It seems kind of wrong to talk about something so ‘frivolous’ as art when peoples lives have been shattered due to the disturbances happening over the last few days. Although I live almost 200 miles away from London and well away from Liverpool City Centre, I’ve been really touched by the personal stories littering social network sites this morning. How can people carry on as normal while this is going on?
I looked at one comment someone had posted about the Toxteth riots that happened 30 years ago….. and a response of ‘there was kick offs on this side of the water, leasowe was a mess so i’ve been told. ………….
So is this where the stigma surrounding Leasowe came from? Someone heard something that may or may not be true from 30 years ago and have therefore decided to give the region a wide berth?
Oh hold on… I’ve got an addition to add to this. I’ve just heard that Tate Liverpool have been receiving calls all morning from members of the public asking if it is ‘safe’ to visit.
Yes!!! Of course it is.
I think watching a re run of ‘A Grumpy Guide to Art’ last night has triggered my natural grumpiness of the whole art scene.
Today’s gripe will be about artists ( whatever gender) who have partners in well paid jobs. Not having to work every day in a tedious low paid job, while trying to buy materials within a budget makes them totally lose grasp of the ‘real’ world.
I could of course have a right old rant about this and bore the pants of everyone with a myriad of examples…. but I’m sure there are many people out there who share my thoughts and could do it better. ( …please do! )
I had a day off yesterday so started tidying up my own web page ( before I got bored with it)…and began building one for the group I work with – Sci. I was looking for a free one, so it was a toss up between ‘Moonfruit’ and ‘WordPress’ and Moonfruit won. ( for now anyway)
I still have loads of images to add, but so far, this is it : http://sci.moonfruit.com/
This week, we learnt that there will be no more ‘Art in Liverpool’. Not literally of course, but the two people running the site – Ian and Minako Jackson have decided to call it a day. ‘Art in Liverpool’ is a sort of bible for local exhibition and opportunity listings in the area, so losing it will be a disaster.
The news prompted me to have another look at the listings , to remind myself just what we will be missing, and I found this gem – an ‘exhibition opportunity in the heart of Liverpool’ ( wording is by the said gallery, not A.i.L)
Gallery hire £100 (per day!)
( they then continue to offer some advice on how to raise the cash to pay….)
‘There are many ways you can cover the initial outlay of an exhibition. A few to get you started are given below:
– Given the size of the gallery why not collaborate with several other artists? By getting together with just three others you could all have a city centre exhibition for as little as £25.00 each!
– Sell some tickets. Why not make your exhibition even more exclusive by making it ticket only? Sell 20 tickets @ £5.00 and anything above could potentially be profit!
– Sell some of your work. Depending upon the nature of your work a single sale may easily cover your initial exhibition outlay.
– Secure commissions. Exhibitions are an ideal opportunity to show what you can do and secure your first or further paid commissions.’
Sell tickets for an exhibition? Sell some of your work??
Wow – I wish I had thought of that.
Sigh.
Family fun day…AND bouncy castle was today’s offering at LDT. Though when I arrived there, there was no sign of any bouncy castle… or any form of fun really.
Got to the studio, and Carolyn Shepherd was already there. A bit of back up on the off chance that the weather would turn and we would have to quickly muster up a workshop.
Despite the absence of tables in the room, of which no explanation was given of their whereabouts… and being asked if 1) we could cook, as they had been let down…. and 2) Are you sure you wouldn’t like to work outside? ….all was well.
It’s weird… earlier in the year, I was blogging about the joy of receiving a-n funding to visit artists in Tromso, Norway. I wittered away about how exciting it was to see so much snow, to have the experience of exhibiting there and being scared witless about standing up and talking about my work to a group of Norwegians.
..and no one it seems, gave a toss.
Now.. I’m writing ….well actually I’m having a good old daily moan about the lack of decent exhibition space and having to pay up for it … and I seem to have hit a nerve.
Today, I opened the local paper to see if they had given my residency any coverage. I’d virtually begged the guy who writes the weekly art ‘paragraph’, to mention it this week because they were going all out to put on this family fun day at the centre . Did he mention it? Did he hell. Yet again, they did a piece on some artist producing very saleable stuff in a wealthy area gallery .
