Getting Organised

Feeling the love.

Twitter is my favourite at the moment. I talk a lot of rubbish but occasionally, really great discussion breaks out and people share things you perhaps wouldn’t expect. I’m @speedina if you’re not on there already.

Yesterday I was chatting with @rougeit and others about working to commission. He asked “Artists question: should artists ask for references before accepting commissions? #artists #artsfunding”

So the idea of asking employers for references was put out there – the artist is checked out (curators talk too) but it’s a bit more difficult for artists to know what they’re getting into. Bad commission experiences seemed to be down to lack of communication and support – perhaps because of short staffed or stretched organisations. Artists who joined in (including me) also said that they were responsible to some degree – being dazzled at interview and not asking important questions before committing to projects.

One suggestion that came out of it was the idea of giving organistions a stamp of approval. Rather than shouting about bad experiences, which seems unlikely to do the artist’s reputation any good, we thought talking about good experiences would be better. Artists sharing information to save everyone some worry and potential heartache! An online list perhaps – ommissions would be very telling indeed and those really great organisations would be on there.

He nominated Oriel Davies Gallery and Lakeland Arts Trust as great people to work with. Mine were Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Blackpool Council Arts Dept/Grundy Gallery. I’m also working with the Bluecoat at the moment and the curator there has been brilliant.

Anyone else care to add a great experience/organisation here?

Bye Ceri.

So Ceri Hand Gallery is leaving Liverpool in early 2012 and setting up shop in London. This came as a big shock to many of us in Liverpool, although we could understand it perfectly at the same time.

In any place there are a series of complex links and relationships, and Ceri is not just a gallerist, but is woven into Liverpool as a whole: being part of Visual Arts in Liverpool, working with John Moores University, generously lending support or advice to local artists and groups like Royal Standard. There’s more of course, but that gives you an idea. All of these things add up to a hell of a lot and I haven’t even mentioned credibility yet. Her gallery brought a little piece of the commercial art world (London art world?) to Liverpool and when she is gone there will be none like it. There are great institutions, galleries and artist-led spaces of course, but I have always felt like there’s not much in between. As an artist, especially when I was really starting out in the city, that gap has made things like representation seems far away, if not impossible. Ceri has also been very keen to talk about the gallery-artist relationship and to demystify it a little and, as someone who represents artists and shows at art fairs internationally, she has been pretty unique (in Liverpol).

In the Daily Post article (below) she mentions a ceiling for sales and I guess that feels true of a lot of aspects of art outside of London. That she has done well enough to warrant the move is fantastic, but does it also highlight the limits of a regional city?

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/22/liverpool-s-ceri-hand-gallery-will-move-to-london-92534-29817418/#ixzz1eQl7Dy41

On the flip side, the gallery, Lucy the gallery manager and the artists are growing and becoming more successful and it’s easy to see why the move to London is necessary to continue that momentum, I wish them all every success. Happy news that the A Foundation building is to be resurrected – as Camp & Furnace – http://www.unionnorth.com/07/camp-furnace-2 is exciting and might lessen the blow of losing both A Foundation and Ceri Hand Gallery, partiularly for the Baltic Triangle area of the city.

Steffan Hughes has also written a blog entry about Ceri leaving here:

http://steffanjoneshughes.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/ceri-hand-gallery-to-leave-liverpool/

http://www.visualartsinliverpool.info/

http://www.cerihand.co.uk/

http://www.artfeast.co.uk/2011/04/art-feast-interv…

More on unpaid Internships – all this just from the Guardian..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/17/hmrc-c…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/04/intern…

Hannah Clements blog:

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/careers-blog/interns…

an oldie, but interesting look at how Uni’s could play a role in improving things.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network…

Ethics & Interns

This event looks really interesting next week – looking at Internships and all the problems they bring along.

http://ethicsandinterns.eventbrite.com/

Seems pretty pertinent given the whole slave labour/Tesco situation going on with the benefits system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/16/youn…

I hate this, hate the fact that these profit making companies aren’t bound by minimum wage legislation and also by the fact that it’s presented to the public as an improvement on people doing ‘nothing’. It may increase self-esteem to be busy and doing something – agreed, and hopefully some people will get proper jobs afterwards. However, the fact that people who refuse to do this unpaid work may lose their benefits is just horrendous. Why should the taxpayer subsidise companies with shareholders?

This blog carries on where Getting Paid left off. Since I started writing that blog two years ago a lot has changed, and happily, I’m now getting paid, well, a bit at least. Getting Organised will be less about my personal journey and more about looking at artists as a group and how artists are advocating better working conditions and organising themselves to effect change. Hopefully by highlighting the good stuff, it might become apparent what kinds of events or actions could act as great models and be replicated by other artists. In the tradition of Getting Paid, I guess some criticism of poor opportunities may occur from time to time. Hopefully though, I will be able to see these things less as a malicious attack on artists, and perhaps the result of misunderstanding or a lack of thought and planning. I’ll try anyway (no promises).

I’m taking as my starting point that education systems and the way the art world appears from the outside often encourage individualism and aggression between artists. Because of this I think there exists a kind of false consciousness, so that many artists don’t know they’re doing wrong by accepting unpaid work, for example. It seems there are several areas of the arts where people make a good living from artists (and often their naivety). I think a lack of transparency and the isolation of many artists only serves to their advantage. So, the more talking and sharing we artists do; the better. This blog is my attempt to do my bit.

Another reason to move on from ‘Getting Paid’ is the Sea change that’s happened since the last election. One positive thing (?) that’s come from the austerity measures imposed by the new government is the resistance and collective action. Funding cuts have also highlighted the precarious future of many arts organisations and has perhaps led people to think more carefully about how they are being treated and paid. More of that please.