugh said she has had the luxury of being able to watch her evolve within these layers. “She’s always been a very creative person. Her mom’s a creative person and I think she just grew up with that,” she said.

 

Smeets remembers her mom would take her to a craft store and tell her to pick something out. “Okay so what are we making today?” she would ask Smeets.

Smeets remembers specifically always coloring in coloring books with her mom. They would also paint figurines, stitch and cook a lot.

 

Even as a middle school teacher Smeets allowed her creative side to come out more than her fellow co-workers, which won her the Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club Local Teacher of the Year Award. Kavanaugh remembers how engaging her lesson plans use to be. “If you listen to some of the lesson plans that she had, she was a phenomenal teacher,” she said.

 

For example, when Smeets introduced poetry to the class, she had her students anonymously write out something they had survived. She read each story aloud to the class, including her own and discovered amazing, heart wrenching stories. “We don’t know whose story is whose,” Smeets said. 

“The next time you think about being mean to somebody think about all the things that people have already survived and lets not add to that. Let’s not create another situation that they have to possibly survive.”

 

While teaching different religions of the world in social studies, Smeets would incorporate yoga once a week to help them learn about meditation and different religions.

 

Smeets taught in Orange County, California for three years in 2000 and was getting home sick for her hometown of Elwood, Illinois. She began cooking to bring some of that “home feeling” back to her. “I love to feed people,” she said. Smeets knew she always wanted to go to culinary school, she just thought that it would be in her 40’s and 50’s. One of her goals has always been to open up a coffee 

(This is Arianne's theme song)

shop named “VOTA.”

“I wanted to make that dream a reality,” she said. “I knew I could cook but I wanted to be a chef and know the business stuff.”

 

After making a life-changing decision involving her marriage in 2007, Smeets decided to change gears. She went to Kendall College, a culinary school in Chicago and just graduated from the accelerated culinary arts program Monday.

While studying at Kendall, Smeets began creating small art pieces in her spare time, including 2-inch hearts encased in glass. This eventually led to her passion to pursue art as a career.

 

Fairman recalls how little by little those hearts began getting bigger. “As she started to change and realize her true self  that glass had to disappear and those hearts started to get bigger and they started to spill off the side of the canvas.”

 

Since her exhibit at Kendall College, Smeets and her friends have seen the huge impact that her art has had on people.

Fairman remembers walking by and hearing people relate each heart to a time in their lives. “It generated the urge in people to share stories with each other,” she said. “That’s a sign of very powerful art.”

David Wade, a fellow Kendall student was one of the five students who created a dish at the two tasting receptions. “I think her art is very inspiring and touching,” he said. “A lot of people can relate to her art…it represents so much more than just putting a brush to a canvas.”

The thing that Fairman liked the most about her friends exhibit was that, as Wade described, her art is so relatable. “You don’t have to know her to really get the most out of her art,” she said.

Smeets prides herself on putting her emotions and literally her heart into all of her pieces. She bases all of her work on personal life experiences and says her creative process always starts with life. “I know when I get it right because I cry.”

 

Smeets inspiration comes from the images that pop up in her mind whenever she’s gone through a difficult time in her life. Since she was 14-years-old, whenever she’s been in a hurtful relationship or situation, images of what her heart must look like at that moment appear in her head. “I decided to take all of the energy I had put into relationships and put it into myself,” she said.

 

One of her most memorable pieces titled, “Break,” is the portrayal of a broken heart and symbolizes the emotion and pain Smeets has gone through and that she went through when making the piece. She calls this her signature piece because it set her back weeks.

“It was the slowest piece and very painful to make,” she said. “It’s the most accurate piece I’ve made.”

This piece, painted red and free-formed with clay into the shape of a heart is unique to the collection because it is mounted on a white canvas. Smeets’ reasoning for this is so she could depict a near death experience as it is often portrayed in the movies when everything goes white. “Everything changes after that and nothing is ever the same,” she said.

 

Starting February 6, Smeets’ Aorta Transformata exhibit will be on display at Flourish Studios in Chicago until the end of the month. Smeets hopes to write a book of art and to have her work recognized nationally. She is also in the very early stages of conceptualizing her coffee house and wine bar called VOTA where she can continue to express herself creatively in the kitchen and on canvas. “I want people to see all the stages of life in a beautiful way,” she said. Even the bad ones.”

(Pictures provided by http://votasmeets.com/Site/Welcome.html)