THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607230133
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 93 lines
Frances Smith's fleet is already larger than those of most Third World nations.
And her fleet is growing.
A 67-year-old Norfolk native, Smith has set a goal for herself. She intends to sketch every ship in the U.S. Navy. She already is working on her 115th such sketch.
When she started, about 1983, the fleet numbered 462. Now it's closer to 300.
Smith is delightfully vague when it comes to exact dates.
``I'm right-controlled,'' this divorced mother of four and grandmother of three says with a chuckle, referring to what is considered to be the artistic side of the brain.
Her talent shows through in her intricately detailed sketches, in a style she describes as ``modern line drawing, pen and ink, with no shadows.''
``I started out not knowing if I was any good,'' she explains. ``It turned out I was, and that was thrilling. A few years ago, I was making a good living at it (selling the prints) and, since I'm not considered bright enough to cross the street, that's pretty good. I have a little bit of a dyslexic problem.''
But she found her forte in her art.
Around 1990, Smith contracted mononucleosis and Epstein-Barr Syndrome. The one-two punch aged her and left her physically exhausted and unable to work for several years.
``That cost me four or five years,'' she recalls. ``I'm starting my second or third year of getting my health back. My motto is, `Get something done today and make tomorrow beautiful.' I'm not much interested in looking back.''
Another misfortune that befell Smith about four years ago contributes to her haziness about exact dates. A basement flood in the condominium where she was living destroyed most of her records and many of her original sketches. Fortunately, she had copies of the sketches safe upstairs.
Smith's artistic career began about 1980 when she was asked by a Virginia Beach publisher to complete 100 line drawings of Hampton Roads landmarks for a planned book. Although the book never materialized, once she started sketching, she was hooked.
``I had my growing-up life,'' Smith says, ``and I had my married life. What we all thought was that you died sometime not terribly long after that. But then I discovered this life.''
She has painted several murals around the area and for Harborfest, sketched St. Paul's Episcopal Church for a brochure, and been commissioned to sketch a number of homes. The wife of a Navy commander first approached her about sketching a ship. The woman's husband commissioned her first sketch of a naval vessel, the destroyer Stump.
Her next two sketches had ties to her great-grandfather, John Mullens, a captain in the U.S. Army who rose to the rank of colonel in the Confederate Army. The second vessel she sketched was the destroyer tender Yellowstone. Mullens had surveyed Yellowstone National Park. The third was of the cruiser Mississippi. Mullens was from Mississippi.
``That was when I started in business,'' Smith says. ``They wanted prints.''
For awhile, her prints were sold through the Navy Exchange System. More recently they have been exhibited at the Hope House Foundation Thrift Shop.
When she finishes drawing a ship, she sells the prints, along with writing paper, note cards and Christmas cards featuring the drawing. She still gets phone calls from sailors wanting prints of the ships they served on.
Locally, she sells her prints for about $20. If she has to ship them, she asks $25 a copy and will mail them on request.
When working on a sketch, Smith carries with her a letter of introduction, updated each year, from the public affairs office of COMSURFLANT. The letter states that Smith has been ``... a familiar sight along the Norfolk waterfront for many years ...'' and ``... her work is of exceptional quality and her ship sketches are impressive.''
Although not an endorsement, it's as close to one as the Navy can give.
``I'm the only lady, young, old or middle-aged that the Navy allows to sit out on a camp seat on the piers,'' Smith explains, grinning.
Her workday includes six hours on the pier, armed with a sketch pad and pencils, followed by a break for lunch. Then it's another one-and-a-half or two hours sketching, followed by a coffee break. After a half-hour or an hour more, she returns, ``dog tired,'' to her apartment on Hampton Boulevard in Norfolk. After dinner and a rest, she moves to the drawing table that dominates her small living room to work some more and begin the inking process.
Each finished sketch represents a minimum of 20 to 25 hours of work.
That means almost 4,000 hours to go to accomplish her objective. But, with her health back, for Smith, it's full speed ahead again.
``There's a lot of longevity in my family,'' she explains. ``I expect to be around a long time and finish all the ships.'' MEMO: For more information about her sketches, Frances Smith can be
reached at 627-4416. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Frances Smith, 67, intends to sketch every ship in the U.S. Navy.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB