Here are a few close ups of my work in the Bargehouse. Am feeling quite perky and have done some DAD work and some new drawing. I’ve been catching up with old friends too via Facebook – a relatively recent discovery.
I’ve just been listening to Front Row’s interview with Gillian Ayres. I liked her statement that her paintings weren’t about anything and that one could look in vain at the paintings to see what the relationship was to their titles.
Was feeling a bit woozy today so didn’t make it up to The Bargehouse. Fellow student Le sent me some pics though of my work installed. Other people helped hang it and also provided some lighting.
1st chemo yesterday and I’m feeling fine. I can’t quite believe it but there we are. I’ve been up in the office cum studio and working on some small pieces. I never know what titles to give, if at all, and have been toying with the idea of text in some form or other. Also the idea of how text can pick up undrawable narrative.
My partner is fast asleep having promised to walk the dog. The dog has given up thoughts of a walk for now and is lying under my feet asleep. The cats are sleeping. I am the only one awake.
That’s it – date for chemo to start is 28th Jan. I was expecting to feel relieved when I got the date but actually felt anxious, which I suppose shouldn’t have been the surprise it was.
My partner has been great and measured my head for a hat yesterday. Today I’m getting my hair cut short.
I’ve been getting my work ready for the CSM interim show and annoyingly the opening is on 28th so I can’t be there. However, I am going to try to get to The Bargehouse during the week.
My latest drawings continue to some extent with the food theme in that they combine prints using food, e.g. noodles, with drawn lines. The food theme seems quite important somehow though I am only inching towards an understanding of why. One thing I read recently explores the political importance of food.
“As a ritual of integration, the meal, far from being a simple mechanism of automatic consensus, is an instance of negotiation… It can function as a procedure of mobilisaton, allegiance, or reconciliation. … it offers of course a marvelous opportunity for treachery …
Thus eating together is a recurrent means of political participation in all its dynamism, complexity, and even conflctuality.” (from The Illusion of Cultural Identity, Jean-Francois Bayart)
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.
