Bio

Debra Smith was born in Kansas City in 1971 and raised in Hannibal, Missouri. 

Pursuing her interest in fashion and textiles, Debra Smith studied at the Italian Academy of Fashion & Design; Lorenzo de Medici in Florence Italy before receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute with a major in Fiber in 1993 and an Associate Degree in Applied Science from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2002. 

After living in Brooklyn, NY for over a decade, Smith returned to her native Midwestern roots in 2004. She now lives in Kansas City, where she continues to create art from vintage textiles.

“I am not a poet or someone who draws, my use of vintage textiles as a medium brings a history, a weight, a poetry to the work before I even begin to cut, sew and piece the work back together. 

Allowing the work to intuitively flow through me, I am breaking all stereotypes associated with textiles, from ideas of craft to that of “women’s work” my pieced images have a strong language that is much more similar to that of painting, poetry & drawing.”