Creative Contemplation
Join host Suzanne Lago Arthur for engaging discussions with creative professionals about their art and what inspires and feeds their creativity.
Creative Contemplation
Laura Smith
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May 13, 2024
Creative Contemplation
S3E3 Laura Smith
Creative Contemplation podcast host & creator Suzanne Lago Arthur has a very special conversation with British painter Laura Smith about her work, her formative years and the extraordinary training she acquired with some of Britain's most beloved observational painters. This is truly an episode you don't want to miss!
Website: laura-smith.com
Instagram (Painting): laurajrsmith
NEAC: Laura Smith
Crean and Company (Gallery): Laura Smith
Artists Mentioned:
William Coldstream
Euan Uglow
Frank Auerbach
Andy Pankhurst
Leon Kossoff
Lucy Jones
Francis Hoyland
Bio:
Laura Smith trained at The Slade School of Fine Art where she won the Clare Winsten Memorial Award, graduating from her MFA in 2012. A still-life painter working towards the abstract tradition, she is interested in dissolving our familiarity with everyday objects. Her current work explores the idea that repeated motifs enable a deeper and freer investigation of the objects themselves. The paintings often depict emotive gestures and actions, where objects take the place of the loved, the abandoned and the closely held.
Host Bio:
Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.
Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.
Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader, Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago Arthur
Music by Up North Music
So Ewan was just there for my first year. And the only reason I keep talking about him is that quite a lot of observational painters are interested in him. Completely. And I um I sat for him as well for that year, and I did a bit of his cleaning because he was terrified of getting a professional cleaner because they might disrupt his setups, which were extremely, you know, precise sort of thing. So I got to spend a bit of time with him. I kind of now looking back, wish I'd asked him more specific questions. But I think his influence on me was just to for me to experience someone committing their whole life to painting. I mean, he you know how Lucim Freud sort of painted every day.
SPEAKER_00I'm a realist painter working in oils from Loudoun County, Virginia, and I'm fascinated with the subject of creativity. I want to know what was the spark that led creative professionals into the fields they are in, why they make the work that they do, and what can we learn from each other? Listen along as we answer these questions and more. I'll be interviewing people from all over the creative universe, artists, designers, writers, you name it, even museum experts who will give us insight into other famous creative minds. Maybe together we can find the answers. Thanks for joining us today. My guest today on the podcast is British realist painter, the talented Laura Smith. Welcome to the podcast, Laura. Thank you so much. It's lovely to be here. Well, let's start um with my first question. Uh let's begin with your early formation as an artist. Were the arts encouraging your childhood home? How did you discover your calling?
SPEAKER_02Well, the arts, well, painting and drawing was definitely encouraged in my childhood home. My my mother's always loved painting, you know, in her spare time. And both my grandfathers painted one of them painted watercolors and the other one painted in oils, just again, you know, just in an amateur capacity. But um, and I was lucky enough to have a wonderful teacher when I was very little. I I I think I started doing extra art clubs when I was four. And my teacher was very encouraging and made me feel, you know, was one of those people that would say, Oh Laura, I uh there's this artist I think you'd be really interested in, you know, and he'd show me a book of Turner. And and this was all before I was 11. So so I had this very um very, very encouraging um childhood when it came to drawing and painting.
SPEAKER_00My goodness, yes, it sounds like it. You weren't just looking at Beatrix Potter, you were looking at some serious artists.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I mean, in a way, we've all got tastes that evolve, don't they?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So you had regular tutoring in in painting by the time you picked it as your as your declaration, you know, as as uh as what you were going to study in college, were you very proficient, uh would you say?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think I mean my parents, you know, looking back, so incredibly generous of them to sort of find, you know, little summer courses and different things that they took me to. Um and one of the things that they I think my aunt actually paid for this, I did a two-week uh live painting course at the Slade, which I went on to go to, but but when I was 16, just um sort of before what we do here is A levels, uh, although now it's probably different. But uh and I did that um one summer when I was 16. And so that was really exciting. Um definitely to gave me a real taste for for working from from life, which I already enjoyed doing, but I'd never I don't think I'd ever spent two weeks painting a a person before, you know. It's great.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. Uh that's really wonderful that your parents encourage you to take those kind of adult level classes at that young age. I mean, um, I can only imagine how that set you up. That's fantastic. Well, you mentioned the Slade School. Can we talk about that? Um, how it was uh attending there for both your BA and MA and for the non-British audience, uh can you share what's um what's so admired about the Slade School?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I'll start with the last bit. Um, and I have been thinking about it, you know, what why what is it? What you know, what's interesting about the Slade. Um and so so I think I think it was started in I think it was 1871, something like that. And it's it's um first of all, it's a it's a rather beautiful building, it's kind of neoclassical building with lots of light pouring in, and it sort of feels quite grand going in the this big staircase. And so so that's kind of kind of um slightly magical in a way. And there have been a couple of times when the Slade's been, I don't know, had had some artists that that we still remember now. So Princess sort of turn of the century, 20th century, you've got people like Stanley Spencer and um Augustus and Gwen John, um, Dora Carrington, people like that there. And and then later in the well, in the 19 well, I suppose 50s really, uh, someone called Sir William Colstream uh was was teaching and and he taught until I think well into the 70s. And uh he was very influential and uh there's an artist called Ewan Uglo who who was especially influenced by um well by Colstream but also by um Claude Rogers, who is another artist, and and perhaps what's interesting about Kohlstream and Claw Rogers and um Victor Parsmore, another artist, was that in the late 30s they set up a school called the the Houston Road School, and it was it was all about working from direct observation, but in rather a peculiar way, where they they were trying to be as objective as they could, and they were they were using devices to measure and plumb lines, and and you could sort of see the uh the process of the painting uh with these little marks that they would make. These they'd sort of take these measurements and um uh and and that would be part of the process. And they funnily enough, they were sort of trying to connect with the common man who was was not so perhaps uh interested in all this sort of modern abstract art, and they thought I'm we're gonna be realists, and and of course the Second World War cut that off, but then they came back to being you know, to teaching uh at Campbellwell School of Art, which is also in London, and then and then at the Slade. Um, so you've got this this this tradition of painting from life that sort of evolved and sort of morphed a little bit into a very particular way, a particular sort of environment at the slade in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, where you'd have these multiple rooms devoted to working from the figure. And uh Coldstream and certainly, in particular Ewan Jugler, who then went on to teach at the Slade, they'd set these very, very long um uh poses. So you'd have uh a model in one position for an entire term, and the culture was that you were just working on