Feeling a bit pissed off with my paid work. In the end they are going to use some random person to act as ‘the artist’ for the handbag promotion. To be honest it could have been anyone handing out sheets of paper for people to fill in a bag design. Although I still think it would have been funny a bit tongue in cheek from my perspective. I find it a bit ridiculous how the brand try and associate with ‘the artist’ or rather ‘fake artist’. When they had the opportunity to use a real one, they didn’t. They just want someone to pose as one making an association with how creative the brand is. I then saw another opportunity at my other job at the arts centre, a vacancy that was not advertised internally and so now I have conveniently missed the deadline. Sometimes I feel like I am invisible at work and seen as someone who just does a bit of art with nothing else to offer. I know these jobs are not the ‘be all’ of my life however I still want to feel that I am progressing in all areas of my work. Reaching the grand old age of 36 last month is making me feel like I should be further on in my career and I worry that I will be continually overlooked.
It’s funny how when I am stressed with my paid work I start feeling more creative, not sure what that’s all about. Does creativity come out of stress? I have been thinking about working with my brother who has been researching our family tree. He is off to India on Saturday with my Mum to do further research as our family lived in India during the British Empire. Our ancestors are a mixture of British and immigrants from Portugal that were known as the Eurasians. I like the idea of working with a non-artist and thinking of creative ways of presenting our family tree. My relatives from my mums, mum side have a strong dark Portuguese look which I would like to try and mimic whilst my brother talks through his research in a performance lecture style piece. I also have a big idea for the arts centre to use the art gallery for a one off event near the end of a show. I would like to propose my idea to them although I do worry that I may be overlooked again. I have been trying to get this idea of the ground for about a year. The gallery at the arts centre is the perfect size for my activity and could really broaden their audience. If my event was successful it could be a regular activity or could be rolled out at other art galleries.
Watched an interesting DVD this week called The Joneses, directed by Derrick Borte, 2009 the premise is:
A seemingly perfect family moves into a suburban neighborhood, but when it comes to the truth as to why they’re living there, they don’t exactly come clean with their neighbors.
In fact the family are fake and are sales people who sell their products unknowingly to the neighbors. I really liked the concept of this film although the tone was a bit confused neither being funny or serious enough, ending somewhere middle of the road. The mock family sells products to their target market with the dad excelling by selling expensive products such as the latest car and lawnmower. The neighbors are swept off their feet by the way the Joneses look, act and live the ultimate lifestyle. The film appears to end when the next-door neighbor commits suicide after getting in so much debt from constantly buying products. He ends his life by drowning himself in the pool, tied to the lawnmower. I know this film is an exaggerated take on consumerism although it does make me worry how far people will go to have the latest gadget and peoples perceptions of the ‘ideal’ lifestyle.
At my paid work at the bag shop, my manager asked me if I knew any artists. Well of course I did and in fact I am an artist, which I stated. Of course my manager knows this although wanted me to ask someone else to help with a store promotion, design a bag competition. I do feel sometimes that my creative skills are overlooked at work and couldn’t understand why they didn’t just ask me to do it. I was not asked because they did not want to pay someone to come in and thought it may be of interest for an artist to do it for their portfolio. When my manager mentioned this to me I did say that all the artists I know would expect to be paid. This comment did upset me a little bit as I still feel that some people think art, is a bit of a hobby and that artists will be grateful for any scraps of work. This is not a commission, or an artwork it is a promotion for a branded store, which should be paid for. I will get to do it and get paid my usual hourly rate, so one up for the artists.
