Well, I decided to go with loops using red thread. I am slowly getting everything ready to hang at Leytonstone – details on Interface: /events/single/3538097/1 and on my website http://www.studio308ltd.co.uk.
I know I should be concentrating on finalising the work for the show, but I couldn’t help experiment with oilbars and ink on absorbent rice paper. The work is best viewed from the back.
Reading Ruth Geldard’s recent blog post made me think what an amazing space Artists Talking is: a space for reflection that allows the space between the public and private to be safely inhabited and shared.
I am getting ready to show some work as part of the Leytonstone Arts Trail http://www.leytonstoneartstrail.org, together with Korinna McRobert. The venue is the Red Lion pub in Leytonstone and we will be installing the work in and amongst the existing decor and fittings. I have been thinking about how to hang the paper pieces and the pics show one solution using linen hingeing tape. Does it work? Or would a loop of red thread, secured with the hingeing tape,be better?
Just beginning to realise that I have somehow engineered a one-year long education project for Dover Arts Development; am pretty daunted, but there’s no going back now. Other projects are in the pipeline too for next year … which is great: the whole point of doing my BA as a mature student was to get to a point where I was making a life in the arts and not having to stay stuck at the computer doing translations.
Sometimes when I’m working on something I wonder what to do with the remains of a process.
At last, some quality time in the studio, not that I haven’t enjoyed the last few days: meeting with the Dover District Council “culture” portfolio holder; going to a seminar on public engagement at the University of Kent; working with DAD’s intern; more meetings … other work and squeezing in time for my parents.
I have also completed a series of paintings which I’ve decided to give a collective title of “Sometimes I just feel like painting“. I decided to experiment with varnishing the work (only the middle one has varnish at the moment); I quite like the result although it means the positioning of the work is more critical.
I’ve been thinking some more about Lisa Milroy’s performance painting and the instructions she gave her ‘self’ in the painting: Shoulders back, chin up, feet together, loosen up, step back in ….
They do feel like things one might say to oneself when looking in the mirror and getting ready to go out and face the world.
Joanna said she felt as if she was the brush and to some extent resisting the instructions: materials and tools do have a life of their own and can’t be willed to do what the artist wants always.
I was also wondering what kind of things I say to myself in the studio or when working – generally I have to exhort myself to get to the studio, and when I’m there I suppose I might say things like “I’ll just cut a few squares” or “What did I do with the oil stick” and then spend several minutes hunting for it.
Clare Smith's mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving image to investigate this ambivalence, with references to craft, the importance of labour and the handmade. Through her choice of materials and approaches, she creates work which attempts to create a sense of unity, an interpretation of Homi Bhabha's "Third Space" - seen as a space in which different parts can come together to challenge dominant ideas of wholeness. Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with painter, Joanna Jones. This involves working with many different artists, curation, organisation, event management, creating networks across East Kent and influencing the public realm in Dover. Clare works from a studio in Dover. She has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
