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Transcription: [00:05:07]
{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
I read in your artist statement that you spent time as a graffiti artist
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and what drew you to graffiti, and how does graffiti influence your current work?
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{SPEAKER name="Shinique Smith"}
Um, well, as a teenager I, you know, wrote a little graffiti, I was part of a crew.
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What drew me to it at the time was my 9th grade boyfriend and one of my really good friends today,
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who's a great graffiti artist, and artist in general.
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So what drew me to it, I guess, at the time, was the camaraderie, that sort of group minded mentality,
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everyone that I knew was inspired by it, and for us as kids, the city was our playground.
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We used to sneak out of the house and go riding all night.
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It was safer then in Baltimore to do that.
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{SPEAKER name="Shinique Smith"}
So I guess that, the thrill of maybe being caught, the need for speed.
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How it influences my work, I think, that along with other things from my youth, my work is somewhat nostalgic of that period of time.
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{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
Can you talk more about how hip hop music has influenced your art?
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You say that you have it on while you are actually doing art, and you take inspiration from the lyrics and so forth.
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Can you talk a little more about how it affects your process?
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{SPEAKER name="Shinique Smith"}
I think hip hop music especially because its lyrically based, that the lyrics form the rhythm,
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and then a lot of the music is then backup for that.
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I think there's a lot related between that and the process of my mark making.
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Because it's a constant movement. One song in particular that I feel is a huge influence on me
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is a Public Enemy song, called "Rebel Without A Pause."
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And it's this kind of long train of thought, like one continuous line.
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The rhythm and the rhyme and the line making, I think, I'll meld together when I'm working.
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But, it's one aspect of my work.
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{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
How do you feel that the pressure of time either makes your work better, or constrains it?
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{SPEAKER name="Shinique Smith"}
I think I work fast, and I think that because its being generated from within,
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that depending on the mood and the circumstance, it can be free flowing.
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I think that's another relationship to graffiti itself, because when you are doing things out in the world,
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you want to do it fast.
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I think that part of my life and that effect on me of getting it right the first time,
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and being free to flow that way, its kind of --