7HE SMI7H

7HE SMI7H

I AM|A CREATOR.
I BELIEVE|IN CREATIVES.
I SHARE|CREATION STORIES.

ART / CULTURE / STORIES

VIDEO: PASADENA NOW
7HE SMI7H
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I AM|A CREATOR.

Creator and Creations

ABOUT / WORK

JASON TIMOTHY SMITH

Jason Timothy Smith is a Los Angeles–based artist working under the name 7HE SMI7H. Across paintings, murals, prints, objects, and experiments, he builds images from layered histories, handmade systems, and the visual language of the communities around him.

I am a Creator. I Believe in Creatives. I Share Creation Stories.
ARTIST STATEMENT

I make work about creation—who gets seen as a creator, what our hands carry, and how images can hold memory. The practice begins with the object: color, surface, portrait, pattern, and material. From there it opens outward into faith, culture, vocation, influence, and community.

Deeper frameworks—including N.A.I.V.E. and First Last / Last First—shape how I approach narrative, attention, and cultural context. They emerge gradually through the work and writing rather than standing between the viewer and the art.

WORK

PAINTINGSMURALSPRINTSOBJECTSEXPERIMENTS
Painted portrait of Frida Kahlo surrounded by soft flowers on a deep green ground
PAINTING / PORTRAIT

Frida Kahlo

A textured portrait balancing the familiarity of an icon with the direct presence of a person.

Painted portrait of Andy Warhol wearing glasses against a cool gray ground
PAINTING / PORTRAIT

Andy Warhol

A cool-toned portrait study of image, repetition, and the construction of a public face.

7HE SMI7H
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I BELIEVE|IN CREATIVES.

When Seeing Is Believing

IDEAS / WRITINGS

Community members gathered in front of the completed mural

IDEAS / WRITINGS

A slow room for beliefs about creation, creativity, creators, and the worlds they inhabit.

VIEW FEATURED WRITINGS
FEATURED ENTRIES

Selected frameworks, essays, and developing ideas.

7HE SMI7H
03

I SHARE|CREATION STORIES.

The Art of Storytelling

SERIES / EPISODES / ARCHIVE

Jason Timothy Smith documenting the mural while working from a scaffold
SERIES 01
PASADENA / NORTH FAIR OAKS

A PICTURE OF|HISTORY AND HOPE

The people, research, process, and neighborhood meaning surrounding the Black Main Street mural.

ENTER THE STORY

From a measured wall to a neighborhood image.

Commissioned by the North Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative, the mural gathers portraits, places, and histories connected to Pasadena’s Black Main Street inside the visual rhythm of an African American quilt. These photographs follow the work as its underlying grid becomes color, figure, memory, and public presence.

  1. Early blue and gold vertical marks measured across the blank wall
    01 / FOUNDATIONThe wall becomes a field.

    Measured intervals establish the scale and rhythm before the image exists.

  2. A blue, green, and gold quilt grid developing across the wall
    02 / STRUCTUREA quilt becomes the architecture.

    Blocks of color turn the long facade into a connected visual system.

  3. Large painted hands emerging beside the mural grid
    03 / THE MAKERThe hands enter the work.

    A monumental act of drawing places creation itself inside the picture.

  4. Portraits and neighborhood buildings appearing throughout the mural
    04 / MEMORYHistory takes its place.

    Portraits and neighborhood landmarks settle into the quilt one square at a time.

  5. The mural nearing completion with portraits, patterns, and painted hands
    05 / ASSEMBLYThe fragments begin to speak together.

    Pattern, people, place, and gesture become one continuous public image.

  6. Completed North Fair Oaks mural across the building facade
    06 / RELEASEThe work meets the street.

    The finished mural holds its histories at the scale of everyday neighborhood life.

  7. A neighborhood resident passing the completed mural
    07 / AFTERLIFEThe mural belongs to the neighborhood.

    Once released, the work becomes part of the route—seen in motion, revisited, and carried forward.

Neighbors and civic leaders gathered beside the completed mural at its public unveiling
PUBLIC UNVEILING / NOVEMBER 23, 2024The neighborhood gathers around its stories.

The mural’s release became a community event—bringing residents, organizers, civic leaders, and the people represented by the project back to the wall together.

IN THE NEWS

Local reporting extended the mural’s public life beyond the wall, documenting the unveiling and preserving community voices, neighborhood history, and outside interpretations of the work.

A speaker addressing community members at the North Fair Oaks mural unveiling
PASADENA NOW ARTICLE + VIDEO / NOVEMBER 24, 2024
A Picture of History and Hope

The report documents the public unveiling and connects the finished mural to the neighbors, stories, and wider improvement efforts that helped bring it into being.

READ + WATCH
Portrait and quilt detail from the North Fair Oaks mural
PASADENA STAR-NEWS ARTICLE / NOVEMBER 24, 2024
Community mural honors prominent Black icons along an African American Main Street

The coverage places the mural’s portraits in a broader historical frame, emphasizing the people and institutions remembered along Pasadena’s Black Main Street.

READ
Pasadena Heritage recognition of the Black Main Street mural unveiling
PASADENA HERITAGE COMMUNITY RECOGNITION / NOVEMBER 26, 2024
A powerful testament to history and hope

Pasadena Heritage recognized the mural’s public unveiling and its celebration of North Fair Oaks as Pasadena’s historic Black Main Street.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION