Graced with exuberant brush strokes and a vibrant collage, "Mother Hale’s Garden" by Shinique Smith is inspired by the loving and generous nature of Mother Clara Hale who, for more than 50 years, cared for children — orphaned, sick and from broken homes — and helped transform their lives. Totaling approximately 6,672 square feet, the monumental artwork is composed of mosaic located on the facade and laminated glass in windows of the new Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot building located on Lenox Avenue between 146th and 147th Street in Central Harlem. 

Smith collected clothing, fabric, and other cast-off materials from the community surrounding Hale House and the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot to incorporate in her original artwork. A child’s drawing of a bus stop found near Hale House influenced her deeply and became the source of inspiration for the artwork. 

“This (child’s) drawing inspired my palette,” Smith said. “We are all connected by childhood dreams and memories threaded through clothing and the things we consume and discard. I have taken these unwanted bits and woven them into a garden in an attempt to embody the spirit of Mother Clara, creating beauty and grace from humble materials.” 

Smith works in a variety of artistic media, including collage, painting, sculpture, and video. Her work is known for the vast vocabulary of collected objects that alternate with fluid calligraphic lines and movement, suggestive of qualities that resonate on a personal and social scale. The original work of "Mother Hale’s Garden" is composed of 10 large‐scale panels of colorful painted collage and centers on a spiritual motif of mother and child‐like figures embracing in an abstracted garden. Smith worked with Mosaika Art & Design to translate the original work into mosaic, using tiles uniquely made for the project to create roughness and texture on the surface, a process similar to a collage. In May 2012, Smith worked with first grade students at PS 242, Young Diplomats Magnet Academy, to draw flowers and incorporated the drawings into the art glass for the north and south windows of the Bus Depot building. The art glass is fabricated by Peters Studios.

In keeping with the new Mother Clara Bus Depot status as a certified green building, "Mother Hale’s Garden" was created by weaving discarded materials into a vibrant garden. The result is a monumental work as the artist’s tribute to Mother Clara Hale as well as to the people in the community.

Shinique Smith is a painter and sculptor known for her monumental abstractions of calligraphy textiles and collage that give emphasis to what the artist describes as “the graceful and spiritual qualities of the written word and the everyday.” Smith’s personal histories and belongings intertwine with thoughts of the vast nature of ‘things’ that we consume and discard and how objects resonate on an intimate and social scale. Over the last 20 years, Smith has gleaned visual poetry from vintage clothing and explored concepts of ritual through tying, writing and gestures inspired by her travels and early graffiti roots in Baltimore. Through her process, she builds a complex material vocabulary that deftly interweaves brushstrokes, private narratives and symbolism for the viewer to divine and intuit. 

Born in Baltimore, Maryland and currently residing in Los Angeles, Smith’s art works have been exhibited by and are in the permanent collections of institutions such as, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Barnes Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, Denver Art Museum, MOCA Jacksonville, MOCA North Miami, MOMA PS1, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, The New Museum, The Studio Museum of Harlem and The Whitney Museum among others.