Jill Smith - Together in Peace.

Door #8 on London's Soutbank

Taking the title of today's artwork as an inspiration I had a little lie-in, so sorry for the slow start this morning. Well it is Sunday, the perfect time to open door number #8, which is Jill Smith's 'Together in Peace'. Just a short walk from Bryan Benge's #7 and closer still to St Paul's we find the next Cardboard City door at an angle, with her globe ready to roll out onto London's Southbank.

Jill Smith has been a steady contributor to our shows ever since exhibiting with us on the gates of St Leonards and Hasting's Pier in 2011 for the Rarities Magnet Exhibition. She is like many of our artists, who can find themselves isolated from local creative initiatives (if they exist) but they still want to reach out onto the National and International stage. She wrote this note to me 2 years ago and we have been corresponding ever since,



Opening the World

 "I am living in Lincolnshire, am I too far away to exhibit in Hastings? I hope not as in my town I am not joined to anything art. I hate to say it but even though there is a gallery five minutes away I don't visit as they turn their noses up at Abstract Art. I also need a wheelchair for getting out and they don't make it easy for me to visit. So I am just showing my art on the internet".

Jill Smith - Together in Peace

Although Jill still exhibits much of her work on the Net, she isn't confined or defined by this anymore. Since that first exhibition she continues to produce fresh and colourful work that has been exhibited world wide. Her submission to the Cardboard City is iconic in form, a pink globe in which the world is upside down. Sometimes it seems we need to turn our current thinking on its head. Our attention is centred on South Africa in the painting and at the moment that is true in current affairs too.

It reminds me of a pearl, a treasure that naturally occurs in Nature and yet we covet it even though it is free to pick up and find. Peace too is a precious commodity and we shouldn't let that slip through our fingers either.

AL.