Siloam Springs artist tackles seemingly impossible

Courtesy photo Kent Lanier Siloam Springs artist Brent Smith recently completed the first-ever showing of his work, Mesozoic Mahogany, at the Fayetteville Underground. Smith carves dinosaurs to one-quarter scale of known fossils. His work for Tyrannosaurus in Pursuit included technical drawings from the 1880s.
Courtesy photo Kent Lanier Siloam Springs artist Brent Smith recently completed the first-ever showing of his work, Mesozoic Mahogany, at the Fayetteville Underground. Smith carves dinosaurs to one-quarter scale of known fossils. His work for Tyrannosaurus in Pursuit included technical drawings from the 1880s.

Brenton Smith starts with a chain saw and a Honduran mahogany log. Then, he works his way down to a band saw. Eventually, he turns to his Exacto knife, with a No. 11 blade, the one he's used every day since 1974.

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NWA Democrat-Gazette

Brent Smith stands with his work on display at the Fayetteville Underground. To the left is his Piercing Guard; on the right, Ominous Display.

From the mahogany, Smith carves dinosaur skeletons -- bone by bone -- to one-quarter scale. The result is striking.

Smith's work has been on display at the Fayetteville Underground for several months in an exhibit called Mesozoic Mahogany.

"I'm amazed. They are absolutely gorgeous," said Dave Bachman of Fayetteville, a fellow exhibitor at the Underground, as he perused Smith' work. "The technique and patience it took make each individual piece! It's phenomenal -- all those parts and every one of those is made out of wood. They need to be on display."

"His work is possibly the highest level of accomplishment for a piece of artwork I've seen in this gallery," said Kent Landrum, exhibit manager for the Fayetteville Underground.

DETAILS

Smith's pieces included Tyrannosaurus rex In Pursuit, a triceratops in Piercing Guard and a stegosaurus in Ominous Display.

"Each bone is carved individually," Smith confirmed. The pieces are supported by a metal structure, but Smith also crafts that himself. "I put different dinosaurs on different frames and shaped them to what I considered aesthetic."

For example, most museums display Tyrannosaurus bones with the creature standing on its hind legs much like a human, with its tail dragging. Smith's version puts the front feet lower to the ground, with the tail up. The head and open mouth seem to be scanning back and forth for prey.

"That was the idea, to have personalities but be exact," he said.

Smith explained the tyrannosaurus balanced itself with its tail up, as it does in his sculpture. But this theory of tyrannosaurus mobility didn't come along until the 1980s or 1990s. "Of course, it's all just speculative anyway, because no one has ever actually seen a dinosaur."

Pictures of known dinosaur fossils helped Smith determine how to shape the spine.

Smith said he visited museums to document the dinosaur bones in their collections with his camera. Then he researched 1880s technical drawings of the creatures made by Othniel Charles Marsh, an early American paleontologist. Marsh and his many fossil hunters were able to uncover about 500 new species of fossil animals.

Following the dimensions in Marsh's drawings, Smith scaled his wood to one-quarter the size of the fossils.

"For example, I know the tyrannosaurus is 45 feet long, so my tyrannosaurus is 11 1/4 feet long," Smith said. "I know that it all must fit in the space."

He measured and remeasured his mahogany pieces, but some of the work was just driven by is talent.

"I would drill a hole in it, and the vertebrae fit how they were supposed to," he said. "I've never picked up a piece of wood that didn't work."

Smith estimated his sculptures include 350 pieces of bones, cartilage and teeth. And each piece is detailed and individual, including the inside of the skulls and the bottoms of the feet.

SELF TAUGHT

Smith's career started at age 15 in Siloam Springs -- where he still lives -- with a scrap piece of 2-by-4 lumber. From it, he carved a bird.

"When I got done, it looked like a bird," he said. "I was surprised, but I've always been super-creative."

His natural ability to look at something and then re-create it by carving led to a flock of basswood birds and awards in regional competition. In 1989, he took three pieces to an international competition through the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art in Ocean City, Md., and his three entries all received recognition, Smith shared.

"One of the most extraordinary things about him is he's self-taught," Landrum said. "A lot of people think you need to go somewhere to learn about art, but he's a good example of [how] you just have to want it enough."

Smith got turned on to dinosaurs when he watched a PBS show about the history of dinosaur discoveries.

"I had it in my mind to carve a dinosaur," Smith said. "It was seemingly impossible to do."

He started to collect materials and design the concept in 1993. Eventually, he had his tyrannosaurus.

"It worked, so I just kept going," he said. "It was like discovering a dinosaur when I realized I could do it."

"Someone asked me if he was normal," Landrum said. "Well, he seems normal to me, but he couldn't possibly be for all the extra in his pieces. He's passionate. He's focused."

Smith's other pieces include an archelon, a giant sea turtle now extinct. He said he has carved a spinosaurus almost completely and a brachiosaurus ... "I will carve that someday."

He noted it takes about a year of working full time -- about 2,000 hours -- to complete a sculpture.

Smith insists he is not a back porch whittler. He carves in his garage without television or other distractions, so he can concentrate on his design.

"I was trying to accomplish something," he said. "The idea was so unbelievable, so seemingly impossible. I knew I had the ability to make something people would recognize and something artistically and aesthetically pleasing."

The recent exhibit at the Fayetteville Underground was the first public showing of Smith's work. "It's been an honor," Landrum said. "We've certainly gotten the word out about him across the country."

"Mahogany is certainly not the obvious medium to re-create the complex forms of a dinosaur skeleton," wrote Jim Douglas in comment to a blog post by James Gurney, creator of Dinotopia for artists. "The straight cuts of the table saw won't help you, it's all carving, sanding and shaping. Perhaps, it is precisely this challenge accepted by the artist that makes his sculptures so fascinating and unique. ... I'm glad the artist came out into the light of day to exhibit his work."

NAN Our Town on 10/29/2015

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