Someone said the other day that the garden has become a destination during this lockdown period. I have ventured into painting … and done a pen and ink drawing for the first time in ages.
Gardens are truly healing places.
I’ve restarted chemo treatment after it being suspended due to covid-19 restrictions (which I have to say the consultant was very fuzzy about), so here is the first drawing of series 2, 12 May 2020.
There was another patient also drawing yesterday which was rather nice and we had a good chat, about Art, living in Africa, pompous British ambassadors… and we wished each other luck.
I’ve also started an intermittent diary:
Even before lockdown I found it hard, for health reasons, to go to some of the exhibitions I’d have liked to go to and also some of the brilliant workshops and opportunities that pop up from time to time so the new explosion in online courses and ideas is a real plus! One of the many videos I watched was on #isolationartschool by Alex Perry Adlam and as a result have done this isolation garden collage.
I have been thinking about getting to grips with ‘a painting’ for a while and this is taking a step towards that.
I love seeing the work by those artists who are managing to create a “lockdown” diaries or series – I am making work every day more or less and inevitably in response to the current circumstances but I am not sure I could gather it all together except maybe by date and I’d need some sort of overarching title, so for now I’m just carrying on and seeing where I get to.
So a couple more Unanticipated World pieces: drawing in marker pens over a history of drawn and printed marks:
Of all the things that could go wrong and one could plan for, the corona virus pandemic was way off the radar and it is making for a slightly stressful household of 2 or 4 if I count the cat and the dog, though they don’t seem too stressed – just the humans.
So another 3 weeks at least for the general population and another 7 weeks at least for me. I am missing the studio and want to get back in there as soon as I can, apart from anything to give my husband a break and get out of his hair, especially if he carries on working at home. He is having to do anything and everything that happens outside the confines of the house and garden and he seems quite stressed.
I am carrying on with the watercolours – I like the medium for its fluidity and the way it repays intense concentration and focus as well as introspection. Seems quite apt for these times.
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.
