Colette Odya Smith

Biography

Colette Odya Smith is a professional painter and former art teacher living in Wauwatosa, WI. Ms. Smith is a signature member of the Pastel Society of America, the Pastel Society of New Mexico, Landscape Artists International, Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors, and the League of Milwaukee Artists and has exhibited her pastels nationally and regionally for over 10 years. She has received numerous awards including multiple prizes in The Pastel Journal and International Artist (formerly Pastel Artist International) magazines and was featured in the July/August 2005 issue of American Artist magazine. Her pastel paintings have taken honors in exhibitions ranging from New York to Washington, New Mexico, Kansas and California.

She is represented in many private and corporate collections including Northwestern Mutual, Waukesha Memorial Hospital and Acuity Insurance. She is in the permanent collection of the Wichita Center for the Arts. In 2006 Ms. Smith was named one of “75 Women of Influence” in the arts by the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel arts writer, and credited her work among the “artworks I (she) most wanted to take home”.

Ms. Smith majored in Fine Art, Humanities and Education at Macalester College and studied soft pastels at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Her background in education supports her teaching workshops at the Peninsula Art School in Fish Creek, in Door County, Wisconsin and when serving as a juror, or offering critiques and demonstrations. In addition to local groups, she has presented to the Pastel Artists of Hawaii in Honolulu, and to the Pastel Society of New Mexico.