NEW YORK.- Kiki Smith is known for transforming the mundane into the enchanted. In her hands common materials from blood to bronze, paper to porcelain, glitter to glass—become inventive, highly personal art that illustrates poetic associations of the human body and soul. Fittingly, Smith has had a long relationship with tattoos—making them, wearing them on her own skin, gathering them into a witty, subversive and now famous 1995 print in which parts of female anatomy and corresponding natural forms are arrayed joyfully as adornments. In Smith’s work, tattoos are metaphors for the interconnectedness of all things: the body and art, inside and outside, technique and emotion.

In November 2007, Steuben Glass will proudly debut its first collection of designs by Kiki Smith—five extraordinary designs inspired by the idea of tattoos, including the artist’s very first foray into the ancient technique of engraving. The Tattoo Collection, to be introduced at a preview reception on November 15th, includes an extraordinary decorated vase and four small desktop sculptures that include elements of removable, wearable jewelry made and signed by the artist.

The centerpiece of Smith’s Tattoo Collection is a mammoth mouth-blown tour de force vessel whose shimmering polished glass “skin” is covered with the artist’s interpretation of classic tattoo symbols. A sinuous snake, moths, flowers, stars, a bird on a branch all come together in a cosmos within a single handmade jar, executed by renowned master engraver Max Erlacher together with Smith in a limited edition of five examples.

Accompanying the Tattoo Vase are four small cast crystal sculptures, each with precious metal jewelry designed by Smith as part of its composition in yet another connection between art and the body: A snake bears three sterling rings on its tail, ready for wearing. A cat—tail and paws dancing—plays with a silver daisy flower that can be removed and used as a brooch. Smith’s little bird perches on a sterling Eve’s branch sprouting a moth-holed leaf pin. Eve’s Apple is cut into pieces that reveal glimmering silver seeds. Each object is unique, bearing the lovely variations that make handcrafted glass the ultimate analog for natural phenomena.

Kiki Smith’s Tattoo Collection that reminds us of a tradition which values objects as the marriage between vision and craft in the service of magic and wonder.

All objects from the Tattoo Collection will be available at the Steuben Glass flagship in New York City (667 Madison Avenue at 61st Street) or online at www.steuben.com.

Kiki Smith is an artist of international prominence whose career has thus far spanned over three decades. She was born in 1954 into a family of artists: Her mother, Jane Lawrence Smith, was an opera singer and actor, and her father, Tony Smith, was an architect, painter prominent sculptor. She helped her father when she was young and over the years has continued to work in close collaboration with other artists, printers, performers, and architects. In the late 1970s, Smith began to participate in exhibitions with Collaborative Projects Inc. (Colab), a group of artists who shared a desire to make their art more accessible to people outside of the conventional art world. At this time she began making accessible multiples—a practice that endured even as Smith’s art entered the mainstream museum and gallery worlds, drew broad public and critical acclaim, and elevated her to a position among the most important and influential of America’s living artists.