Nearly 80 years ago, at a small country fair in rural East Texas, a fortune teller asked a young Arvie Smith ’86 what he wanted to be when he grew up.
He paused. He only knew the professions of his grandparents, who were both educators. He had no idea what he wanted to do, so he said the first thing that came to mind.
“I told her, ‘I want to be a doctor,’” he said. “She said, ‘You can be anything you want.’”
At a time of deep racial divisions and chilling violence, near a town known for lynchings long after Reconstruction and later for the brutal death of James Byrd, it was an extraordinary thing to say to an African American child. But he took it to heart.
Today Smith’s paintings can be found in many public spaces across Portland, the Nelson Mandela Estate in South Africa and this spring, in Italy. After the current exhibit of his work, “Arvie Smith: Scarecrow,” ends at Hallie Ford Museum of Art on March 26, he will fly to the country to join seven other African American artists selected for an affiliate exhibition at the 2022 Venice Art Biennale, one of the oldest and most prestigious international exhibitions in the world.
