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Today we will introduce you to Kate Smith, a famous Australian artist. I paid attention on Kate's art a while ago and I immediately fell in love with her works, so light and so poetical. I bought a couple of Kate's art creations in the past and I treasure them dearly. We later decided to invite Kate with her exhibition to one of our our events in 2012. It was hard to believe that we would meet Kate personally and finally talk to her live. She has a wonderful and open personality and she so looked like all the women on her paintings: so extravagant and so simple and talkative at the same time. (BTW Kate sews and she makes her own, very designer-like outfits) Kate's talent and her love to what she does is seen through her beautiful creations. Kate kindly agreed to be interviewed for Butterfly and Fox website today.
Q1. Dear Kate, your works of art simply stand out: they are light, spiritual, full of music and poetry and one can look at them for hours and days and always find something new inside. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am a "Free Wheeler" with incurable buoyed optimism, an instinctively alive individual who is comfortable following my impulses wherever they may lead. I am a person who has the capacity to make snap decisions and act upon them; a person who can improvise and take life as it comes whose own life at times although maybe chaotic can still impart orderliness to my work; a person where a humour figures prominently; a person who is highly resilient physically and emotionally, yet sensitive; a person that has been capable of surviving many things life has thrown at me; a person that is generally on the side of the underdog; a dictatorial person fond of telling others especially my own children to obey the rules I set down yet my own free wheeling lifestyle implies a kind of a disregard to such restriction, "they do not take my authorisation seriously". I am a person that is caring. Many say I am larger than life person with some glaring faults; a person with a positive attitude on life and stick-to-it-attitude.
Q2. Did you go to school to study art and painting?
No.
Q3. How long have you been drawing?
Since I was a small child
Q4. How would you describe your style?
Whimsical figurative
Q1. Dear Kate, your works of art simply stand out: they are light, spiritual, full of music and poetry and one can look at them for hours and days and always find something new inside. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am a "Free Wheeler" with incurable buoyed optimism, an instinctively alive individual who is comfortable following my impulses wherever they may lead. I am a person who has the capacity to make snap decisions and act upon them; a person who can improvise and take life as it comes whose own life at times although maybe chaotic can still impart orderliness to my work; a person where a humour figures prominently; a person who is highly resilient physically and emotionally, yet sensitive; a person that has been capable of surviving many things life has thrown at me; a person that is generally on the side of the underdog; a dictatorial person fond of telling others especially my own children to obey the rules I set down yet my own free wheeling lifestyle implies a kind of a disregard to such restriction, "they do not take my authorisation seriously". I am a person that is caring. Many say I am larger than life person with some glaring faults; a person with a positive attitude on life and stick-to-it-attitude.
Q2. Did you go to school to study art and painting?
No.
Q3. How long have you been drawing?
Since I was a small child
Q4. How would you describe your style?
Whimsical figurative
To see more art works please visit: www.katesmithartist.com.au/works/original-works/
Q5. I know that the real artist get inspired from anything he/she sees: be it nature, people or even sun light so to speak. So I should ask: what inspires you the most?
Spending time in my own head the first ideas are never the last ideas.
Q6. What type of technique do you use?
With most works I start by applying a layer of Art Spectrum pastel primer to the entire surface, after which I apply pastel with my hands the light shades are worked first, followed by the dark this allows for fewer problems The scraggly hair effects, a signature of my whimsical works, is achieved with built up layers of both soft and luster pastel applied with a variety of sponge and brush techniques.
Q7. What is your favourite art accessory if any?
There is no particular accessory I favour, I use whatever I feel is needed to achieve the desired effect.... be it a sponge, my hands, a brush or duster
Q8. I know that your paintings are pretty large. How long does it take for you to finish one piece of work?
There is no such thing as set time for any painting for me; there is more to doing a work than the application of paint to paper the first stage for me, and by far the most creative is not in the doing but the thinking, I may be sitting around on a chair and looking out a window, yet I am working. I have ability to take myself into another place. a sort of out of the body-mind experience, rather than draw or doodle my their ideas... To give you an example while I am at work in this thought pattern or either in a studio, time means nothing to me, people can come and go, they can speak with me, I am told I answer them back yet, sometime later I may have no idea what was spoken, I often found my children waving their hands in front of me saying "mum to earth" ask they wish to ask me a question surely then. One say when thinking and dreaming is therefore part of the time it takes to do a painting when putting pen to paper are my ideas workable? How many interruptions will I have? How well is the work going? Many works fall short of my exceptions, so I start over again. Simply there is no answer to the question how long it takes to make a painting; every day is a different day, every work a different work.