the one painting for that length of time. So, yeah, so there's that. But I think also just thinking about the slade, it's somewhere that you I would say to this day, it's always well, it's it's multidisciplinary, so you've got fine art media, sculpture, and painting, all and all of them talking together. And I I think that most almost everyone I know who's been there has a kind of fondness for it, partly because of the fact that you're very much encouraged to um think about ideas and unpack things, and it's not about kind of going straight into being a professional artist. And it there's a disadvantage in that sometimes you come out the other side and you think, uh, when did we ever talk about being commercial? But but in a way, it's sort of a kind of bubble. I mean, obviously everyone's experience is different, but you know, I've spoken to people who've been to the Slade and they've been to the Royal College and or or the Royal Academy. And you know, the Royal Academy is right kind of on Cork Street, like in Mayfair, you've got all the galleries around, all of them go to it. Whereas the Slade, perhaps maybe because it's part of a university, a wider university, it's um, I don't know, maybe we're just in our own world, and that's why people like it. But my my experience of it, um, I just want to back up slightly and say that through my summer school, I met Andy Pankhurst, who has been a big influence on me um in terms of teach teaching. And he um said to me, Oh, I run a Saturday drawing class um somewhere in West London. You could come to that if you like, and bless my parents. They paid somehow, they found a way for me to get to London every Saturday and do um live drawing. And I met someone called Francis Hoyland, who is another artist contemporary to you in UGLO, and he had been trained by Colstream in this rigorous measurement way, but he then rejected it. So he was all about expression and freedom and following your intuition, and you know, it's just a very different sort of approach. And so he kind of primed me, or he tried to prepare me for the slate by saying, don't become someone that's completely uh kind of inhibited by the um very rigorous, you know, closing one eye and measuring on an arc and everything. He encouraged me to be a bit freer. So I had he was actually a very big influence on me, and I I went to his classes sort of while I was at the slade. So I I I feel like I've always had these sort of different influences kind of pulling me and perhaps in different directions, which can feel quite uncomfortable. But looking back, I'm I'm glad to have had different, different um I can see that now that you're describing that your work.
SPEAKER_00Uh your paint handling, for instance, seems much more looser than I think.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, it is looser than you you and you cloak, absolutely. Um so so Ewan was just there for my first year, and I the only reason I keep talking about him is that quite a lot of pay observational painters are interested in him. Completely. I'm gonna marry me. Um and I um I sat for him as well for that year, and I did a bit of his cleaning because he was terrified of getting a professional cleaner because they might disrupt his setups, which were extremely, you know, precise sort of thing. Yeah. So so I got to spend a bit of time with him. I kind of now looking back, wish I'd asked him more specific questions. But I think his his influence on me was just to for me to experience someone committing their whole life to painting. I mean, he you know how Lucy Freud sort of painted every day, that Aubach, uh, you know, I listened to an interview with him the other day, and he, you know, paints all the time. Well, that's what Ewan was like as well. And and it's it's it's quite something when you're a young person to be exposed to that level of commitment. That's absolutely amazing. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's like talking to art history talking to you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I know what you mean because I was literally 18 and it was just a year. Yes. Um, so I just caught the end of that. But by the time, by the end of my degree, uh everything had changed from having been a very, very formal, quite definitely intimidating atmosphere in the life room. By the end, by 2003, it was very intimate and quiet. There were only about two or three of us left who were still wanting to work from the figure. And we were great friends with the models, and they we had them clothed by that stage. We just that's what we were interested in. And so it was really luxurious um uh and and much more cozy than the rather scary sort of environment at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00Um such a such wonderful description. What other instructors there do you think had an influence on your on your work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, well, definitely Andy Pank has because he taught us uh he taught a drawing class on a Friday. But also, so I'd already started going to the the what is now the Royal Drawing School, but back then it was the Prince's drawing school, um, which is is an incredible place actually, where they they do public access uh drawing classes, really. But really, they also have these, yeah. But they will also have um what they call with drawing year, so they have kind of a cohort of of you know students. But um, so I was going to their classes and uh oh yeah, I was thinking, why am I telling you this? And it's because they're um uh Leon Kossoff, who is an artist who's in a different sort of tradition, um, kind of through Bomberg, and he it do you know his work at all? I don't know. I'm gonna look him up as soon as I get off this. Yeah, I mean I love his work, it's very gestural and painterly, and he was um great friends with uh Frank Ahlbach in their early sort of formative years. So if you think of Frank Ailbach's paintings, there's some similarity there. Amazing. And anyway, I I asked him if I I wrote to him through the drawing school and asked if I could sit for him, um, because I felt like I'd learned so much from sitting for Ewan. And um, and so I and he said, yes, so I did so I got to sit for him. And so I think it was my third and fourth year um doing my degree. I was I was sitting uh for Leon um just early in the morning, kind of once a week. Um, and that was very, very interesting to compare two different ways, you know, with Ewan, it was everything absolutely precise. You know, you'd spend ages getting into the right position, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, no heaters, it was no frills. Do you know what I mean? Right. Um, whereas uh with Leon, you'd have a fire, you were on this cozy kind of um cushioned chair, just basically falling asleep. Um, and he was and he was drawing away. Um, and he he was, you know, incredibly gentle and sweet, but also you could just say there'd be something that you'd accidentally say, and he'd suddenly get passionately kind of you say, oh, something about I don't know, Lucien Freud's work and compare it to Suzanne, and he'd say, No, Cezanne is completely different, or something like that. And so it's it's sort of funny seeing people just, I don't know, deeply, like ridiculously kind of passionate about their beliefs of around painting. Oh, so I think those people, I think those are the people, yeah, who who probably had the biggest impact, despite the fact that now, you know, I look back and think Lucy Jones was someone who taught me, and I love her work. And I don't really remember listening, but I had my ears open. Do you know what I mean? You're quite when I was when I was between the ages of 18 and 2, I I, you know, 23, whatever I was, I was quite sort of narrow-minded because I I think it's not always easy, depends the time you're at art school, but sometimes it can be quite difficult to to swallow your path. And you know, especially if you're you know seen as being a little bit old-fashioned. So so I was just quite sort of sticking to my guns and you know, listen to who I wanted to listen to and not and not to the others. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What you're saying resonates with me. I think part of when we're growing, yes, part of when we're growing up, you define yourself as who you are by what you are not, right? So you you then have to make a decision. I I'm not a loose painter or I am a loose painter, you know, and then and then you're only looking maybe at artists that kind of uh that you're interested in and not artists that perhaps would make you a better artist, you know. I definitely did that in my 20s.
