We were lucky to catch up with G. C. Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.
G. C., looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?
Some years ago I got a job in a dirty makeshift studio in the cafeteria kitchen of an old school recycling old reclaimed books into decorative books and objects. We casually referred to it as “the book factory”. Though the work exposed me to a variety of different materials and people, it was very repetitive, and very detail oriented. I learned a lot of things in my years working there, but the most important thing was patience. It takes patience and mental discipline to do the same thing, however simple, correctly and constantly over and over again for years. There is a kind of confidence that comes with being able to do that that’s hard to explain.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
It has been a long road in finding my “brand”. I consider myself a fine artist; the objects and images I make serve no purpose except that some people like them and want them. They don’t even serve much of a purpose for me except that I have to make them to be ok with myself. There is something therapeutic about it that stems from control I think. I can’t control a lot of the awful things in the world, or personal shortcomings but I can try to make something that is undeniably good, quite literally making the world better. As far as subject matter and style, I’ve yo-yo’d around but have come to settle into surrealistic tendencies often with a dark sci-fi fantasy twist. I also draw a lot of inspiration from old school Dadaists. I’m not sure if it is still possible to make Dadaist artwork but I love the motivation behind it. Stirring up trouble has always been something that has interested me, because when people are confronted with things they don’t expect, they remember those moments. For that reason I push myself to make my stuff as strange as possible.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Art needs space, space for people to come and see it, and buy it. It’s such a simple thing but has been the biggest stumbling block for me. So much time, energy and money (that young artists don’t have) goes into just finding proper space to display work, it’s crippling. My dream society would be one that in every city center, there was a Parisian style salon that provided for people walls and pedestals to display their work for sale. It would have to be large enough to accommodate all who wished to participate. It wouldn’t require much. I read once that the Parisian government spends more money on the arts than our entire country does. If we want to place the arts in the center of our society where it belongs, it needs to be put there with public money. I think people would be surprised how awesome things would get if we enabled our creative population in a way that wasn’t exploitive and capitalistic.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
Not for me, and I might go so far to say that they are harmful to the art world. To me it seems like we have found a way to keep the worst part of the art world, money, and get rid of the best part, the artwork. I have always been drawn to the material nature of artwork, and an NFT has nothing to do with that side of it. The other thing absent from NFTs is craftsmanship, which I value as an artist. There isn’t an unlimited amount of money on the private art market and NFTs draw money away from artwork that has more to do with those two things, materials and craftsmanship. I’d like to think once the novelty of it wears off they will play less of role but who knows. I do know that if we don’t nurture craftsmanship, we’ll break the chain of masters and students and lose the knowledge needed certain disciplines forever.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: gcsmith149