Simulacra And Simulations

The meeting with Citizen’s Advice gave me a projected income on Universal Credit that will be £40 less per week. This could be partly because by then my eldest son will be 18, so some financial support I get for him will cease anyway. And they couldn’t tell me any more about it. This is something that’s due to come into action next April, and no one has a clue what will happen!! On a positive note, the suggestion was that it won’t even be implemented – not sure if that was Universal Credit, which seems to be railroaded, or the minimum income floor for self employed people such as us, as this is the part that is of most concern, but my experience is that no matter how much we protest, it makes absolutely no difference to those of us that haven’t asked to have our measly income cut, we will still be robbed.

I’ve been trying to get on with a commission amidst this distraction, and I wasn’t successful with another job application, so plans C, D and E are being considered…. badgering Reed dot com to actually support arts grads with proper jobs is where my frustrations were vented this morning.

I have actually done some work on the graphic novel again, now I have more time free again.

I’ve been busy since my trip to London putting together ideas for the LAN project proposal and meeting with local artists that I hope would be interested in getting involved. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that some artists whose work I would never have thought would fit in with it are interested in challenging themselves to do something different, and are keen to get involved. I spoke to the Arts Council about the project, and I need to follow it up, but I feel largely excited about this project. I’m glad to have Fiona Hodges on the committee, taking over previous roles, and plans are already taking shape again, so I’m no longer doing all of it on my own.

Some architecture students are organising the first Lincoln Hackspace, and they invited us to take part, so I’ve been for a couple of meetings for that. They’re using the same Empty Shop space, which is disconcerting when I was thinking we’d be in there regularly ourselves, but I think they’re making use of the upstairs space, and it’ll be useful to have onsite 3D printers and all kinds of equipment and resources that we can make use of for this and other projects. There are computer nerds, software engineers, innovators, electricians, D.I.Y. enthusiasts, all kinds of non-arts expertise that I hope will be interested in engaging in cross-disciplinary projects.

Rosanne Robertson posted her frustration with the space she has use of, that artists expect to use it for free – I guess she wants them to pay towards the overheads, and doesn’t want to do everything for nothing, which is fair enough – I felt like that myself at one point, it should be the ethos of sharing resources. But artists need to earn an income first – it’s something I always consider – why do artists ask fellow artists to pay? Really, we need to generate an income from people that aren’t artists, people that have an interest in the arts but are scientists, or businesses perhaps, requiring creative expertise, and audiences.

I only meant to have a short break from the graphic novel, but I haven’t done much for that for a couple of months while I applied for the Hourly Paid Lecturer position.

Gingerbread have posted this blog about single parents looking for work http://gingerbreadmakeitwork.wordpress.com/

I’m still mostly confused and panic stricken about the Universal Credit thing that will affect me from next April if no one has offered me suitable paid work by then, or if things with the LAN don’t progress – fingers crossed that I will achieve both before then, despite the naysayers. I have an appointment booked with Citizen’s Advice to check up.

I have a busy week ahead, with a meeting arranged with the council to discuss funding for the LAN and possible projects in the city, and also going to have a proper look at the degree shows. The last ever in Greestone and Chad Varah House.

On Thursday I went to London with the primary aim of going to see Magne Furuholmen’s “Norwegian Wood” exhibition. I’ve blogged about that experience here http://helend-blackbird.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/magne-furuholmens-norwegian-wood.html

I also asked Jack Hutchinson if he had time to meet up, and he was kind enough to invite me to go to the Discernible exhibition at ZAP, even though there was only one person there.

It was interesting to see Rosalind’s work, which for some reason I find interesting, and also I was drawn to Kate Murdoch’s sculptural work.

Before I went, I put together this project experiment http://www.lincolnartistnetwork.co.uk/apps/blog/

with the intention of asking Magne and / or Guy if Apparatjik had some time free in their schedule to come to Lincoln, however, the conversation that occurred became much more interesting, it gave me some other ideas, and I think it’ll work towards that outcome eventually.

And the good news is that I received an email about the project with Erin, and met up with Natasha from Stian’s show again, she has some funds and is very excited to be able to offer me a commission for Erin, and also for her own book, unfortunately we didn’t get much of a chance to speak properly about it, but there was certainly inspiration all around us :-)

Tips to generate a huge amount of traffic to your blog – don’t take photos of artwork, instead, find the nearest celebrity and have your photo taken with them. People seem much more interested in celebrities than art. I know this because images of Magne’s AMAZING prints receive far less hits than pictures of the man himself or pictures of Guy Berryman. Guy was very keen to tell me that he and Magne are best buddies, so I don’t think it would be terrible of me to illustrate him as in the Take On Me video now, would it? When Paul Stolper finally invites me to exhibit my work at his gallery, then Guy can buy it, and then I won’t feel like Vincent Van Gogh any more!! Hoorah!