SPEAKER_02That's so true. And I mean Jenny Savile was teaching there, and I remember, you know, just sort of basically having an argument with her, you know, just so the arrogance of use. So anyway.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's amazing. That's you uh so much to unpack there. Well, uh, talk a little bit about the princess school and and how that differs in the drawing year. Um, you know, uh Daniel Shannon also talked about that in the podcast where I interviewed him. So what was I love that? Oh, thank you. What he's fantastic. What role does that play? Like when do people do the drawing year? Is it typically after they've done their their BA, their four years? Uh is it kind of like an in-between thing before getting an MA or do they take it whenever? Um, what's that like?
SPEAKER_02Well, I I would say nowadays it's I feel like it tends to be quite young people, actually. I mean when I did it, there was a mixture of ages. Um but I think people do tend to do it after they've done a degree, whether it's straight after, like me, or you know, they've done something else, you know, maybe they've worked, maybe they've done something quite different, or they've been in fashion or illustration or something, and then they're coming to it. And and it and it's definitely changed through the years, you know, when when Daniel and I were doing it, I mean, I pretty much remember the exhibition being mostly pencil. And I remember one person had done these little coloured drawings, Grant Foster, and I thought, oh wow, how how how um imaginative. And now they're they're they're painting at collage and all sorts of different things. Um very, you know, really colourful, um, amazing um shows. But yeah, so so it's it's all these different tutors all teaching drawing in different ways, but it's all it's basically all around observation. So it's either in the studio, perhaps with a model, or it it might be in a museum uh or gallery. And you know, in London we've got we're so lucky with the galleries and museums we have, um, or it could be out on the you know, the street drawing in the street. Sounds like heaven, honestly. Well, it it's great. I mean, to be honest, I enjoyed it, I actually enjoyed it more while I was doing my degree. But once I finished my degree, and bear in mind I was in this ridiculously luxurious position of having, you know, whatever model you wanted there every day for you and your friend, you know, it's basically that. Um, going into a situation where you're in a group of 25 students that, you know, some one or two of which may be also doing the drawing year, but a lot of people are just there, you know, they've got jobs or they're retired or whatever, and they're they're there. So it's you're not in this sort of student bubble anymore. And we were just drawing so we weren't painting. And I think I just reached a point where I was absolutely saturated with advice and information and everything. And um, yeah, I think perhaps it might have been an idea to go off and do something else and come back. Whereas when I did my my master's, which was about seven years later, I I was absolutely desperate to be a student again and you know, open to it all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What was that like kind of deprogramming yourself from the people that were that you so admired that were so heavily influencing your work at the time? You but you said something there that I think was very interesting.
SPEAKER_02I think I am still deprogramming myself. Right. We probably all are, yes. Um yeah, I think um. Well, I'm just trying to think how to answer that properly. I mean what what happened was I I fell into commissioned portraiture and that was a completely different experience from my experience up to then. Um because suddenly you're providing a service to a client, and you know, really the ideal way of doing commissions is if you're already a fully formed artist, you've got your work, you know where you're at, your your potential client can see the sort of work you make and say, I want one of those, please. Whereas I was still totally trying to find out who I was. So, you know, anyone who was prepared to sit for me in real life, um, poor things, you know, they spent ages. Well, I was basically painting one style over another. And then anyone who I was, you know, who couldn't sit for me, who I had to work from photographs, but I did I just didn't really know how to work from photographs. So it just I, you know, the years went by and I I got more and more disillusioned with it, to be honest. So I suppose, you know, I learned how to finish a painting, um, and I got a lot of paint down on canvas, which is actually brilliant, you know. You want to just get, I remember some tutor saying, um, you know, you want to get all your bad paintings out of the way, as quickly as possible. So anyway, that was brilliant. Yes. But then, but then I I just actually my yes friend of mine at the time said, Laura, you've got to do a master's. And I said, No, I can't possibly afford it, or you know, and then I thought about it and I thought, oh, I'd love to, I would love to do that actually, because I don't know if you had this, but when I was coming out to my 30th birthday, and I and I just thought, I don't want to be doing these commissions endlessly. I can't, this just isn't what I signed up for initially when I wanted to be an artist. And I wasn't, it's nothing to do with, I mean, it's it's an amazing thing to to paint commission portraits. It's just that I wasn't doing it very well. And I, you know, you end if you're not sort of quite clear with your vision, um, and the client doesn't necessarily know what they want. So they're saying, Oh, can you change the background or change this or that? Right. And if you just say, Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll do whatever you like, it's not gonna be what you want, it's not gonna be what they want, actually. So I have huge, huge admiration for people who do it. But in any case, I I just I just fell out of love with it and um and yeah, went back to the slade and it was a totally different experience. And I believe me, I applied to other places, but the slade was the only place that took me, and and it was a completely different experience because I was, you know, older and wiser, totally open. So I I went to, you know, every department, got um, you know, installation artists and video artists and photographers and all sorts of people to to talk to me. And um, it was a very it really built up my confidence, uh, which had absolutely plummeted. And they, you know, I was around other students having crits, and they'd say, um, I I'd sort of thought if I'm going to be a contemporary artist, I've got to somehow give up painting from life. You know, I didn't really know what I what kind of artist I was because I'd just been doing one job after another. And anyway, my fellow students just said, Oh, well, if you like working from observation, then just do it. And I thought, all right, so they think it's okay. So maybe there isn't this big sort of them and us thing around. But now, you know, we look at Jennifer Packer and Daron Langberg and all these amazing contemporary artists who often work from life. And with, you know, it doesn't seem mutually exclusive to be contemporary and observational, but um, I was sort of learning that, and I and I had wonderful, you know, that someone called Lisa Milroy, who is a a really um gifted teacher and you know, amazing painter, and she and she would had you know tutorials with me where I'd sort of say, Well, I really like, you know, when a candle is the same level as a as a glass of water, like this tiny little grasping at straws of what I liked. And it was it was quite um an emotional couple of years, but I really loved every second of it.
