Getting paid

Heard from a magazine in China this morning that my copy of their May issue is on the way:

http://www.youthvision.cn/

They have featured me on their discovery page, with Inhabitant. Not sure what it will be like exactly, but looking forward to seeing it.

Conversation with Dan last night about the fact that everything is so manic at the moment and we are both a) exhausted and b) ratty and that c) the house is a hell-hole. He seemed to be realising that things might not ever change and that was a bit hard to fathom for him. No matter what I think about the old stereotype of the artist working all hours for the love of it, I do work an insane amount of hours. Things are especially mental at the moment though and my incredibly tight schedule for April/May got messed up by a death, a car blip and a birth, so it’s worse than I thought. I didn’t allow for life in my bad-timetabling.

His worst fear, I think, was that life is going to be a perpetual battle for time and non-stressed wife. But I have learned my lesson (a bit) this time, it has been too much to manage over the last two months and all for things that weren’t necessarily awesome uses of my time. I’m sure I’ll keep making dodgy decisions – but hopefully less all at once.

At the Taxed Skillmarket last month, Susan Jones advised me to keep track of hours worked. I have been doing that and it is working out between 10 – 14 hours a day, including weekends! I’m not sure that’s very efficient working mind, there is a lot of anxiety getting in the way of that. She also advised that this could be used to budget time for future jobs, but that you always need to add 25%. ADD 25%. Got it. 25%. I might just make it 30%.

In other real-life news! My twin sister Ruth had her baby last week. Millicent Rose, who is a divine little creature. She smells delicious and I have been quite greedy about going round and holding her all the time (when I can get past the neighbours and grandma’s – honestly!). Far more important than all the other worries. Dan is broody.

Right, back to that YSP book and student loan deferments….

It suddenly feels like everyone is waking up.. there are lots of exciting things afoot in Liverpool and the weather is nice enough and it is light enough to want to leave the house.

Last night there was the pre-launch of the Drawing Paper, a new, free paper concentrating on drawing (see images for an idea). The first issue had 20 artists in, me included and we all put £40 in the pot and Mike Carney designed and printed 3,000 copies. If you would like a copy, email me your address and I will send one. If I get a million replies I may ask for an SAE though!

[email protected]

Some images and a bit more information here:

http://drawing-paper.tumblr.com/

Next weekend, although it is light night and there are an insane amount of things I will miss in Liverpool, I am going to London. I want an art-saturated couple of days, to catch up with old friends, and to buy lettpress ink. My studio group is in ‘No Soul for Sale, a festival of independents’ at Tate Modern from Friday – Sunday for the 10th birthday celebrations. I have put some things in, so would like to see the chaos in person.

Next exhibition up at Royal Standard ‘This Matter’ looks incredible, as much for the music at the opening night (the Grubby Mitts) and the programme of talks and things running alongside it as the work. This is really interesting and ambitious stuff, and I can’t wait!

http://www.the-royal-standard.com/events/

I am almost settled into my new, double sized space there too and it is awesome. I feel delieriously happy there and I had a dance around in it yesterday. It still needs a tidy and shelves assembling/filling, but it is a GOOD space. The Royal Standard just keeps getting better and better.

http://www.thismatterblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thegrubbymitts

PROPOSALING

On the subject of applying for things (money) – see last post, I came across this while cataloguing for Intute today and thought it might be interesting.

http://www.viavaudeville.com/proposal/proposalpubl…

It is a publication (downloadable as a free PDF), which contains proposals, both successful and insuccessful from a number of artists. It’s interesting to see how other people go about it…

Have you voted yet? Well go on then….

FUNDRAISING WORKSHOP

with Anthony Bennett and Mark Waugh of A Foundation.

[These are some nuggets of wisdom received during the above session. More helpful, personally, was the one-to-one session I had with Anthony, but that’s very specific to me, so I’m not going to relay all of that here. The points below are paraphrasing, not quotations and may not make perfect sense – I was there, I know what I’m talking about and in what context. Any questions, expansions needed, just ask.]

It is small kindnesses that make the art world go round, but be careful that giving these does not turn into an exploitation, i.e. it is good to be generous, but capitulating too readily doesn’t do you any good.

Make sure the expectations of both parties (funder/commissioner and you) are laid out and understood, then bad feeling is less likely to arise.

Funding is like a business contract – read the small print, know what’s expected.

If you are business-like, know your budget, timescale, materials, transport etc and what the project will demand, people will be more likely to believe in your ability to deliver.

There is the potential to use funding to fit your project e.g. if you are doing something with new technology and NASA have grants, but don’t get into the situation where grants and opportunities shape your work. You need to retain a core truth about your work for others to want to invest in and understand what you do.

You can recycle some parts of applications, but each one is different and must be considered carefully, Think about the foreground/background of each one, put information about what is the most important in the foreground.

CLARITY in applications. What you are offering, what your interests are, what the outcome will be, what you will gain from it. Make these things clear.

COMMUNICATION – If you do receive funding/support in kind, keep your people happy be keeping in touch with press, developments, images etc. Provide a bit of return of their investment and follow this up – how you have developed since for example.

Public engagement can take many forms, so think creatively about how people will best engage with the work rather than trying to fulfil ACE guidelines anywhichway.

Be honest with yourself. Make sure the project is genuinely useful to you before investing your (and others) time in funding applications.

Funding and assembling projects requires a holistic approach. It’s not a case of making your work and sticking the event or public interaction on afterwards, it can all be important and useful.

I realised yesterday that I am shattered. This week is for writing the YSP book (only about 2,500 words – so not as horrendous as it sounds!) and cataloguing. I am glad to be able to work with tea and kitty and in pyjamas.

Going in tomorrow to photograph the installation I made for the A Foundation show, the image here is one piece of it, without its friends. The opening gave me a lot to think about, especially as it was clear my work needed explaining to some people. I don’t know if I care about that, I don’t think it’s that important in some ways – I think that might be a product of being constantly given lots of explanation and expecting that. The work has a narrative, but a gray one – it’s not entirely clear yet even to me, as it is all work in progress. I still hope to do the performance I was building up to, which is actually a drawing (just with the aid of a costume and my body). I think I have to do that in private, it was all a bit much thinking about doing that at the opening last week. Same goes for the Liverpool Art Prize exhibition… not sure I am up to it yet?

Anyway, I’m sure it will become a bit clearer in hindsight, in the meantime I have a big structure to plan for the LAP show. Might need to use village contacts for a bit of advice there – pub later then! Last weekend I managed to burst a tyre and twist the metal underneath the car on something on the road… so that has been an expensive lesson (and a shock). It means I am village-bound for a while anyway, not a bad thing. Financially a bit of a disaster, but these things always happen as you think you’re getting sorted don’t they?

Better news – my twin sister is currently in hospital and a baby is imminent! So, most likely all these worries will seem silly when I go and visit later :D One very small, soft, comedy bear suit at the ready…..