Miss Emily’s 11-String Plait – pencil drawing by Kim Smith

Like many businesses in The Bahamas, The Place for Art on Village Road re-opened its doors with social distancing and meetings by appointment this week. 

The difference was it opened while its founder lay in a hospital bed receiving virtual get well wishes from dozens as he recovered, not from coronavirus, but from a serious accident while exercising the week before.

Artist Kim Smith, who opened The Place for Art six years ago, said today he wants people to know that he is making a steady recovery, working with physiotherapists to regain movement in his limbs following a life-changing fall while taking his usual morning power walk near Montagu.

He tripped and fell so hard, landing on his chin, that it damaged the spinal cord in the back of his neck.

Evolution, pencil drawing by Kim Smith

Doctors told him he was fortunate not to be paralyzed for life. For an artist whose work has been shown worldwide and is best known for his fine pencil drawings, the fall could have forever sidelined his ability to create incomparable works of Bahamian scenes and his ability to share what he knows through teaching and mentoring.

Says Andrew Ash, who has been part of the popular framing, art studio and artists’ gathering place in its quaint stone building on the grounds of Doongalik Studio since it opened, “Kim started working as hard as he could to regain use, harder than they were even asking for, and doctors seem pleased with his progress.

Kim just wants everyone to know we are open, preferably by appointment, and that he is doing well.”

Jewelry artist Nancy Swaby has also stepped in to assist during Smith’s recovery. He is expected to remain at Doctors Hospital for at least one more week. For an appointment, call 393 8834.

Artist Kim Smith

Kim Smith’s fine pencil drawing of sea urchins is so real to life it could easily be mistaken for a photograph. His framing and art studio re-opened along with many businesses this week, but without Smith for the first time since it opened its doors six years ago. The artist is hospitalized, recovering from a serious fall while power walking, but framing specialist and colleague Andrew Ash and jewelry artist Nancy Swaby are welcoming the little shop’s many fans back to its location next to Doongalik Studios on Village Road.