Deborah Smith

Deborah Smith
July 2024

You’ve had a long, varied and established career in the arts but have been focused on your beautiful project Cloud Workshop for the last little while. What was the inspiration to have this photography show?

I've been very absorbed in the world of Cloud Workshop for some time now. It's where I love to be- my natural habitat! And for the last five years, I've been finding my way after the great rupture of my brother Tyrone's death. There wasn't a lot of spare bandwidth to imagine shows.

I think initially, my desire to have a show was a response to Yuka, her philosophy and her space. Then I just really wanted to get back on the pony. I had things I wanted to try out- portraits of trees, girls, experiments, arrangements. My brother Mark who is also a photographer, has been exceptionally supportive.

What started your love of photography?

I think it started as a small child looking at black and white photographs of my grandparents' childhoods. There's one of a fancy dress day at school from the early C20th  that really sticks in my mind. They were beautiful portals to somewhere I couldn't access but was insatiable to hear more about.

Later my brother Mark learnt photography at Secondary School and converted our spacious 1930s laundry into a darkroom. At this time, in the late 1970s, I liked corralling my siblings & cousins into tableaux and then photographing them on Mum's Kodak Instamatic camera. When we were in our late teens, we went on a family holiday through Auckland and Mark and I bought Jacques Henri Lartigue's Diary of a Century at Cook Street Market. It blew our minds and, that was that.

Analogue photography is still your chosen medium (over digital), what is it about the process or aesthetics that you love about it? Do you have a favourite camera?

I do love the romance of analogue, especially black and white fibre-based prints(Jenny Tomlin is a brilliant printer & photographer based in Tāmaki Makaurau) but this show has been shot on digital cameras. I couldn't print the scale I wanted on fibre-based paper so I used digital. I've only ever owned Contax cameras- I've owned 2 x 35mm, a T2 and a 645 medium format, with the exception of a Fujifilm XPro1 that my husband Nico & my family gave me for my 50th birthday. My brother has a medium format Fujifilm GFX 50 camera which is what we shot the Magic Tree (Mothership) on.

This body of work is centred around trees and dedicated to your mother. What is it about trees that you are trying to communicate?

This week(the week before the show opens, I gave a few of my posters of Mothership (the big tree) away. One woman said, This photograph tells a million stories!.  Another declared, It makes me feel powerful and peaceful. I couldn't ask for more.

How has your family informed your creative journey?

I come from a vocal, feisty family that is full of love & loyalty, it has always given me courage. Our mother was radical in many ways. In the 1960s when things were still pretty buttoned-down in small town New Zealand, she let us be ourselves and affirmed us for it. Lorraine genuinely loved, respected and advocated for young people. She always sewed us beautiful clothes, letting us choose the fabric and patterns, solving tricky requests! Her domestic environments were always thoughtful, modern and interesting. She played a very valuable part helping and advising me & Melissa Anderson Scott establishing Cloud Workshop. 

Mum had a lovely art practice, mostly painting & drawing botanical arrangements and sometimes painting the clothing she made as a child. 

All my siblings make wonderful things- my brother Mark is a photographer, my sister Maree embroiders, practices Ikebana, makes pottery and gardens. Our brother Tyrone was an artist who painted & drew prolifically, notably his happyspace kingdom which was occupied by inventive & forward thinking animals, like Peng Peng, Funny Bunny & Bobby Bear. They're early adopters of eco activism.

My husband Nicholas Stevens is an excellent architect and I admire his practice deeply, especially the HomeGround project he nailed with his studio Stevens Lawson Architects. It's a radical building and 'It brings together: Permanent housing, expanded health and social services, a state of the art addiction withdrawal services facilities & a comprehensive programme of activities in a warm and welcoming space' Auckland City Mission. I'm in awe of it. In his spare time he makes small, domestic paintings which I am delighted by. Cloud Workshop exists because of his love & support.

Career highlights or achievements?

Being a photographer has been a wild ride. It has taken me to so many places, dropped me into many lives and possibilities. It's been a thrill to see my work in public & private galleries, on the street, friend's walls and even on the bottles for the ecostore. I loved photographing interesting women for Marilyn Sainty for many years. It's rarely been dull.

Cloud Workshop was born out of disbelief & fury really- around the lack of support for bereaved children. Having said that, it's a truly beautiful job & it's where I love to be & I feel deeply privileged to be there.

You have the most incredible library of books in your home, could you name your top 3/5 that you could never part with?

The sentimentals would be Mum's copy of Peg Maltby's Fairy Book, my copies of Ping & Pookie. These books shaped my life in some ways and even this show! They're not my favourite books for children text-wise but they were important to me. I'm a massive fan of Amos & Boris by William Steig now, a gift from my mother, when I was an adult. It's a quietly profound story about a mouse and a whale. The language is rich, it has beautiful images & the sentiment is so on the money.
J.M.Barrie & the Lost Boys- a book about the author of Peter Pan, that I read my father when he was dying.
Hockney Paints the Stage....a book I was given by John in my early 20s. The first big, serious art book I'd even been given. It's very wonderful & full of possibility.

We love the generous and personal way you exchange with others in life and through your creative work, spreading beauty in the world. Who or what inspires you in life?

Thank you very much. So many people and things along the way have inspired me.....my husband Nico, Nina our dog(& Vita before her), my family- Lorraine, Mark, Maree & Tyrone, my friends, the Cloud children, my community, artists, writers, musicians.

I've always said, my drugs are art, literature and music. Plus trees, the sea and the Winter Gardens.. I love Kate Bush, John Reynolds, Dr Claire McLintock, Louise Bourgeois, Marilyn Sainty, Nick & Susie Cave, Natalia Ginzburg, Neil & Sharon Finn, Pippi Longstocking, Patti Smith, Photography-especially amateur photography, Bronwynne Cornish(Mudlark), Don McGlashan, Chlöe Swarbrick, Jenny Bornholdt, Bella Freud, Max Richter & Yulia Mahr. I could fill pages but this is a good start!

Are there any recurring themes that have run through your creative life and projects?

Girls, trees, grief & mythology.

Any message to share with our audience from you for the show?

Thank you for visiting my show. For me, Public Record is a sanctuary - a place to come to when all the noise gets too much. My photographs will be very happy to be here.