Getting Ready for Our Interview with Art Lovers Australia
Recently, Jacky and myself (aka Smith & Brooks) had the opportunity to be interviewed by one of Australia’s biggest online galleries, Art Lovers Australia. Art Lovers Australia both support and represent a huge number of emerging and established artists in Australia, including ourselves and we jumped at the chance to have an Artist Interview with them when the opportunity came up. We wanted to make the most of this valuable opportunity so that our love of nature and biodiversity, our dedication to improving our sustainability as artists and our passion for women owned businesses could be shared to a wider audience.
To prepare for this article there were two main boxes we had to tick and both of them required us to be in the same place at the same time which is tricky. Firstly, we had to be interviewed over the phone with Anna Itkonen, a seasoned writer who works in the area of artist interviews for Art Lovers Australia. Secondly, we had to provide some professional photography of the Smith & Brooks team. While the interview was actually the easy bit, the photography was something that was on our to-do list as a new, emerging artist collaboration but we hadn’t quite gotten to it yet. We have both worked in photography so it is kind of like the whole “chef that doesn’t cook dinner at home” type of situation. But the interview with Art Lovers Australia was great in that it forced us to lock something in (and fast).
So with our busy schedules, we managed to work out a time to meet in the city in my trusty ute and do a phone call with Anna on speaker. Anna if you are reading this – Thank you for your patience and your sense of humour. We felt like you had actually joined the Smith & Brooks team. We felt so comfortable! I don’t think we really prepared for the interview and it was fun to hear each other’s responses to the questions. I feel like even though I’ve known Jacky for so long there are still always new things to learn. Plus we actually had some new ideas that just emerged in the interview which was great (thanks again Anna, you were more like our therapist or team leader now that I think about it) making the whole process far more valuable than I had anticipated.
Once the interview was completed all that remained was that our photography needed to be sent through to Art Lovers Australia. Me being the over-organiser/ worrying/ we-need-3-backup-plans-in-case-it-all-goes to-bleep type person I actually decided to lock in two photography shoots. One with a professional photographer and one with just me and my remote trigger and camera on a tripod (not so professional). In the last couple of years with lockdowns, border closures, my personal health journey and even data breaches I have learnt that nothing you plan will necessarily actually happen. So I figured that I would take some shots with Jacky prior to our professional photo shoot JUST IN CASE it implodes later and the professional shoot doesn’t eventuate.
Now I am the first to admit that using a remote trigger and camera on a tripod with no one checking the shots is not ideal but it worked – thank you Canon for creating such wonderful cameras. And really it wasn’t that long ago that we used film and not being able to check the shots was just the norm. We were able to set up on Jacky’s bushland property and snap away while we hoped for the best. And to our delight a few of the shots were great! And even more exciting was that we were able to shoot some new works on the same day that also included each of us in the shots. The gorgeous green walls in Jacky’s studio just made the ‘Ovata Form’ works and their hand-embroidered detail pop against the rich background. Our backup photos had been completed successfully – yay!
Finally it was time to have a shoot with our professional photographer, Stacey Russell. She is a good friend of ours and a fabulous photographer so we knew we were in safe hands. Stacey was able to work with us to get the professional look we were after. And while my backup bushland shots were *good*, they certainly didn’t have the polish and expertise that goes into Stacey’s work. She is incredible. That’s all I can really say. Thank you, Stacey, you made up look amazing and we are just so grateful that you could work on this project with us.
So after sending the photos through we excitedly waited to see our artist interview go up online. There is nothing like the feeling of seeing your hard work come together and be presented so wonderfully. The interview went online on the 12th of May and it is fantastic. We are very grateful to Nancy Donaldson for her guidance and also to the whole Art Lovers Australia team for creating this artist interview for us. It has been such a rewarding experience and we can’t wait to do it again!
Kerrin Smith
And if you would like to read the interview in full you can find it on the Art Lovers Australia website by clicking here. Or you can head to their website and find it under Artists, Artist Interviews.
