Footnotes: the emerging artist
Finding Ones Place – How did I get here?
I am wondering how did I get here? In some respects I feel like I haven’t had the time or space to think properly for a decade. Ten years ago I was a fine art student, but when I graduated from University of Brighton in 2003 I didn’t feel I had the network, confidence or knowledge to go out and become a professional artist. I was disappointed with an expensive art school experience that hadn’t prepared me for that first lonely year, when there are no deadlines, or ready-made shows, no fellow-students, or studio bonhomie, just you and your work; a time when self-motivation becomes key, and the formation of a close network of artists and events is essential to keep you going.
After that first difficult year, when I had none of those things, and almost stopped making work I had the opportunity to join a studio group, and that helped me to find a focus. In time gained funding to start a monthly networking & peer critique group, and I began to have some success with open competitions. This was a period of bringing together artists in our region to support each other, to talk about one’s work, projects etc. And it was a good experience. However, eventually, I found there was a mis-match between my ambitions to get my work seen nationally, and many of the participants who had little ambition beyond showing locally.
To inspire and encourage our group, I invited a series of mid-career artists from the city to come and give talks. The project was called: Talk About The Work, and the artists who spoke included: Mikey Cuddihy, Rose Wylie, Delaine Le Bas, Gaia Persico, Susan Collis and John Kindness. I found these intensely personal views of an artists daily practice, and their career journey, really useful in understanding the different routes artists can take to have their work shown, and the ways in which they funded their practice. Some artists had gallery representation and were happy with that, while others had, innitially, gone down that road but found it a difficult and demanding experience. Some artists were teaching at art colleges or running workshops. But no two artists seemed to have been on the same journey since leaving art school, yet all shared the same need and passion to make work and determination to have it shown nationally or internationally.
My question: What is an emerging artist? stems from the experience where living in the provinces meant one had to make ones own opportunities, and finding like-minded artists with the same level of ambition who wanted to get their work seen beyond their home town was rare. So in a sense the term: emerging artist was irrelevant to them, but, for me, it was a huge motivating factor. Finding those words in an advertised opportunity was an indication of ambition and opportunities beyond one’s home-town and comfort zone.
I graduated seven years ago, but I would only now consider myself an emerging artist because it is only now that I understand the strengths and possibilities for my own practice, and the work itself. It has taken seven years to begin to find my place, my milieu.
People seem to emerge at different times and in very different ways. I would be interested to know what others think about how one should define the term: emerging artist.