Spending time in my own head the first ideas are never the last ideas.
Q6. What type of technique do you use?
With most works I start by applying a layer of Art Spectrum pastel primer to the entire surface, after which I apply pastel with my hands the light shades are worked first, followed by the dark this allows for fewer problems The scraggly hair effects, a signature of my whimsical works, is achieved with built up layers of both soft and luster pastel applied with a variety of sponge and brush techniques.
Q7. What is your favourite art accessory if any?
There is no particular accessory I favour, I use whatever I feel is needed to achieve the desired effect.... be it a sponge, my hands, a brush or duster
Q8. I know that your paintings are pretty large. How long does it take for you to finish one piece of work?
There is no such thing as set time for any painting for me; there is more to doing a work than the application of paint to paper the first stage for me, and by far the most creative is not in the doing but the thinking, I may be sitting around on a chair and looking out a window, yet I am working. I have ability to take myself into another place. a sort of out of the body-mind experience, rather than draw or doodle my their ideas... To give you an example while I am at work in this thought pattern or either in a studio, time means nothing to me, people can come and go, they can speak with me, I am told I answer them back yet, sometime later I may have no idea what was spoken, I often found my children waving their hands in front of me saying "mum to earth" ask they wish to ask me a question surely then. One say when thinking and dreaming is therefore part of the time it takes to do a painting when putting pen to paper are my ideas workable? How many interruptions will I have? How well is the work going? Many works fall short of my exceptions, so I start over again. Simply there is no answer to the question how long it takes to make a painting; every day is a different day, every work a different work.
To browse posters and prints visit: www.katesmithartist.com.au/prints/Prints-Posters/
Q9. How would you describe your workshop or the place where you usually create in a couple of words?
A small tin shed formally a girls' school toilet
Q10. Do you find it challenging to find time you have to divide between for your work and your family?
No
Q11. You also write poetry that sometimes accompany and compliment a particular painting. Tell us a bit about that.
I write verse to convey the thought behind the painting
Q12. What has been your most memorable time of creation and why?
There is no doubt I am a person that can arise to a challenge, living off art presents many challenges along life way, art has been the only source of income for myself and my entire family for 38 years. In 1974 my husband gave up his job for me to explore an art career. What a ride I have given him, yet he has been with me every step of the way, what have I provided him or my children in my pursuit of art? Probably nothing, other than an undisciplined fun lifestyle, yet not one of us would have had it any other way. It's been an enjoyable experience and still is. Selling art was a challenge; we never asked for a hand out from the government, surviving purely of my talents. Looking back the most memorable times are the struggles that surviving on art presents. The term living off the smell of an oily rag comes to mind when I think about my life as an artist but when I look back I think of the humour in all of it. Just one example I can give that paints a picture of my artistic lifestyle... More often than not to survive and provide a meal on the table we would park our car in an under-ground city car park, with not single cent to our name to get it out, brazenly up and down the lifts in and out of office block above the car park we would go paintings under arm asking would anyone like buy one of my painting .. Today there are hundreds of my painting in offices as well as homes throughout Melbourne and all over Australia. At the end of the day we always drove the car out from under the car park. Looking back there is no doubt that I am a risk taker but more over a survivor, if mouths had to be fed believe me I could rise to the occasion, never a quitter. I can look back and say art never made us all rich but no one ever went without... which makes the art of surviving on art, the most memorable. .
A small tin shed formally a girls' school toilet
Q10. Do you find it challenging to find time you have to divide between for your work and your family?
No
Q11. You also write poetry that sometimes accompany and compliment a particular painting. Tell us a bit about that.
I write verse to convey the thought behind the painting
Q12. What has been your most memorable time of creation and why?
There is no doubt I am a person that can arise to a challenge, living off art presents many challenges along life way, art has been the only source of income for myself and my entire family for 38 years. In 1974 my husband gave up his job for me to explore an art career. What a ride I have given him, yet he has been with me every step of the way, what have I provided him or my children in my pursuit of art? Probably nothing, other than an undisciplined fun lifestyle, yet not one of us would have had it any other way. It's been an enjoyable experience and still is. Selling art was a challenge; we never asked for a hand out from the government, surviving purely of my talents. Looking back the most memorable times are the struggles that surviving on art presents. The term living off the smell of an oily rag comes to mind when I think about my life as an artist but when I look back I think of the humour in all of it. Just one example I can give that paints a picture of my artistic lifestyle... More often than not to survive and provide a meal on the table we would park our car in an under-ground city car park, with not single cent to our name to get it out, brazenly up and down the lifts in and out of office block above the car park we would go paintings under arm asking would anyone like buy one of my painting .. Today there are hundreds of my painting in offices as well as homes throughout Melbourne and all over Australia. At the end of the day we always drove the car out from under the car park. Looking back there is no doubt that I am a risk taker but more over a survivor, if mouths had to be fed believe me I could rise to the occasion, never a quitter. I can look back and say art never made us all rich but no one ever went without... which makes the art of surviving on art, the most memorable. .
