Had some time to spend in the studio today. It will take time until I feel I have really inhabited the space but a couple of hours concentrated work in there this afternoon has gone a long way towards making it feel like my place to work in.
DAD has an event coming up for Chinese New Year and as it’s the year of the rabbit I decided to make some small prints to give out at the event. I might make this a performance piece.
Interest in the studios is beginning to build, which is great. No new tenants yet, but there is definite interest from a couple of photographers who work in Dover.
It is useful to have a place to meet people. Joanna and I did an interview for Dover Community radio in the studio last Thursday and it came out quite well. You can listen to it here:
http://www.dovercommunityradio.co.uk/uploads/podca…
As always with these things, one’s own voice sounds strange while the voices of others sound perfectly normal! I suppose it is part of that whole process of othering that takes place when the subjective self goes out into the world.
Well, thanks to my husband who has helped me take my stuff over and set me up I should be able to do some work in the studio this week, other work commitments notwithstanding.
I have some people coming to view which is exciting; lovely though the potential of the large empty space is, I am looking forward to the studio becoming a working space.
I started back at CSM last Tuesday and it felt nice to be back.
I get the sense that it will be a good year as far as practice goes. Let’s hope so anyway.
I’m on the scrounge for some sinks. Joanna says she has a bath we could use.
Well, I went into the studio yesterday morning and decided that the magnolia and brown makeover is ok and I was a bit mean about the apprentice decorators in the last post because actually they’ve done a good job.
Part of the deal that DAD has on the studio is that we will do up a meeting room, so we have got our DAD designer and intern on the case. We have some budget for this thanks to a previous upcycling project we ran called Remade in Dover. As far as possible we will be reusing unwanted metal, wood etc.
Co-director of DAD, Joanna, and I also managed to get some lovely free chairs for the studio that were destined for the skip and we’re on the look out for more free stuff.
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.
