Valerie St. Pierre Smith
Interdisciplinary Designer | Artisan | Scholar
PUBLICATIONS - select
Weaving the Strands: Decolonizing Western Design Practices, Paradigms, and Pedagogies (working title) by Valerie St. Pierre Smith. Routledge Press, 2025 (anticipated publishing date).
We Free Us "Who R You? The Economics of Identity + Who You Are - or - How Much Does It Cost to Be Me?" artwork and writing by Valerie St. Pierre Smith. Amplify Arts, 2024
A Pocket Guide to Cultural Appropriation USITT Digital Conference presentation and publication, 2021
Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance: Indigenous Spaces by Drs. Christine Stanlake, Courtney Elkin Mohler and Jaye Darby. Contributing essayist, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Connective Threads: Inspiration, Appropriation and Design in a Global Village pt. 2, USITT national conference presentation, Costume Commission Digital Archive, 2019.
The Three Sisters: Lessons on Inspiration, Appropriation, and Design, Howlround Theatre Commons, 2018.
2017 Connective Threads: Inspiration, Appropriation and Design in a Global Village USITT national conference presentation, Costume Commission Digital Archive, 2017.
PRESS - select
Bulrusher
"Valerie St. Pierre Smith’s costumes manage the near-impossible task of being period-specific and attractive while still looking like clothing these smalltown denizens might actually own."
- Jim Munson, Broadway World, San Francisco
Pilobolus
The Ballad, with Pilobolus Dance Theatre
Big Five Oh! at The Joyce, New York.
Antebellum
"The eye-popping gown that Valerie St. Pierre Smith designs for Sarah's night out is an epic event in itself."
- Peter Marks, The Washington Post
"Valerie St. Pierre Smith's costumes, and particularly Sarah's preposterous dress, are great successes."
- Tim Treanor, DC Theatre Scene
Civilization: All You Can Eat
"The underlying theme is greed. That’s where the pigs come in...Costume designer, Valerie St. Pierre Smith, the real star here, has dressed Civilization’s pigs in wonderful fat suits with black, trotter-like boxing gloves..."
- Susan Davidson, Curtain Up