I'm trying to follow my instinct: to have confidence and not get into my head too much about what other people are expecting.'

Conversation: Ahead of a solo show at London’s Cubitt Gallery, Marlene Smith speaks to Lubaina Himid about her time in the BLK Art Group, friendship and collaboration

- Lubaina Himid

LUBAINA HIMID How are you feeling in the run-up to your show, ‘Ah, Sugar’, at Cubitt, London?

MARLENE SMITH I am equal parts excited and terrified! The two emotions keep propelling me through the process of making.

LH I think that terror never truly goes away, no matter how small or large the project. I get frightened that the work is actually rubbish, that I’ve lost the ability to tell what to leave out and what to keep in. What are you working on at the moment in relation to ‘Ah, Sugar’?

MS For a while, I’ve been trying to make work with fondant icing that is as delicate as possible without breaking. I want to imprint it with some crochet pieces that belonged to my mum. It occurred to me that, if I got myself a mangle – an old housekeeping device used to squeeze the water out of wet laundry – it would help me to manipulate these slabs of icing. I want every piece to look uniform but also to be highly individual and to have a personality, to be a kind of embodiment of a woman. I’m placing a lot of demands on this material.

There are days when I think: ‘This is so brilliant, what a great idea!’ Then there are other days when I ask myself: ‘What the hell do you think you are doing with this stuff? You’re going to have all this work that’s made in icing sugar, which is not going to last forever, so who’s going to buy it? Should I be making more sculptural works? Should I do more drawing? Should I, should I, should I?’