To read about Kate's pastels visit: www.katesmithartist.com.au/about-painting-with-pastels/
Q13. What is your favourite painting you did recently? What does this painting mean to you?
I am never attached to any painting so I don't have a favourite... I can say the last painting I did with a particular personal meaning to me is the work "Something Fishy"; my six year old grandson was given his first fishing rod as his Christmas gift, and he caught his first fish on Christmas day which I had to cook for his Christmas dinner. A special memory of a special day, of a special person in my life made into a work of art.
Q14. I was observing your works for a long time now. I noticed that you changed your styles, the settings how you present your work and many other things. What would be your next inspirational idea you would like to materialise / your new set of works we should expect?
I do not know this as yet.
Q15. What other artistic person do you admire other than a painter?
Fashion designers in particular the very creative Elena Dawson & Paul Harden who at one time were a couple, a couple with cult followings, their style may be theatrical at times but absolutely wearable.
Q16. Please tell us the name of the first famous painter that comes to your mind and why? Is he/she the one who gives you inspiration?
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani... I admire the simplicity of his mask like faces and elongation of form
I am never attached to any painting so I don't have a favourite... I can say the last painting I did with a particular personal meaning to me is the work "Something Fishy"; my six year old grandson was given his first fishing rod as his Christmas gift, and he caught his first fish on Christmas day which I had to cook for his Christmas dinner. A special memory of a special day, of a special person in my life made into a work of art.
Q14. I was observing your works for a long time now. I noticed that you changed your styles, the settings how you present your work and many other things. What would be your next inspirational idea you would like to materialise / your new set of works we should expect?
I do not know this as yet.
Q15. What other artistic person do you admire other than a painter?
Fashion designers in particular the very creative Elena Dawson & Paul Harden who at one time were a couple, a couple with cult followings, their style may be theatrical at times but absolutely wearable.
Q16. Please tell us the name of the first famous painter that comes to your mind and why? Is he/she the one who gives you inspiration?
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani... I admire the simplicity of his mask like faces and elongation of form
Read more about Kate's art: www.katesmithartist.com.au/about-kate-smith-artist/the-art-of-kate-smith/
Q17. What are the ways you market your art with?
Through my website and galleries
Q18. If not an artist whom would you be instead?
I am the kind of person that could have become many things and survived on whatever I undertook to do, probably a fashion designer comes to mind I may even decide to become one.
Q19. What talent would you most like to have apart from the ones you already have?
There is no other talent I wish for.
Q20. Is there something that you are still learning?
It's not that I am so smart but one is always learning mostly about life. The more you learn the more you know.
Through my website and galleries
Q18. If not an artist whom would you be instead?
I am the kind of person that could have become many things and survived on whatever I undertook to do, probably a fashion designer comes to mind I may even decide to become one.
Q19. What talent would you most like to have apart from the ones you already have?
There is no other talent I wish for.
Q20. Is there something that you are still learning?
It's not that I am so smart but one is always learning mostly about life. The more you learn the more you know.
Q21. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My husband
Q22. What would be the first thing you do if you won the jack pot lottery?
Help other and travel a little
Q23. Which five words would your friends use to describe you?
Honest, caring, dictatorial ,. creative, vibrant
Q24. What would you like to be doing in 2-3 years from now?
If I can sell my house, I will be going back to be in New Zealand with the intentions of running a fashion business - art gallery and home wares sort of a "kate smith emporium" of my creativity.
My husband
Q22. What would be the first thing you do if you won the jack pot lottery?
Help other and travel a little
Q23. Which five words would your friends use to describe you?
Honest, caring, dictatorial ,. creative, vibrant
Q24. What would you like to be doing in 2-3 years from now?
If I can sell my house, I will be going back to be in New Zealand with the intentions of running a fashion business - art gallery and home wares sort of a "kate smith emporium" of my creativity.
Q25. If you had one wish…
To a retain my mind and my health
website: http://www.katesmithartist.com.au/
To a retain my mind and my health
website: http://www.katesmithartist.com.au/
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