For our collaboration with the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), we partnered with artist Corinne Smith to bring her work to a limited-edition Red Bay Coffee can.
We sat down with Corinne to talk about her art, the ideas and experiences that shape her creative practice, and the story behind the work featured on the can. Read on to get to know the artist behind the collaboration and the perspective that inspired the piece.
For anyone discovering your work for the first time, how would you describe yourself and your approach to art?
I am an artist and an energy worker. Both practices are very intuitive and heavily influenced by making sense of color, botanicals and memory that come to me through dreams and meditation.
What first pulled you toward creating art, and how has your work evolved since then?
I’ve been drawing since I was about 3 or 4. As a child I had a lot of sleep disturbances, curiosity of the unknown and a love for being alone outside where I could feel everything in and around me. Sometimes big emotions are hard to express, especially when you’re young and especially when you come from lineages of families that learned that conveying emotion meant weakness and/or instability. When I got scared or felt big things, I would disassociate and go to the most magical places and meet so many interesting beings. I would draw these adventures and creatures in vibrant color. To me color made them become real. Alive and present in my space. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was constantly unknowingly doing energywork. The strongest force for spreading that is through my head, my heart and my hands. Through art I’m able to speak the unspeakable by bringing my inside world outside.
While my work has definitely evolved over time, I’m still dreaming, still being transported to new places and still drawing them. So, not much has changed as far as subject matter. Perhaps what has changed is my understanding of myself as an individual amongst the collective. I’ve learned that the tools we use to protect ourselves can be composted into our biggest gifts and the things we fear most about ourselves are the ones that need the most love, that rage can be purifying and that as long as I have faith I do not need to always be understood. My work truly is evolving as a convergence of art and energy work. They are inseparable.
Where do you find yourself looking for inspiration these days? Are there particular people, places, memories, or everyday moments that continue to show up in your work?
My nostalgia has been HEAVY and my scent memories have been strong. I smell my grandma and my grandpa everywhere. Pipe smoke, soft florals, brick, the smell of an old Detroit basement, the heavy smell before a thunderstorm, the light scent of tobacco smoke on a pristinely-kept carpet. The smell of vinyl on an off-limits living room chair. I’ve been thinking of these scent memories as energetic altars that I can carry with me. There’s something beautiful about the impermanence of those wafts of ancestry. I love the weight of something so intangible. Themes that continue to show up in my work are spirituality, human biology, the underworld, death and transformation.
What excited me about this collaboration is that designing this coffee tin combines art, ritual and ancestry. Putting my artwork on a coffee tin feels very special to me.
Coffee tins are nostalgic. They remind me of childhood. Time before everything was so accessible. You were allowed to be bored, your imagination was broader and possibilities seemed more realistic to achieve. It reminds me of old Folgers commercials and the smell of coffee, the sound of the percolator and the smell of my mom’s perfume as she woke me up for school. I hope that this tin can remind folks to slow down, enjoy the present and reunite with memories in stillness.
Can you walk us through the artwork featured on the can? What are we looking at, and what inspired the imagery, colors, or details you chose?
The artwork on the can is an extended variation of ‘The Knowing’ , one of the first pieces from my exhibition ‘Silene Capensis’ that was on view at MoAD a couple of years ago. In this image you’re looking at yourself. All of those unseen parts. Whoever and whatever that is to you. I use a lot of rich blues and reds in my work. I do a lot of visualization, dreamwork and meditation which informs me of which colors to use. Blues are often aligned with calm, introversion and the throat chakra. My voice can be heard through my art as sometimes feelings can’t be articulated.
In this piece I re-entered a recurring dream from my childhood. A cloaked figure comes to me and rests it’s hand on my chest saying “don’t be frightened” and it used to TERRIFY me as a child. Now that I’m older I can re-enter those dreams and look for more details for understanding. ‘The Knowing’ is a revelation, an inherent knowing that darkness does not always mean something negative. You cannot have light without darkness and both can be blinding. It is an encouragement to truly see all of the beauty in the parts you don’t want to see. The eyes are the central part of ‘The Knowing’. The eyes are the portal.
Coffee is something people interact with as part of their everyday routine. How does it feel knowing your artwork will live in people's homes and become part of that experience?
It feels so special to be a part of someone’s everyday routine. Coffee is as sacred as the rituals around it. It is always an honor when anyone connects to my work because as much as it is for mysellf it is for everyone, too.
This collaboration is launching alongside MoAD's NEXUS and Black Art Week in San Francisco. What does it mean to have your work featured in that larger celebration of Black art and creativity?
It means the world to me. My experience showing at MoAD crushed the negative beliefs I had about myself. I love what I do, but I wasn’t expecting that to resonate so broadly. I love being amongst the fabric of so many Black creatives. I know I’m not alone in being the black sheep in many rooms (no pun intended). I know what it feels like to be put in rooms where you need to prove your value. I’ve been in rooms where I felt I needed to dim my shine. The resilience of Black people and our inherent ability to find something out of nothing. We’re magic!
Is there a particular detail in the artwork that you hope people notice when they see the can in person?
There isn’t a particular focus, whatever resonates with you is your own personal relationship with my artwork. I love hearing what certain symbols or colors mean to others.
What are you working on or exploring creatively right now, and where can people continue following your work?
I’ve been working on a series of large-scale layered illustrations called “ROOMS” which is a continuation of my dream re-entry and energetic practice. I am creating portals to walk into my dreams. In the future I’d love to build this out into actual living spaces. Additionally, I am offering support for those who may be interested in meditation, dream re-entry and trusting their own inner guidance. You can find me at www.crittysmitty.com; www.esper.energy and @crittysmitty on instagram.
Before working on this project, what was your relationship with coffee? Are you a coffee drinker, and if so, what does your usual coffee order or morning cup look like?
I love coffee. I am simple and I just love a great pour-over no room. Keep it black, baby.