[2] Smith had met some of the members of Henry Cow at Cambridge,[4] and joined the group at concerts as a performance artist in the early 1970s, miming with glove puppets, ironing, and reading "short passages of discontinuous text" during breaks in the music.

Smith created them with a pastry bag that he used to squeeze out long strips of acrylic paint, which, once dry, he wove together to produce the socks.

[7] Smith explored several art forms, including sculpture, painting and portrait photography, and he exhibited his work widely.

[9] Smith's Red Army (1990), a painted steel sculpture of 1,000 pieces was commissioned by, and featured at, the 1990 Gateshead National Garden Festival; it has since been relocated to Frank Lloyd Wright's Kentuck Knob home in Pennsylvania in the United States.

[7] He has also shown his work at numerous group exhibitions in Britain and elsewhere, including at the British Art Show in 1983–84, and the 2nd International Drawings Triennale in Nuremberg, Germany.

Smith consulted on several art projects, including serving as lead artist for the construction of the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children from 1997 to 2001.