SPEAKER_00You just said something very illuminating there, I think, being aware of what you like, right, in your work. Yeah, being conscious of that, and then that's how you cobble together, I guess, your your style, your aesthetic, your your viewpoint. That's that's really that's beautiful, it's very insightful. I was thinking here, Lauric, uh, you mentioned uh just briefly, if we could go back to the Prince of School. What is the Richard Ford Award? Can you talk about that?
SPEAKER_02Oh yes, and the lovely thing is that I met I met someone recently whose um grandfather uh set it up that that award, uh, and what an incredible thing to do. So it's where students are um you know given a certain amount of money to go and uh have the opportunity to draw from paintings in the Prado in Madrid.
SPEAKER_00Amazing.
SPEAKER_02So I know, I mean, how lucky is that? Yeah. So another student and I um went uh um went to it, um, went on it, got it, whatever, and spent three or four weeks in Madrid in August. So it was too hot really. Oh, yes, right, yes. We were in the museums all the time. And um yeah, it was just amazing.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's amazing when I read when I read that it sounded like the Pride Rome, it sounded like those kind of things, like those kind of things.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's not quite like that, but is but it's um I suppose you could make a bit what you know, but um, yeah, I I mean I really sort of fell in love with Goya, who I hadn't really looked at properly before, and um Velasquez, you know, they've got Las Marinas and you know, but they've also got Ganica, you know, Picasso, and uh in in um in Madrid, I mean, you know, so we were visiting other other galleries, but yeah, I mean, absolutely amazing to have that special time. And and actually that is one thing that I've always really enjoyed doing is drawing from paintings. Oh wow, okay. Um yeah, yeah. And that that's something. Um, do you remember I was talking about the drawing class that I I started, you know, even before the slade and and Francis Hoyland, um, who's a painter, he's still alive and he has taught at the the drawing school, he used to go to the Victorian Albert Museum and the National Gallery, you know, to draw, and I sort of go along with him. And and now I get to run my own class with students slash you know, artists um drawing and we draw together. And I it's one of my favorite things to do, yeah.
SPEAKER_00When you're when you're drawing, are you drawing? Because I've done copying at the National Gallery of Art here in in DC as well. Um, are you drawing principally in graphite and pencil? Are you doing charcoal?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, that and they're very, very specific. We've had lots of have you had that as well that's well, yeah, there's definitely rules. Yes, yes. Yeah. So do you have you ever done it where you've actually copied a painting in paint?
SPEAKER_00Yes, there's there's a copyist program here at the National Gallery of Art, and it was set up from the inception of it. Amazing. Yeah, and so you you submit your work and then you know you get juried in, and then once you're juryed in, you're allowed to, but they're I mean, they're very strict. So because um when it first began, uh there was I I I can't remember the name, but there was somebody who's so good that he was basically it was looking exactly like the paintings he was copying, and then they would sell them in the antique stores, you know. You know, that's certainly not um the look a muse uh National Gallery of Art was promoting, like forgeries, you know. So I so then now so now they're very strict. So now you cannot make a copy exactly the same size as the painting. It has to be, I can't remember, like four inches larger or smaller than the original. Uh something like that. There's all sorts of um rules. And one of the rules is that you can't paint unless you're a copyist in in this program. So they are so it's only drawing. Drawing is the only thing that's allowed for like the you know, the average person that's uh that's coming to the museum.
SPEAKER_02Gosh, but what what an opportunity and how brave of you to do that in painting. Oh yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a full contact sport because you know, uh, people obviously that are coming to the museum are people that love art, right? So they're they're going to very much point out to you what's wrong with your painting. Oh my gosh. The masterpiece that you're trying to absorb and you know and understand. Oh my god, that's hilarious. I think you may or may not have you know knowledge of what you know what the palette was, you know, that you you're copying from. You're you're using maybe more modern paints, you know, versus what they were using. So things like that. It's just it's really interesting, but it's a it's a wonderful exercise to do for sure. Well, uh, let's talk a little bit about your process. Let's move forward now into modern day. Um, you are working completely from observation, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I am, although it's it's changed a little bit in that I now feel free to um put to to sort of change the setup as I go. So I I used to just have the setup absolutely um unchanging for a long period of time. Like you and whereas I suppose, I mean, I would never actually compare myself to him. Um, but uh yes, I suppose I I came out of that that sort of training where you you're very much thinking about the whole environment and the space and how objects relate to one another, how the colours relate to one another. Um, whereas now I I feel like I can add in some flowers or a fish or whatever and then take it out again. Um but but yeah, I do, I I just love, I just love working from direct observation. And I I, you know, I kind of wish I could work from drawings, and I've got friends who do. But um yeah, I I I've tried it a little bit, I just don't find it as engaging. I find I what I'm really wanting to do is get completely absorbed in the activity and and working from observation, I find so absorbing. I mean, do you do you do it?
SPEAKER_00100%. Yes, yes. And I I like to work a lot, I do a lot of florals. I so there's that other level of of working from life again, right? Uh seeing the beauty of of the life in front of you, you know, from from its bud to its, you know, dying right in front of you. It's just so beautiful to work to work from life. I 100% agree with you on that. Um, you were saying something interesting there about friends of yours that are working from their drawings. So are they doing obviously their drawings are observationally based as well. What difference does that make working from a drawing versus working from the setup when working observationally?
SPEAKER_02Well, I suppose it might be to do with freedom to make uh choices. I think in one of your questions, maybe you you talked about the idea of sort of mindless copy. Yes, yes, I just love trying to do that. And I and I I think that you know that it's absolutely impossible to mindlessly copy if you're using a drawing, especially if you're having to use a remember colours and and things. Um I mean, I suppose that's brilliant. Yes. I I think of Bonard as being one of the people that is, you know, an exemplary painter who worked from drawings and memory, and and his his pictures are you know so much about that kind of initial idea.
SPEAKER_00And um I'm glad you mentioned that because I was not aware of that. That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So how are you working? One another thing about your work is that you do work large. So how are you working? I are you working life size when you're painting from observation?
