Today, I am tentatively looking into applying for things again. I was taking a break from it all while I reassessed my work, but now I thinks it’s time to at least look.
I’m still aware of the a-n feature ‘Trade Off’ ( mentioned in blog # 14 of mine) So I’m being quite cautious. ( this feature also makes a point of not ‘flaunting your work’, by the way, as I mentioned in my last blog)
I circled several things of interest that I planned to look into when I had a little more time, so now that I have had a little more time….. I am reading them fully.
At least half of them had a submission fee, which meant that a hefty £100 would have gone out of my dwindling bank account before my work had even been looked at. They were deleted.
My search now covers:
No fee paying applications
Nothing in the immediate area I live in ( sick of the ‘local artist’ label!)
‘Good exhibitions’ (a term coined in the above mentioned article) near enough though that it doesn’t cost an arm and leg to travel to.
That narrows things down considerably.
I received an ‘Artist update’ the other day by email – one of several I’ve had over the last couple of months from different artists. ( even though I hadn’t requested them, or put myself on any mailing list) The updates list all of the exhibitions and events each individual artist is involved in. In the back of my head, I’m thinking ‘This is a great idea – it lets people know what you are up to’ – and really we should be letting people know what we are doing shouldn’t we?
But for some reason..and I really don’t know why… but I read them….. and cringe.
I just don’t know why they feel so wrong.
I’ve been busy in work this week, so I’ve taken a break from blogging. It gave me a chance to reflect upon a few things though after reading a really good article in ‘Creative Boom’ about tweeting:
http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/tips/the-real-reasons-why-people-stop-following-you-on-twitter/
It makes a lot of sense, as reading into it made me more aware of how much we are all talking about our work – not just on twitter, but on all social media sites.
I looked at how many people were tweeting their blogs, almost daily in some cases , but don’t tweet anything else. What do they do apart from work? Are these people interesting? Do we click on the links after they had tweeted the same message more than once?
I have started on some new work this week, but I will happily keep it to myself for now : )
Today we talked about funding.
Had a meeting at Leasowe with the director, staff and outside interested parties to work out a funding strategy for a continuing residency programme at the centre. It’s essential that we get this absolutely spot on, as I guess we only have one shot at this.
It looks like the next few weeks are spoken for then.
Statements….. I hate them! I have to write’ 150 words about a particular work and 150 words concerning my practice as an artist.
How can I have just spent two hours writing, and rewriting the same thing over and over again and still not be happy with it?
I’m trying to keep it simple as I know that’s the best way. I also know that when I read someone else’s statement where ( and I’ll quote my mum in this ) ‘They sound like they have swallowed a dictionary’, I drift off and lose interest. Statements are funny things. You have to try to get your point across without sounding pretentious.
I’ve noticed how much the labels and walls panels have changed in galleries over the last few years. Words are simplified, and I don’t think it’s ‘dumbing down’ as someone once pointed out – it’s just making the work more accessible to the public.
So with that in mind, I’ll have to try again…… I do this type of work because I want to… hmmmm – will I get away with that?
