Gret Sterrett Smith graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a BFA in painting in 1980, where she studied with Hassel Smith, Franklin Williams, Robert Hudson, and Angela Davis. She also studied in San Francisco with Helen Palmer, Diane DiPrima, Ian Grand, and Charles Ponce in the training of the intuition, the Kabbalah, and Somatic Knowledge. She was part of the group of artists and poets in Jess and Robert Duncan’s household and Diane DiPrima’s circle. She has been painting and making sculptures ever since. She lives with her husband, the writer David Levi Strauss, in the Hudson Valley, where she is currently working in the studio, and growing a wide variety of fruits, berries and greens.