Getting paid

I should stop. I have been bent over the computer all day and wrist/arm/neck have had enough. I am writing profiles on four artists and an essay – so lots to get on with. I have transcribed three of the conversations I recorded for this at various points over the last few months, but one I foolishly recorded in a cafe and have been struggling to hear! Today it went through some extra speakers I rigged up at home and apart from the odd irritating waiter and background laughing, I managed to get it all – finally. It’s taken most of the day and I am done in but this artist is interesting and I don’t want to miss him out! Progress should be a bit more swift tomorrow.

I found myself at the weekend doing something unexpected: reading through empty shops guidelines and application procedures from Liverpool Council. I did say I was allowed to curate/organise one event this year (to stop it taking over my life) and I think I have figured out what it is. I’m still not sure about the whole shop thing, but for the exhibition subject it is actually a pretty perfect setting. All of things that I have put on in Liverpool have been at borrowed/empty properties and it is a pretty standard way of going about things here as the city has been half empty for ages. In this case, it just means that the council are putting money into grass roots and artists that maybe should have been part of the capital of culture. I have started contacting artists, but I am taking it slowly – I know how stressful these things can be and the hidden work that’s involved! Exciting stuff though..

Lastly, some good news: the curator who invited me to show in Milan as part of Showreel has been in touch about a possible group show in Stuttgart in October. Seems like the autumn may involve a bit of European inter-railing or something with Milan, Stuttgart and possibly Linz on the list. Stuttgart is also very close to Strasbourg, where I did a bit of my degree, I would so love to revisit! My mum was on about a short trip to Istanbul too… hmmm, I’d better earn some money if any of this is going to happen!

Morning. It is half term. I am not in Yorkshire doing workshops. I did not get up at 5am or drive on the M62 at 15mph in a queue for so long that I couldn’t feel my foot. I am a very happy artist.

Apart from the toothpick hospitalisation of a 7 year old, last week ended up being great. The teachers all helped out and really pushed the conceptual side of the work (drawing and modelling yourself as a building based on personality). It can be hard for the kids to grasp, but when pushed they make amazingly thoughtful and often amusing work. Last week was the best school so far in the whole project. My next things for YSP are writing the interim report (next week) and planning the publication, as my print deadline is in May sometime. But it will be banished from my mind this week. It does not exist.

I do have a truckload of work to do however, but it is really meaty good stuff that I am happy to be settling down to. I don’t like working in dribs and drabs and I don’t think it’s good for me either. First – writing, second – cataloguing and third – report writing. For breaks inbetween I shall be carving little bits off my soapstone feet that are slowly emerging.

This week is time to work at home, in my lovely new house that has finally been unpacked. My studio is go, so is the nice clean desk for the computer. Opening the door to the spare room is still fairly treacherous, but we don’t talk of it. Not a problem until April when an artist from Linz is coming to stay for a few nights – she has a show in Liverpool with POST (set-up funded by a NAN bursary I think. )

I was reading a really good article about J.G.Ballard in the Guardian on Saturday (based on the Crash exhibition at Gagosian currently) and it made me think about working habits. I am hopeless at working at home, or I have been, but I hope the new house will allow me the opportunity to break with some bad habits and to be more efficient. This may be foolish, but just humour me please. Apparently Ballard took two daily constitutionals and I thought how amazing that I can go and get my sister’s dogs and go for a walk with them anytime. In Liverpool a walk in my local park (Everton) would have involved the walk of doom through the smackhead gates. Theory is that I go outside as a reward for some work done, get fresh air and come back renewed – I’ll see how that goes!

Speaking of Liverpool – work on developing the Festival Gardens starts today. I went a lot as a kid because my Auntie busked there and we could go in free. I remember it as some wonderous oversized Charlie and the Chocolate Factory place, although a recent visit through the hole in the fence suggests otherwise. But that dragon slide that you can still see from the road, I used to have dreams about that being filled with water in some underwater land. I think I have got the reality of it (giant pencils as benches! Giant jam jars!) mixed up with the wonder in my head. Either way, I will be sad to see being developed somehow. Working with kids so much recently has really opened up some of these impossible thoughts again – especially looking at the buildings they design.

POST Liverpool: www.a-n.co.uk/p/498645/

Ballard article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/13/jg-ballard-exhibition-iain-sinclair

Festival Gardens: Pictures from 1984 and 2004, also a short film. The legacy of a “unique riverside parkland gifted to the city and available for all to share” didn’t really work out so well then! http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/capital_culture/200…

News report on Garden Festival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M29ekNg6dyo&feature…

Dan Simpkins and Penny Whitehead made a really interesting newspaper with contributions from artists, based on the gardens, regeneration and repetition of history within the capital of culture. See more about that and get a free copy here: http://www.danielsimpkins.net/main/future/future1….

Today was a great example of a bad day. I have been having a nice week too and was probably feeling a bit too pleased with myself (brought it on myself). School has been good so far and last night I went to see ‘Northern Soul’, a photography exhibition at the National Coal mining Museum. It was nice, weather was sunny, had a good walk.

Today was good too – although I was with year three this morning and found them hard work – short attention spans. After school the head and a teacher pulled me in to say a child had fallen on a cocktail stick, it had gone in her wrist and she’d been sent to hospital. Awesome. I gave a million warnings this morning and made sure they were all collected in after the kids had used them to make towers, so one had probably been put in someone’s pocket and voila. I feel terrible and even though I have used them over 100 times with no accidents and wasn’t there when it happened, the implication is it’s all my fault as I brought them into the school. I shall spend some time cutting all the ends off and making them blunt before my next school!

To cheer myself up I went into Wakefield to see ‘Collect’ curated by Victoria Lucas at Westgate Studios. I like her books a lot and thought that if her curation shows the same sensibilities it would be a very good show. Looked on website and called to find out if it was open, but no answer in either place, so I just went. Of course it is only open 9 -1 so there is no chance of me ever getting to see it! Bugger, but I will maybe try and see if they’ll let me in one evening as it would be disappointing to miss it when I’m over in Yorkshire so much. Cue much getting lost and being stuck in traffic afterwards just to add to the mood.

Now I am going to stop moaning and eat something, I may just be hangry (hunger causing anger).

Here’s hoping tomorrow will be a bit more cheerful.

Please add your thoughts to this thread on the forums if you have a minute:

Emily Speed

Joanne Mattera discusses the invisibility of artists in statistics and how they are missing from job list reporting about the recession.She says in her blog:

“The number of bank tellers without employment is greater than the number of artists without jobs, only because most artists never had a countable job to begin with.”

http://tinyurl.com/yhgmx6j

One comment links to this blog post about the latest suggestion to members from the Freelancers Union (this is all US based) to ‘Pay to get paid’. This means taking 3-4% off your invoice in order to get paid quickly.

http://tinyurl.com/yfmc9uh

Blimey.

Another comment replies

‘I think artists need to spend more time advocating for themselves and educating people about the fact that we are business people and that our earnings are a significant part of the economy.’

Couldn’t agree more – we spend a fortune on materials/services etc. the writer of the comment expands on it in her own blog:

http://tinyurl.com/yzrsfb5

A convoluted post! But this seemed to go off in so many useful and interesting directions I thought it worth following up.

Thanks to kirstymhall on twitter for the link!

Read on a bit if you have time and look at Joanne’s Marketing Monday posts – there’s some really good stuff. Some of it is more relevant to the US though (e.g. donating to auctions – although we may need to know this if the tories get in and we go all philanthropy dependent).