The axe has finally fallen this week as the arts Council announced which RFO’s were lucky enough to be kept in the fold and which were to be left out in the cold. Gradually e-mails popped up in my inbox from those breathing a sigh of relief and others who’s news was less than good. Reading through the list in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/3… I recognised names I’ve been priviledged enough to work with over the years, groups who’ve delivered projects to the highest standard, Strange Cargo in Kent, a gallery and celebratory arts organisation who produce the most dynamic and exciting participatory large-scale events, Artsway in the New Forest with a dedicated support programme for artists and a wonderful record of exhibitions, currently featuring an installation by Hew Locke, Forkbeard Fantasy whose ‘Colour of Nonsense’ my son and I had a hilarious time watching just last year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqkLaywXFi0.
And then of course there were those to celebrate with, both the Salisbury Arts Centre who have made huge strides recently to overhaul their visual arts programme with growing success and Axis directory of artists, both of which have a direct effect on my own sustainability. But I’m afraid any celebrations feel a little hollow.
On the plus side this week I had the pleasure of meeting up with Jon Bowen, writer of the debate in February’s a-n, author of a previous blog ‘Rites of passage’ and co-member of the APT site http://artistparents.ning.com/, set up by Rachel Howfield, another fellow blogger. It is fantastic how these blogs have brought people together and hopefully, funding fingers crossed, Jon will be contributing to an event for artists during the Salisbury project we’re planning next year.
Approaching the cafe where we were meeting I realised I didn’t know what Jon looked like other than a faint memory of a beard from a blog photo. A man emerged with a beard, I caught his eye and looked purposefully at him, longer than is acceptable for a stranger, until it was clear I was barking up the wrong tree and the poor man made a quick exit. After a text exchanging colour details of shoes, scarves etc we finally found each other and together with Laurence, had a really productive and chatty lunch until I realised I was late for school pickup and happened to have an enormous fish in the car which had to be offloaded somewhere before the children could get in. The rest of the week was peppered with manic attempts to sort out paid projects and childcare and editing a video which went from complete technical disaster to more or less back on track, and me nearly suffering a nervous breakdown in the process. I’m beginning to think editing videos is distinctly bad for my health.
