Project Me

It is Friday afternoon and I am wondering where the week went. It must be is a sign that I’m busy …

Two weeks ago I wrote an email stepping down as project coordinator for Sandcastles in Greece. This week I submitted a modest invoice for a few hours of the time I spent working with it. The lessons I have to remember are to trust my instincts and to accept that I work best in a well-structured context. Some of the artists involved have discussed picking up the project when everyone has more time; it is something I am certainly interested in. I am still a little concerned about how the project will be presented in the research of the artist who initiated the whole process but that is out of my hands.

Meeting the other artists was very good and encouraged me to make an application to KKH (Stockholm’s Royal College) for their Project program. It is a great opportunity to realise a project with the support of a very well resourced institution, for me it would also be a very good introduction to my new Swedish peer group. I met a few of them, and saw evidence of a lot of them, at the art fairs here in Stockholm.

In return for helping with language editing I received a free pass to the Supermarket fair, and of course a copy of the catalogue/ magazine. It was very satisfying to see my name in print along with all the other volunteers who enable Supermarket to keep going and expanding. This year the fair looked even more slick, with even more space (it took over an additional gallery in Kulturhus so now it totally covers one and half floors of this impressive building,) the stands were bigger and the galleries airier (to everyone’s relief I’m sure). It has been noticeable to me that over the four years that I have attended the fair the number of truly radical looking stands has significantly decreased. There are far too many possible reasons for this for me to guess why this might be the case (everything from less funding for artist run organisations to the fair not serving a purpose for radical outsiders). It was interesting to consider how I might benefit from attending as an individual artist beyond (the ever useful) ‘seeing what’s out there’. I realised that I am not really in a position to get involved with an ‘artist run organisation’ though it is very re-assuring to know that there are so many continuing to do well in northern Europe and that there are connections with the rest of the world.

I had an interesting conversation with a man from Nest in The Hague. After visiting London he was very impressed with how artists there managed to hold down multiple low paid jobs, live in an expensive city and produce similar quality and quantity of work to those living in other European cities with support from national and local arts funding. Referring to my own experience (and that of London colleagues) I spoke about the fragility of such an existence, how the loss of a regular part-time teaching can be disastrous, how competition between artists keeps down fees for community and education work and how few artists (relative to the number who graduate each year) are able to pursue their professional careers for their ‘working life’. A few days after that conversation I realised that perhaps the quality and quantity of work produced was a red herring. What I see here, in Sweden at least, is that the quality and quantity of life as an artist is far greater. Basically it is a far more sustainable profession. Many of the ‘young’ artists that I meet here have families (I mean partners and children), many take an annual holiday and most have their own apartments. These are not ‘celebrity’ artists, just regular working artists. While working in a bar, supermarket or institution in addition to working the studio might lend the artwork social relevance it can equally prevent one from having a rich and fulfilling life outside out the studio.

(Photographs to follow)

It’s 8.39 on a bright sunny morning and I am at the studio, if only I’d been able to buy some milk on the way here it would be perfect.

I am delighted that I have been able to ‘fix’ my camera. It is a little compact one and I usually carry it with me all the time. A few weeks ago a blurry spot appeared on pictures (both in the camera and when I down loaded them to the computer). The repair shop said that it wasn’t worth repairing so while deciding what to replace it with I thought I have nothing to lose by seeing if a good firm bang would do anything to dislodge the “internal dust”. It only took one attempt to ‘fix’ it.

I am thinking of walking away from the Sandcastles in Greece project. I really am in two minds about it. I really like the other artists who are working in the project group and the project has potential to be something interesting to me (it reminds me of a performance project I was involved with over ten years ago – Frozen Progress). However I am having real problems with the context of the project. The project came out of a ‘brainstorm’ session which was part of another artist’s research project. Although we have been told that the project is entirely ours we have to submit a budget to the institution that is funding the other artist’s (“brainstorming”) research project. The deadline for submitting a budget, spending it and handing in receipts/ invoices is the end of February and this feels really forced. It has also been very hard to understand the framework for our project within the “brainstorm” research, in fact it was only earlier this week that it was clarified.

Our project group has only managed to meet twice since the initial “brainstorming” meeting and both of these meetings were spent discussing the framework and context of the project rather than the content of the project. It is very unlikely that our group can meet again before the budget deadline (the other artists have commitments that take them away from Stockholm).

What I really want is to work on the project in a different context – away from forced deadlines and weak management. This idea came up at our last group meeting. The prospect of funding is tempting but it is starting to feel wrong. It is very interesting for me to listen to myself and to be reminded that money is not everything. Integrity has always been important to me, and I am disappointed to find that it is lacking in this situation. Writing about the situation has lead me to conclude that I am going to support the idea of continuing with the project but outside of the bigger research project.

Now I’m off to a museum visit with my language school, and this evening is the opening of the art fairs ….

I love coming to the studio. It is starting to feel more and more as though it is my place. The ongoing process of sorting, moving, unpacking and repacking continues. I have also started doing some drawings that I hope will lead to some new sculptures. I’m a bit nervous to ask about how to book time in the plaster workshop– it means that I’ll also have to order materials and that makes me nervous at the moment. It has been a long time since I worked with new materials!