SPEAKER_02When you said that about sight size, but I don't think I've ever worked actually strictly site sides. Maybe once or twice I've done a drawing, but um so I I I've just always I haven't that's not that's one thing I haven't worried about um is is the scale. So I I I'm very comfortable blowing things up or reducing them. Um I love that. So but that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean what what what do you So I don't work necessarily site size where uh my my easel is right next to my object and I'm stepping back, but I do work life size. So my my work tends to be exactly the size of what I'm painting. And if if you tend to be like that and you want to work larger, that was that was my question. How are how do you get around that? But it sounds like you just doing it from the inception very differently, where you're you are scaling it up or down.
SPEAKER_02I th I think so, but it is a it is a tricky one, isn't it? Because you don't want things to look kind of, I don't know, sort of giant in a in a silly way or and yeah, I I mean um I I think um I did go through a period of time where I was working on just single objects. And when I started trying to paint multiple objects in the same picture, that did present problems because I didn't want things to be uh, I don't know, quite too busy. And um yes, and unless you're happy to go to to really increase the scale, you're you're then having to consider the relationships between uh a lot of uh objects. Um I mean I've actually got quite a large uh setup in in the sense that I've got this um gazebo in the studio that is two metres by two metres, and that's what I have my still life in. So it's already, I mean, I don't I would I don't think I've ever painted uh well I haven't for a while anyway, painted a painting that's actually two meters long. That's very that would be too big for me, really, or almost too big. So I so I suppose there's that as well, because if you're trying to work from a small setup, then then it's even it's probably even more challenging, isn't it, to to to go larger.
SPEAKER_00I think so, unless the approach is different. So I mentioned I I had Ed Preeby on on my podcast as well, and and I asked the same question to him, and he said, Well, I just add more objects, which I think is brilliant by itself, you know.
SPEAKER_02That's what you'd have to do, exactly. Right, right. But it's not an easy thing, is it, to add more objects and for it to actually hold together. Yeah. So yeah, it's impressive.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And then and then adding the other layer of abstraction that you do with your work. So can we talk about that? Um, the balance between your abstraction and and your representational elements. That to me, when I look at it, I see somebody who's who's deliberately picking objects that don't necessarily go together and but you're really considering the background as like an abstracted kind of field, and then you're populating kind of more representational things within that abstracted field.
SPEAKER_02That if that makes sense, is does that I I love I love what you've just said. Um and I I wouldn't have been able to articulate it, but yes, I think that is what I'm doing, and I think I am trying to create a a kind of other world that feels fantastical or not quite of you know the real world, in the sense that I don't know if you think of um, you know, a Chardan sort of painting of perhaps that's got some as you you talked about objects that wouldn't necessarily belong together, you know, his you you would think they perhaps were in keeping with one another. Um, or with Richard Debencorn, you know, he might have a a mug of coffee and a pair of glasses and a letter, and that's again that sort of it's it's sort of of the real world. Yes. Um whereas I I definitely want my objects to feel like characters in some kind of drama. Um and so I think to have objects that aren't ne aren't obviously uh part of a narrative that you could make sense of. For example, you know, I don't know, a knife and a lemon and a plate. Right, right. Um not as obvious. Yes. Yeah, that they they I think maybe the the kind of the the strangeness of them coming together maybe hopefully contributes to this sort of slightly otherworldly sort of aspect. But I mean some people can do it without doing I mean like brandy's little bottles all all squashed together, that that has an otherworldly, you know, it's ambiguous in the sense that it feels that you could be looking at a landscape, yes, and yet and yet they're you know obviously little bottles.
SPEAKER_00How do you think he achieved that? Is that the uniformity of of palette there?
SPEAKER_02I have no idea. I think it might be to do with the touch as well, but I d I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00Well, I love I I love all these um objects that you collect. It it very much has to me like a magpie almost sensibility, uh, because it does feel like beautiful things that I wouldn't necessarily think that you come together, like you were saying, like, you know, like a lemon and a and a and a knife. Um, but they are just beautiful, like and and I in intuited that that sentiment or that thought about your work. And then I came across a painting called Glimmering Mismatch, and I was like, oh, that's it. That's exactly it, you know. So so you are you are kind of combining these um these different types of objects together. Can I ask you, I love the use of your ribbon, uh, which is such a beautiful element, uh kind of drawing the eye through your paintings. And I'm wondering, is there is there another layer of of meaning to that as well?
SPEAKER_02Well, funny enough, the ribbon I'd say there isn't. Um, but but it, you know, it's not to say that there aren't that I do think of certain objects as being sort of charged with meaning just to me, but the ribbons came about partly through looking at old master paintings like George Delatour or Raphael with beautiful fabric and ribbons, but also through I was looking at a Richard Tuttle installation with all this fabric piled up, and I think uh I was I wanted the sort of gesture of ripping. So I started off with these sort of strips of fabric, uh, but but and then and then it sort of evolved into ribbons, but I think it's also just that abstract, you know, you you were talking about my um environments feeling slightly abstract, and I think the ribbons is part of that is trying to connect, you know, flow your eye from one thing back to another thing. Um, and I love the fact that they come in such wonderful colours, and yes, you know, and you can have them sort of uh hanging, or you know, you can have them stretched, but you could also have them very loose, or you know, I I think the gesture of that of that uh can be emotive.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's beautiful formalistically, but also um if you're thinking too about about meaning, like uh, you know, the author Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, I think that was one of his uh greatest books. But he's he's a symbolist, right? And so, you know, when he talks about um it's been a long time since I've thought about this, but the layer of meaning that people associate or attach to objects are different for each of us, right? And the first painting that I came across of yours that had these ribbons, it was red ribbons. And the first thing I thought when I saw that, I thought, oh, is that kind of an Asian influence? Because in a lot of the Asian cultures, the use of red or red string tying things together is kind of like a like a past life kind of thing. Oh really? Yeah, so it has a really beautiful spiritual layer to it, you know. And that's what I that's what I saw in your painting when I first looked at that, and that kind of drew me in. Um, but then also the you know, the whole formulastic um what it was doing for the composition. So yeah, so I was wondering if there was a deeper meaning with that, but that's just beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Sadly not, but I absolutely love that. Well, you can use that now going forward.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's wonderful. Um, talk can you please talk about your palette as well? Uh it's just are you working with a limited palette?
