Making Beauty From Castoffs

VA GALLERY FEATURES ARTIST SMITH CLAUDEL

During February, the Visual Arts Gallery at Mt. Hood hosted an exhibit by Kim Smith Claudel entitled “Tender to the Touch,” which highlights the airy spaciousness of the Gallery, and primarily plays with the intersection of “found objects” and a sense of their movements in relation to each other.

Photo by Ken Perez

I caught up with the artist herself in the gallery on Feb. 17 to ask about her processes and her advice for our own aspiring artists here at MHCC. “I think that, so much of it is about… the head games and trying to understand how to turn off insecurities, how to be confident, how to learn, how to trust your own voice,” she said. For her, art is about the process, sometimes more than the results, she said. “I think that art is such a physical thing. It’s so much about, like, using your body… no matter what you make.” To highlight this viewpoint, I found that Smith Claudel’s website has some videos showcasing her painting with her feet. Asked about those, she admitted, “The performance part of it, the actual movement, was more interesting than the painting, which is [to say that] the paintings were quite bad.” These paintings have been repurposed in her own art as scraps and may find their way into other pieces, she noted. Smith Claudel clarified that “you can always learn technical skills… I think what’s really hard is being able to trust yourself. And so part of my process is trying to get into that mental space. And there’s like a whole routine for me that I do and that just kind of prepares my mind and my body to get into the right headspace to feel… receptive.” Found objects are the primary components in her sculptures, she explained. “I’ve always been less excited about the art store than I am in, [say] estate sales or free piles on the side of the road or the hardware store,” Smith Claudel said she likes to notice the bits that are often just tossed aside. “There’s the scraps and the remnants. And I always thought those were so beautiful, these kind of castoff pieces.”

Just these types of “limitations” are a tool she embraces to help shape her art. “We think of limitations as being burdens, being things that hold us back. But limitations can also be things that open up what’s possible,” she explained. “Being able to cut off possibilities is just as useful as, you know, having unlimited resources.”

I asked what advice Smith Claudel wishes she had been given as an aspiring art student. She answered, “That I went for it more, in a way. It’s an easy thing to push aside an art practice, because there’s all these other things that we have to do, you know, we have to make money. We have to earn our keep.

We have to take care of ourselves… “I think that if it’s important and you love it, put everything you can into it, you know, build your life around it” because “it’s a practice,” she said. “Practice. And what I mean by that is, it’s a habit, as well. It’s about showing up.” To find out more about Smith Claudel, check out her website at KimSmithClaudel.com.