A few weeks ago I answered an open call for artists interested in collaborative projects. After a couple of rather curious meeting I have ended up as project coordinator for a group of five (possibly seven) artists. The project, known as Sandcastles in Greece, is one of several being run by a researcher at the royal college here. I am not at all sure what I have let myself in for. The meetings produced really interesting starting points however I feel that it is going to be quite a challenge to realize them in the timeframe and in the light of everyone’s other commitments. At the moment I’m waiting to hear back from two artists who attended the first meeting but not the second, I need to submit a budget and participant list by the end of the week so I need to know if they want to continue … or not.

My language course runs every morning of the week and I am thinking of skipping a day soon so that I can have a full day in the studio. It would be lovely to be here early one morning, to have breakfast and coffee … and then get on with the day here. I know myself well enough to know that I am a morning person and that the afternoon is most productive when I continue what I started in the morning.

Also want some days out! Ai Weiwei has just opened here, there’s a very interesting sounding show at Tensta Konsthall and it would be good to see the UNESCO World Heritage Woodland Cemetery in the snow …

Another week of sorting. The studio is starting to feel like somewhere that I can work – though I have to move a couple of things so that I can set up ‘an idea’ I have had.

It is interesting being in a new studio in a new country. I want to take the opportunity to really think about what I do, or perhaps it is more accurate to say how I want to start off. Being here gives me a juncture. I do not want to (nor could I) jettison everything that has gone before. At the same time I am very aware that I want to start doing things that take me forward. There are many opportunities for me here that were not available in the UK, not least the real possibility of earning a living as an artist. (Previously I usually earned my money outside the art world and took what little money I had in.) It feels as though there is the possibility of funding or/and selling here. I still have to work for it, apply for it and compete for it, and nothing is guaranteed. However knowing that it might be possible has sharpened my senses. In London I could be fairly certain that I would not receive grants or awards, I was also fairly sure that I would probably never have a commercial gallery. In many senses this situation gave me a great deal of freedom. In other senses I felt that as a 40+ artist I was starting to tread water, exhibiting in ‘alternative’ spaces, working with virtually no budget and fitting my practice around paid employment. I might be wrong but 40 seems to be about the age when artists in similar positions to me really need a lot of self-motivation to continue, and even then self motivation is not always enough. I am in a very different situation now, I am living somewhere that still has some state support for artists and where, in my 40s, I can still be called a ‘young artist’. And that gives me hope, a real sense of hope, of hope and possibility.

The scary side of being ‘new’ is that I have to start presenting myself to people who do not know me and who do not know my work.

Can I admit to myself that sometimes I’m a little scared of ‘hope and possibility’?!

One of the first things to appear in the studio, it arrived before my things from London came, was the catalogue from The British Art Show 1990. I spotted it in a charity shop not far from the studio when I went out to get lunch on the first day here. 1990 was when I graduated from Dartington so the year has a special significance for me. I tend to look at while having a cup of tea in the afternoon. It is very interesting to read the artists statements and to see their work – it is so pre-YBA! The familiarity in the book is a great comfort to me, the concerns of the artists are not so very different to mine (now, if not then when I was a much more intense ‘issue-based practitioner’). I have also noticed that the artists’ statements are written with little jargon and few philosophical terms, they contain many references to the materials, the processes and what I can actually see in the image of their work.

This weekend I am reading a text translated in to English from Russian for the upcoming Supermarket Art Fair. I have also been looking at the texts from some of this year’s participants. My task is to make sure that the English clear and understandable. I have been told not to worry about whether the English is good or not, just to make sure that it is readable. It is actually quite a hard task! My ‘Swedish for Immigrants’ course is making me aware of how complex the act of translation is and how nuanced language is. I really hope that the minor amendments I have made have not radically altered the intended meaning. It is hard for me to believe that it is almost a year since I came to Supermarket with Roberto’s MOCA project. I am looking forward to this year’s fairs, to catching up with people that I met before, to meeting new people, and being able to say that I am now an artist in Stockholm!

(first blog on new computer)

I am sitting in my studio surrounded by my things. This morning I started week two of my “Swedish For Immigrants” (SFI as it is known) course.

After hearing that I could have the studio from the first of December I called the removal firm in the UK to arrange delivery of my stuff – stuff that they have been storing since the end of August. I asked them to bring it as soon as possible. I thought with Christmas and New Year, and their busy schedule that it would arrive in January. I was wrong. They could (and did) deliver on 7th December.

It is great to come here after my morning lesson and begin unpacking things. The boxes are mix of things that belong in the studio and things that really belong at home. I acquired a lot of things in the 10 years that I had my own home. I have never moved in with someone before and I’m not used to there not being space for my things, or my things duplicating what is already there. Perhaps I could have packed even less.

I want to unpack my books for two reasons; one, I miss seeing them and having them around, and two, the boxes that they are in are taking up a lot of space in the studio. The studio is an odd shape – it has an irregular pentagram footprint. There are two pairs of identical length walls and one odd short wall. The shortest wall is taken up by the door and small storage area that the artist I’m subletting from is using. The shorter pair of walls are adjacent to one another and are directly opposite the door. These walls each have three windows and radiators on them. The longest pair of walls are opposite each other. One of these I want to keep clear for working on and in front of, so I will put shelves for book and materials on the other one.

Before I had the studio my mind kept racing away with things I wanted to do and materials I wanted to play with. Now that I am actually here it is a bit daunting to get going again and I am allowing myself to unpack at a leisurely pace, telling myself that it is important that I get things in the right place before I start making new things. Perhaps it would be good to spend the rest of the afternoon putting the boxes of books in front of the wall where the shelves will be and then to start unpacking my old art works and materials …