Maggie Smith once described herself as a “thwarted private eye.” A public artist for over twenty-five years, Maggie has been carrying on investigations into the locales of her commissions, seeking out what lies beneath the surface of a place until she discovers its hidden history. She has a special ability to create unique and powerful pieces while simultaneously honoring all the parameters of a given project and working with its architects, engineers, city planners, and community groups.
In Salem, Massachusetts, she collaborated with Bainbridge architect Jim Cutler to create a memorial to those executed in the Salem Witch Trials. To memorialize the victims, she etched the entryway to the park with their haunting protestations of innocence. There, the words become a visual metaphor for the way history silenced the accused. For the Armed Forces Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, Maggie designed an open stone plaza, littered with bronze forms. They are reproductions of letters, seemingly windblown, that contain excerpts written by actual soldiers in every war from the Revolutionary to the Persian Gulf. Visitors to the memorial can read the poignant words sent back by servicemen and women who did not return.