Deborah Smith was born in Hastings in 1962. She arrived at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland 32 years ago on a Watties Scholarship with the intention of becoming a painter or sculptor. She has been making photographs ever since. Her work has been shown in many public and dealer galleries but her favourite site is possibly the street. In 1999 her brother Mark and Tori Ferguson formed the CAKE Collective, which was committed to exhibiting on city hoardings. Some of her other personal highlights have been Green Man with Mark Smith and John Reynolds at the Black Barn Gallery in Hawkes Bay, The Smiths with her whole family at the Snowwhite Gallery in Auckland and Portrait of a Marriage at Auckland’s Gus Fisher Gallery. She has enjoyed a long working relationship and friendship with Marilyn Sainty and in 2000 they collaborated on Dust Cloak for the Napier Museum, which was later shown at the Auckland Art Gallery. She has enjoyed teaching for many years, mostly at Unitec, Auckland and St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland. In 2008 she initiated Cloud Workshop, an ongoing art project for bereaved children. She lives in Auckland with husband Nicholas Stevens.