SPEAKER_02No, I I'm actually not. I mean, I I have kind of staple colors that I almost Always use. I mean, do you want me to sort of so I so I I pretty much always use titanium white, camium yellow lemon, camium yellow deep, Indian yellow, camium red, camium red deep, permanent rose, uh, various purples, and French ultarine, cobalt blue, various turquoises, ivory black, you know, different green. I've got all sorts though. I mean, I've got all sorts of sort of transparent colours. But I think when I was sort of first being trained at the same, we we didn't have a lot of earth colours kicking around. So I've I've got a very primary, quite bright sort of palette.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and yet you you do have some dark, deep neutrals in your in your work as well that contrast beautifully against the dual-tone colours. Oh, thank you. I think that's interesting that you're that it sounds like you're working with a typical palette of like a cool and and warm color for each primary. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Split primary, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, fantastic. So there's this beautiful quote uh from the New English Arts Club that you wrote. May I read that? There's uh I just such a beautiful thought. You say I've always loved looking at still life paintings. My favorite ones give me the feeling that I'm looking at something very intimate and revealing, like the page of a diary. This is partly because they have often been painted with that precious thing, total artistic freedom. Meaning that every choice was the artist's own. Not only were they able to make all the decisions about what we see in the painting, but they had to. I just love that thought. Uh, can you kind of elaborate on that a little bit more? What I see there is you're actively composing as an artist.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. So maybe it's three years ago now. Um, Daniel and I were involved in um a symposium um where we were talking about uh the still life setup and the sort of dilemma of how to how to set it up and things. And it was really interesting because uh we had six artists involved and they all treated setting up the you know the arrangement very differently, and and some of them wanted to sort of naturally come across something rather like a landscape painter, I think. You know, a landscape painter wouldn't, I don't think, want to sort of necessarily move trees about. I mean, of course, you know, they did they do and they did, but you know, the the in a way I think of I think of a landscape painter as just being like, wow, look at that sky, wow, look at that sea or whatever. Whereas still life painters, uh some of them, like me, really enjoy starting with this blank slate and just absolutely choosing, having total control, you know, making the sort of theatre stage set uh and and choosing everything. And that's yeah, that that's what I what I really enjoy to do. And and yeah, and and and when I look at great still life paintings, like I don't know, I love Manet's um Still Life paintings particularly, and and Shardin, and I look at them and think, okay, so why have they put that there? And why have they put that there? And you know, I'm seeing links between this and that, and it's um is it is really I I just find it so interesting. Uh and there's something particularly interesting about still life as opposed to um a painting of a person in a in a room that, yes, you know, perhaps that there was discussion about what the person was gonna wear, or maybe it's you know, telling you about them. But there's just something about still life where the artist was fully in control. Um, yeah. I love that thought. I just love that thought.
SPEAKER_00So that's do you think you're you're uh thinking composition first when you're working? Like that's your very first thought when you're arranging your your objects, obviously.
SPEAKER_02That's that's a very good question.
SPEAKER_00Your first and your last thought seem to be composition because it seems to be such a strong element of your work.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Um I well, sometimes I'll because objects come to be in my paintings in different ways, and sometimes I'll you know be lying in bed and think, oh, wouldn't it be great to have a pair of scissors open at eye level or something? But then I or I might and and I might go out and buy them and then try and set them up. Um, or I might see something, uh, you know, I don't know, the light falling on a bottle or something and think, oh, that looks amazing. I'm gonna include that. Or I might see a work of art or something and try and kind of recreate it in some sort of strange way. Um and so where am I going with this? I'm wanting to talk about um composition. The different, yeah, the composition, because you you know, if I've got an idea about an object, then it is about composition, but it's sort of if it's just a single object, it's kind of that image is in my mind from the beginning. Whereas if I am setting up something we've talked about using multiple objects, then that I'm I'm not starting with an idea so much as sort of just having a go moving things about and trying different objects together and hoping that somehow I can get them feeling like they've got a relationship. So I suppose I'm I I I think at the moment I'd say I start with an idea of colour um or or a sort of or a sort of gesture like um a kind of overflow or laying out flat or something, but it's it's it's often with an idea of colour. And absolutely, as you say, I'm trying to move things about to try and get to arrange the objects in something that feels engaging to me, and then I'll get the canvases involved and go from there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think that's the best way to go about it. I think that's very high-level painting. That's what we're we're discussing here. Um, and then in that same article, uh, there was another beautiful quote um uh where you say something that gives the genre wonderful mystery is that the objects depicted hover between being very much their physical selves and at the same time a sort of private code to be broken. And that's just beautiful. So it's that balance there between the objects and the composition and then what what those actual objects themselves signify, right? So I mean there's just something so beautiful about about the genre of still life painting that you don't really get in, you know, in any other, you know, genre. So um I just I I love that thought. During COVID, you know, when we were all quarantined, you know, had to paint what was around us. I was very much um I I did a still life scene of my son and the things he just left behind because he's a teenager and they don't pick up after themselves and you know, and every day. And I just brilliant. Yeah, and I just picked one spot where he ate at the at the kitchen table and he just wouldn't pick up after himself. So day after day, you know, there would be a new object or an object would be taken away, you know, things like that. And I just love that thought. You know, I love the thought of painting objects that belong to other people as almost a portrait of themselves, you know. So yeah. So on one level, that is a beautiful thing, the this private code that you're talking about. Uh, but then also just being very mindful of of constantly of the composition, the overall, you know, uh modern painting is really uh what you're seeing on the surface, right? Of you know, between the the square or the or the you know the canvas itself, you know, seeing every every inch of that of that painting having a purpose, right? Uh so composition is such an important thing, but the weaving of the two, I think that is like that's that's art, right?
SPEAKER_02So that's really well I love I love the idea of chance that you would just kind of okay, what's it gonna be today? And then I just go with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think parenting's like that, you know? Brilliant. Oh yeah, it's a lot of chaos. Gotta be flexible. Yes, exactly. Can you talk about the artists like heart art historically speaking that have helped inform your style or aesthetic? You've been mentioning a couple here throughout. So so art historically, you mean yeah, like not necessarily contemporaries, but yes, past artists, yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I've got uh a sort of top five or six artists that are my favorites.
