Alot of my work is about my intimate environment and relates to personal narrative.
Sometimes I like to make paired drawings, the second acting as a kind of correction. When finished though it doesn't matter which was first and which was second; which is the original and which the copy.
Talking through my work during my tutorial yesterday I am beginning to realise what my work might be about. What seemed to resonate was less the ideas relating to female subjectivities, which I am interested in, but the idea of looking and the sense of the body being present in the drawings. And it is the looking that brings together drawings that I had thought were very disparate: the quicker ones based on recall and more furtive looking, and the longer ones based on more intense observation.
I'm beginning to try and 'see' the photographs I take with the same eye as when I make drawings. I am attracted to things that are hidden, half seen, poorly remembered.
There always seems so much to do. I finalised some info about DAD for a-n today so that can be ticked off. Next I have to fill in an application form for some funding from the town council. Then I have to send off some drawings and I have some translation work to do (keeps me solvent) which will take all week. Somehow have to find some time for more drawing.
I joined fellow CSM students at Millbank yesterday to see the Tate Triennial. I enjoyed Tacita Dean's Russian Endings and wondered about the original postcards at their source. What odd postcards!
When I am not thinking about my work, I have to admit to being totally obsessed at the moment with training my dog, an 11-month labrador puppy called Junzi. I took him to gundog training on Friday (you don't have to have a gun or want to use one) and he was the class dunce. It was a totally traumatic morning during which Junzi behaved so appallingly that I ended up totally embarrassed. The other dogs were all near perfect – and no doubt their owners – all kitted out with the right gear – are putting them in for level 1 just for fun.
It was like taking your kid to school and finding out s/he is the worst behaved.
At least this means that the puppy is now a true surrogate kid: a tie, an embarrassment and loads of fun. And I can experience at one remove what it might have been like to have had kids.
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.
