JR Smith began drawing extensively at an early age. By the third grade he strove for extreme accuracy in his drawing. That year his classroom art teacher found him duplicating almost exactly an illustration from his library book. For the rest of the year, while the rest of the class followed her lesson plan, she allowed him to continue to draw illustrations. Years later a ranch foreman, he often sketched ranch hands sitting in the truck or corralled animals while waiting out a surprise shower or just taking a break from the 100 plus degree summer days.

While teaching in Southern California, a sudden mud slide destroyed years of work standing around the walls of his studio. This discouraging event was blunted when he won an honorable mention in the monthly club show of the Carlsbad-Oceanside Art League. Unknown to him, his visiting mother entered a sketch from his first experiment with a new set of prisma-colored pencils.

Upon his return to Texas, J. R. painted a watercolor series while recovering from two back surgeries. With the five pieces (two framed as a diptych) he entered them separately in four shows and won them in the Fall of 1989.

The "expressive mold" that J.R. came from is somewhat suspect if not totally unknown or unidentifiable. Early in life he took six years of piano lessons and won choral and debating awards. Then followed years of basketball, baseball, football, track and thirteen years of rodeo competition. Along with that came twenty years of basketball and football officiating with rodeo and horse show announcing, combined with radio and television (four years of ESPN) work.

Raising a family took him from the ranches to town. When his youngest graduated from Texas Tech a year and a half ago, he began to plan his exodus. Now spending his days in the Davis Mountains, he records countless reference photographs. His work now expresses and records the many beauties the Big Bend displays daily. He works to capture these vistas and broaden his “daydream escape’ portfolio.

Top that all off with award-winning years of sales, marketing, management and design. J.R. does not fit in any mold or classification. He doesn't feel the need to.