SPEAKER_00If that's do you is that the sort of thing you would you think is kind of your artistic lineage, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh my god, okay, I don't want to say anymore. No, um my favorite artists are are Rembrandt, uh John Constable, uh Shardan, Mane, Monet, and I'd say Suzanne as well. And um there are lots of things that you can sort of try, you know, that you can connect between them all. Um, but one of the things is, and you already mentioned this mark making, that that a lot of them have very inventive mark making and very varied often as well. Uh so that's one thing, and a lot of them are quite gestural, but also there's a kind of stillness as well in some of them. And Manet's still lives to to me are just slightly mysterious, and he's also got this real kind of zest for life, the way that he paints in such a uh luscious way. I love that. So, yeah, that those are kind of my my all-time uh heroes. I would say most of my favorite contemporary artists are women, but uh seeing you know, in terms of Western easel painting, men have had a big head start, so that's why they're all men.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned that. That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_02But we had a great Cezanne show uh last year, and it was absolutely incredible. And some of his massive, not massive necessarily, but major still life paintings in it. Oh, fantastic. Um and that was so inspiring.
SPEAKER_00Oh well, how many times did you go see that exhibit?
SPEAKER_02Well, actually, I only went twice. Okay. Only twice. But but but it was but they were really special uh visits.
SPEAKER_00That's wonderful. But Laura, can you talk about you're an instructor at the Heatherly School of Fine Art. Um, and for the non-British audience, it's one of the oldest independent art schools in Britain and one of the few art colleges in Britain that focuses on portraiture, figurative painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Um, can you talk about what your teaching practice? Is there any relation between your work and your teaching practice do you find uh that it adds to your to your work?
SPEAKER_02During COVID, I massively missed paint uh teaching. And and that was such um a gift to have because so often artists think, oh, really, if only I could just paint all the time. But no, I really, really love uh teaching. I love to have the balance of teaching and painting. And I'm so inspired by my um students. I love I love teaching people who've never used oil paints before because it's then you see that steep learning curve, and the and very often they think that oil paint is scary, and actually it's the least scary, they don't realize that it's the most forgiving, it's the most versatile, it's you know, there's nothing grand about it, you know. And so I love that, but then I also love I run two classes, one of which is in the National Gallery on a Thursday morning, and we all go and draw together, and I draw alongside the students, and then we go around looking at the paintings that everyone's chosen to draw, and I learn so much. And and even a collection, you think, you know, I've I've lived in London, I don't know, over 20 years, and um, and you think you know a collection and you don't because you know you've got students saying, Oh, well, I've chosen this one, and I haven't even, I've never even noticed it before. Yeah, and then we get into talking about it, it's wonderful, and then in the evening I do an online um class that's similar to that, but it's um, you know, we just look at one artist and we draw um from you know a painting, two paintings, and talk sort of as we draw. And again, I just learn so much. I mean, I'm not an art historian, you know, so I kind of try and swat up a little bit, but but together, I think the beauty is that anyone can look at uh paintings, and it doesn't matter whether you know you've never been to an art gallery in your life, but you've got something to bring that you're bringing, you've got your whole life experience to bring to the painting, and you will notice things that other people don't notice. So it's so wonderful to to compare notes. Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00I think for me also personally, I have the most epiphanies when I'm teaching because you you have to explain something, right? In in the most basic levels, and then you know that's that's often we'll get that little like aha, oh my goodness, you know, and and make a connection for myself. So I do find that there is a very reciprocal process there with the teaching, and that I like to ask that of people that are that are instructing.
SPEAKER_02I I completely agree with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Fantastic. Uh I would love for you to toot your horn a little bit here. I did come across some things when I was reading up on you, um, some kind of exciting opportunities that have happened in your career. Um, I'm thinking in particular being shortlisted for the Thread Needle Prize, which I think has to do with the mall galleries. Is that the portraiture kind of aspect that you were talking about earlier in your work?
SPEAKER_02Well, that actually it doesn't exist anymore, but it it was um it was for figurative painters. Yeah. And exactly it was it showed uh mall galleries. Yeah. And um, yeah, there were there were two occasions when I was actually shortlisted for it. So there were there were four of us um going for this this um prize, you know, quite a lot of money. Wow. And um, and you got to go to a dinner and um be interviewed and stuff. Uh so it was really, you know, it was really fun. And um but one of the occasions I remember I was filmed um being interviewed, and I thought I did a fine job. And then afterwards I watched it back and I thought, my gosh, I just seem like the most dappy, because I'd said something like, Oh, I don't really know what I'm doing. And and what I meant was it's an intuitive process and I'm feeling my way, but it literally came across as though I didn't have glue what I was doing, and I thought, wow, I really need to get better at this. Nailed it, yeah. And and and now and now I actually do enjoy talking about my work, but it's it's not easy at first, is it? So I think it's something to get used to.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, I think we don't like drawing attention to ourselves, right? So uh it is it can be difficult to do that and have your little elevator speech, so to speak, you know. And and also because we're I mean, we're we're doing something that's visual, it's not verbal for the most part, right? So yeah, to encapsulate that. Yeah, yeah. Can be difficult. Well, um, well, can you talk to me also about the New English Arts Club? Uh, what is that?
SPEAKER_02And well, that that yeah, I should have actually looked up, you know, when that started, and you know, but um that's brought such such you know, brought me such joy. Um, because it's it's a it's it's a club. Well, it was actually started as a sort of reaction against the Royal Academy, which is like the sort of you know, like the sort of salon. Yes, uh, impressionists, yes. Yes, and they and they they were sort of saying, well, you know, we don't we're gonna be rebels, but uh but now it's actually rather traditional. But um Which is the we don't yeah, well we don't like to think of ourselves as too too traditional, but um it's it it was the getting the email to say that I was I was part of it um was absolutely wonderful because it was like this friendly hug, you know, them sort of inviting me in. And um you you don't often have situations as an artist, do you, where you have someone you really respect saying, Come on, I think you're you know, yeah, one of us or good enough or whatever. Um, and you know that they're not just doing it out of politeness, um, because it's a it's a kind of um what's the word when it everyone votes and it's totally equal. And yeah, but your colleagues have voted you in. Yeah, and so what it is is it's it's um it's it's a group of of painters, uh, although I'm trying to think now, is it is it printmakers as well? But a lot of us are are painters, and um we get to exhibit together once a year at least, um, and certainly once a year at the Mao Galleries, um, so it's in in the summertime, and we get to choose what we put in. So I think we can put in sort of three paintings, perhaps one drawing. And I don't know about you, but for me, it's very rare that I have the opportunity to choose what I want to be in an exhibition. Yes, yes. Either I'm going in for a competition, in which case, you know, it's in the lap of the gods, or it's the gallery saying, We'd like this one and this one, and you think, Oh, well, I've already shown that one twice. What about my new work? Or what about this? Right. And and so it's such it's such a privilege, such a joy to be able to choose, you know, think, oh, I'm gonna show these things.
