About Us

SUZANNE GONSALEZ-SMITH was born and raised in Washington State. She  is currently a Professor in Photography at the University of North Dakota where she has taught photography since 2008.  She received her BFA at the University of New Mexico and her MFA from the University of Kentucky. The imagery of Gonsalez-Smith's photographs contains the metaphor of memory and myth. Using the contemporary framework of her personal history and environment, she explores personal loss, religious and cultural identities and the duality of life, using symbolism to evoke the inevitability of our own mortality. 

Ms. Gonsalez-Smith is the recipient of many grants and awards and exhibits on both the national and international level. She has exhibited works at the PH21 Photography Gallery in Budapest, Hungary,  The Main Street Gallery, Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts, The Center for Fine Art Photography, The Midwest Center for Photography, The Chautauqua Center for the Arts, The Hampton Gallery, Circulo de Bellas Artes (The Circle of Fine Arts) Madrid, Spain, Atelier Gallery 030202, Bucharest, Romania, Borges Cultural Center in Buenos, Aires, Argentina, and The Kirkland Art Center in Clinton, NY to name a few.

Professor Wesley L. Smith began teaching ceramics at the University of North Dakota in fall, 2006. He received his BFA at the University of Tennessee and his MFA at Texas Tech University. From 2003-2006 he was an Artist in Residence at Tennessee Tech University’s Appalachian Center for Craft. As long as he can remember, he has always loved mythology, science, science fiction, animals, machinery, tools, toys, and technology. It is the melding together and mutating of these subjects and ideas, which he is addressing in his work.

There is a sense of play and whimsy connected to children’s games and toys. These opposites present a constant challenge that inspires him. His work is the pursuit of new “realms of reality” and the objects and organisms within.

Most of Smith’s work (past and present) draws upon specific aspects of popular culture, rooted largely in science fiction and childhood toys. He is also working toward a synthesis or amalgamation of these with a constant influx of new information from television, cinema, and toys. Smith has exhibited in Hong Kong, Canada and throughout the United States.  He has written for Ceramics Monthly, and has images of his work reproduced in the following books;  500 Bowls: Contemporary Explorations of a Timeless Design, 500 Tiles: An Inspiring Collection of International Work, 500 Handmade Dolls:  Modern Explorations of the Human Form, 500 Animals in Clay:  Contemporary Expressions of the Animal Form, Handbuilding:  Ceramics for Beginners and  The Best of 500 Ceramics, by Lark Books.