“I had started to have some success showing in galleries, and I felt the need to push the package as far as I could,” says Smukler, whose artistic interests included watercolor, sculpture and fusing glass. “The law and art are really jealous mistresses. But I always harbored a sense of need to be an artist full time.”

So, after 30 years as a lawyer, Smukler closed the doors of his successful private practice for good. He moved to Boca Raton after visiting with friends and finding inspiration in the vibrant colors of South Florida.

The career change meant financial sacrifice—although he isn’t exactly a starving artist, he says, his voice echoing through his spacious home in the Seasons of Boca Raton.

The transition also meant starting over. As a lawyer, Smukler had attained a certain level of respect in the community. “Not that I was famous; I wasn’t. I was just a good lawyer,” he admits. “When I became an artist, I immediately became an unknown.”

So he got involved in his new community volunteering with organizations ranging from Children, Hope & Horses to

Smukler’s efforts now are focused on glass fusion, using kilns to join various shapes,

sizes and textures of glass and other media such as acrylic paints. The result is abstract: bold colors, hard geometric lines contrasted with playful curves of molten glass mounted on metal or stone. His works are in more than 20 galleries nationwide and can be seen locally at Art Fusion Gallery in Boca Raton, The Galeria of Sculpture on Worth Avenue and DeLigny International Galleries in Fort Lauderdale.

Smukler is sure he made the right decision—and would do it again—though he admits it has been a slow transition. “It’s coming on three years since I’ve worked full time as an attorney, and I’m just starting to unwind,” he says. “There’s a certain peacefulness about being an artist that does not exist in a white-collar profession.”