SPEAKER_00Um and to be able to show drawings along with your paintings, because that's rare too, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is actually. Yeah, they're very hot on drawing, and in fact, you have to submit drawings and sketchbooks just to be considered for it, which is kind of interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, definitely. Oh Laura, well, tell me what's on the horizon for you. Is there anything you'd like to share with everybody?
SPEAKER_02Well, I do have a painting in the um Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition coming up next. So it's in May, sorry.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic, congratulations.
SPEAKER_02Um, and thank you. That was one of another one where you jump through the hoops. Yes, yes. Um, and and then in the the New English Art Club uh exhibition um in the summer, I'll be in that as well. Um and I'm I'm working towards I am working towards um bigger things next next year, but nothing sort of uh exactly pinned down. So yeah, yeah, those those are the things that I've got coming up.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned the figurative work. So I think of you primarily as as doing still life now, but how how much uh how much figurative work are you doing still?
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, exactly. I spent many, many years uh just working from Still Life. Um, I can't even think. Oh, I know. It was because I was sitting for a friend of mine called James Lloyd. And if you don't know his work, okay, okay, okay, okay. Because I was gonna say, go and look it up. Um, so he uh he had this lovely idea of painting a few of his friends who had also been in the life from the slade and stuff, and um, and I was one of them, and so I was sitting for um a portrait, which was such a great experience. And I think he I think he just inspired me. I just thought, oh, actually, actually, maybe I want to paint people again. Yes. And I started going to the Heatherly's Open Studio, they have this drop-in or open studio, uh, which is like an old atelier sort of, you know, you you have a model, uh, and and people can you can go just for the day, and there is a tutor there, but they don't necessarily have to speak to you if you just want to focus on your thing. So I started going to a few of those, and um I'm thinking, oh, I'm I'm actually really enjoying that. James um offered to sit for me, uh, and so I I I painted him, and that's the one that's gonna be put forth painting. And I and my wife sat for me as well. Fantastic. Um, so so yeah, just dipping my toe in at this stage.
SPEAKER_00Are you doing are you are you combining the two? So are these like uh figurative kind of in interior?
SPEAKER_02Like with the still light, but then I would love, I actually would love that. Not yet. I mean, the one of my wife does have a lot of objects, and someone did say to me, Oh, you've painted her like a still life.
unknownAnd I thought, oh.
SPEAKER_02Um, but I would love that. Uh, it just needs a little bit of this this show I'm working towards is just gonna be still life, so I need to absolutely focus on that. But after that, I think it would be great to combine, you know, have a table of objects and a person.
SPEAKER_00I would love to see you doing that. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thank you. You you're you're encouraging me. Yeah, that's exciting.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll look forward to that. Um, Laura, I think we're gonna wrap up here, but where where can people find uh your work both online and in person?
SPEAKER_02Well, so my website is laurahyphensmith.com, and I also show with an online gallery, Crean and Company. Uh so that is um Crean with C R. It's like Cream, but with an N and Company.com. Uh and I'm also on the New English Art Club website and on the Mal Galleries website as well. And then my Instagram is Laura L A U R A J R Smith. Yeah, at Laura J R Smith.
SPEAKER_00And you're really prolific on Instagram. You're you're you're on there a lot.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh, I think someone like so people will enjoy following. That's incredible. That's really nice. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not on Twitter. I mean, not Twitter's X or X or or anything else, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's exhausting keeping up with all of them, but it it's great that you have something that people can follow you at. That's wonderful. Oh, thanks. Well, Laura, I've I've enjoyed this tremendously. Thank you so much. It's been a wonderful conversation. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you for coming on.
SPEAKER_02My absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00Wow, wasn't that quite the interview? Laura was a real joy to talk to. Both knowledgeable and friendly. Conversations such as these are the reason why I produce this podcast. I hope you are just as inspired to get to work as I am after hearing it. Here are some of the gems that Laura left with us today. If you find yourself mindlessly copying from your subject when painting, consider painting from drawings of your subject instead. As Laura says, it is impossible to mindlessly copy from a drawing when you have to invent color. Laura thinks of her still life objects as characters in a drama. And when she includes objects in her paintings that are not obviously part of a narrative, she believes that it contributes to the otherworldly feel she is after. Laura says, it is this ambiguity that allows you to read a still life as a landscape, like a Miranda painting. Laura points out that an artist who's really drawn to working with composition is often led to the genre of still life because they have complete control over it, like designing a stage set. Laura shares that she starts composing her paintings with an idea of a color or a sort of compositional gesture, like an overflow. She's trying to arrange the objects in a way that feels engaging to her. And in case she didn't have time to write down her palette, I'll repeat it here, so grab a pen. It is titanium white, cad yellow lemon, cad yellow deep, Indian yellow, cad red, cad red deep, permanent rose, various purples, French Ultramarine, Cobalt blue, various turquoises, and ivory black. As Laura mentions, her palette, which was informed by her training at the sleigh school, does not involve a lot of earth colors. So she's working with very saturated pigment and is most likely mixing her primary colors to arrive at the beautiful neutrals, i.e. grays, etc., that are found in her work. I want to thank Laura Smith for coming on the podcast today. I enjoyed every moment of the conversation, Laura. So thank you. To the rest of you, thank you for spending another hour of your day with me. I will be releasing PDFs of some of the top takeaways from each podcast starting soon. And I plan on releasing PDFs for all previous episodes as well. To receive the PDFs free of charge, please sign up for my monthly newsletter at LagoArthurstudio.com. With that, I will sign off. Until next time, creatives,