Its that festive period where everything pauses. Before Christmas Annabel and I started putting together the Show&Tell Programme 2012 and delighted to have speakers Susan Collis, Virgina Verran, Freddie Robins, Alex Pearl, Cathy Lomax, Karl England Ben Street, Amy Mckenny and Andrew Hewish. You can see more here and there is yet more to come!
http://diyeducate.blogspot.com/p/diy-educate-show-programme-2012.html
In addition , we got another piece of excellent news – that Lewisham Arts Services ( our local arts authority) were giving us a grant to hold 2 creative seminars for artists. originally the LAA had come to us, offering us a grant‘ because we are an important organisation in the borough, offering something no-one else is.’
However when we lost our building and it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to keep the name Core Gallery either, we met with our arts officer and explained it all to her and my need to free myself of an unsustainable and uncertain future and create my own artist led organisation with Annabel. One which was solid, open, sustainable and ambitious . And with no trustees and our own bank account so all finances were under our control. The arts officer was very supportive.
But, of course, the original proposal had to be rewritten, (again and again and again ) plus we also had to find a building in that time or a partner for the seminar. As I previously mentioned there were a lot of meetings with various arts organisations in the borough and in the end we met one of the gatekeepers of Goldsmiths, who was impressed by what we had achieved at Core Gallery and how Annabel and I had founded created the ambitious Show&Tell Artists education programme and they offered us a space to house the talk, ticking some very important partnerships boxes and giving us a sense of solidarity and appreciation from one of the biggest Art schools in the world.
So, in the end, we got there. Even though over the 2 months at points we were crushingly depressed and exhausted by endless permutations and uncertainty as some doors closed on us, as we spent hours working out massively reduced budgets, we realised that some doors, some gates were opening up to us and the stronger we became.
Annabel, Kate Murdoch, Lisa Snook,Jack Hutchinson and Elizabeth Murton particularly buoyed me up, and looked after me when it all felt too much. Its amazing how people thanking you or taking you for a supportive bracing drink can motivate you to keep going and remember the bigger picture. Particularly as it was important to me that as many of us that could stick together in the future studio would be able to which meant heaps of other meetings, negotiations and phonecalls- all totally worth it when I think of our new future.
There was much kindness from others too. Touching emails and meetings over the 2 months came from artists and curators, who I talked to, who had either admired or benefited from Core Gallery and DIY Educate and believed strongly in its future. Now, to be ZeitgeistArtProjects
So now, 2012 looms, bright and shiny, full of freedom and choice. And (some) funding….