I have been back in Manchester since Sunday and settling back into the old routine. It was my birthday on Tuesday, which has made me feel very reflective about the past few years and looking ahead. However can you ever look to far into the future being an artist? I think not. I was pleasantly surprised to read that my a-n blog in August made the top ten, zooming in at no.7. So big thanks to all you readers. I haven’t made it into the studio this week as simply getting back to working in the shop and being at home has been enough to deal with. I have been reflecting on the self-made residency in Finland since named by Anna as the Unknown Road Residency due to the summerhouse being situated on a road with no name. At the beginning of the journey I had no idea of what I was going to do, leaving inspiration to happen when I actually arrived at the place. Creativity will always emerge in some shape or form although you still have to keep working at it to actually make something happen. Should an artist residency necessarily be about making something? Could it not simply offer time and space to think which may or may not evolve into work at a later date? Being at the summerhouse really made me appreciate the many distractions we have in our daily lives. It amazes me how any of us make anything and what an achievement it is when we do. Even though I was in a forest for ten days in a totally different environment I was still drawn to the things around me. A performing blind, and a performing tablecloth objects, which we assume are pretty mundane transcend into a moving image. From this experience Anna has seen the potential of the summerhouse for other people to use for a residency although has some reservations, as it is her family home. Anna got lots done she managed to draft out her proposal, meet a new artist and have a new space to exhibit in 2012. I know how busy Anna is working at the gallery and for HESA INPRINT (http://www.hesainprint.com/) she really needed this time out for her own work. I learnt from re-doing The Eventé performance that this piece can travel and could be extended further by introducing more participatory activities. Although I did not get the chance to promote The Eventé I can see the potential of doing this on the street and would like to experiment with this in the future.
I have just got back to Manchester with a really bad hangover after the night of the event this has been my first chance to make a post. The day of the event went really quickly as I still had to get a few materials and continued to learn my script. I intended to do some promotional work with my cardboard cut-out however there just wasn’t the time to do it. I had to be at the gallery at 4pm to make sure all my props were ready for my slot and have a sound check. The event started with an artist talk at 6pm. The panel included the exhibiting artist Tiina Nevanpera, performance artist Tero Nauha and art critic Miika Luoto. I could not understand the talk as it was in Finnish although Anna kept filling me in on sections, which on occasions she found difficult to listen to. The impression I got was that there were a lot of long arty words used and referencing the process of art with divine inspiration, oh dear. It was an older crowd and I was a little bit worried if they would participate and get the humour. Tero performed shortly after the talk and he simply had a CD player that played the sound of a radio being tuned. He sat on a chair next to the table and proceeded to say yes, no, and other random noises to the beat of the sound. This was a durational performance that lasted around fifteen minutes. Personally I thought the piece was too long although I liked how it was an alternative take on the previous artist talk, talking genuine, unashamed nonsense. However a 45 minute talk and a durational performance later was a bit too much for the audience and half of them left.
Anna went outside on the street to drum up some business, I was also asked but could not focus on anything other than preparing for my performance. As I have previously said it did feel a little strange having people seated during the performance although it just made the piece more bazaar. There was a happy mistake when I asked for assistance on stage with the person held up the wrong name card, which I was trying to get everyone to repeat. One guy couldn’t understand me when I explained that I wanted him to throw confetti over me at the end of my dance and he simply threw the plastic pack on my head. I did manage to get most people up for the final countdown although I did have to explain how to operate a party popper. At the end as the party poppers went off and the balloons didn’t fall I then stay still for around 10 seconds. I could see people in front of me clearing a walkway for me to leave, although when I did eventually get up I got my cardboard cut-out and placed it in front of the stand. I then left making no eye contact on my way out. People were not sure if the performance had ended, gone wrong or if I was going to come back for an encore. It’s funny how people get emotionally involved with Miss Eventé, an invented character that nobody really knows.
We left the summer house on Wednesday although late on tuesday I did manage to realise my ‘follow the bear’ visual landmark. I did feel a little silly and questioned why I wanted to do it. Then I just had to go through with it after it took me two hours to make the sign and I did not want to leave the house with any regrets. Anna helped set up my costume, photographed and videoed the piece. Anna found my performance costume funny and thought I looked like I was directing people to free beer. It was strange having the box on my head and feeling the cars drive past me. I may have to send a picture of this to the beer makers, if Cindy Sherman can get sponsored by MAC make up then why not? It took a few hours to pack away and tidy up the house, then another six and a half hour drive back to Helsinki. I have since been preparing for The Evente and freaked myself out by watching the video documentation of it last night. It is very strange watching myself on video, it’s like looking at someone I don’t know. Today I have been re-watching the video and getting to know Miss Evente all over again. I felt much better after practising in the gallery and physically marking out my routine. The gallery event is going to be really busy and they are expecting around 200 people to come. This will be the biggest crowd I have performed to and I just hope everyone can see the piece. All galleries in Helsinki will be open until 10pm on Friday night and I would like to try and get to see some other work I will just have to see how the night unfolds.
Helsinki Festival, The Night of the Arts: http://www.helsinginjuhlaviikot.fi/en/taiteiden-yo
