I’ve been working on a series of chemo day drawings which I do when I am actually at the chemo unit on my drip and sometimes can’t actually see very well.
The paper is thin so each drawing I make I let some marks go through to another piece underneath which acts as the starting point for the next one.
Staying out of the wind and carrying on with making a set of postcards for the Devonshire Collective postcard show. They are quite graphic, so a bit new for me, but I am beyond worrying about whether my work is coherent, consistent, conceptual enough…..
Wet and windy outside so staying in and working in pen and acrylic markers, using roughly printed shapes on Chinese calligraphy paper with some of the ready-made lines picked out and then an all-over drawing of leaf shapes in white pen.
Well, huge surprise, I was going to do more work on the concertina book but someone has bought it as is, after seeing it on my FB page.
With my earnings down due to my time being hugely eaten into by hospital visits, let alone any periods of feeling not quite up to anything, I decided to sell… in any case I wasn’t really sure about the other side.
I even managed to find a title.
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.
