Creativity in the Year of the Snake

Boosting Your Creativity in the Year of the Snake

Two cow sculptures from an art installation by Liz Leyh.
Photo by S. Raymond.

Making art is never about the equipment, it is always about the artist. 

Without intention and action there is nothing. 

A New Hope

As the 2025 Year of the Snake is associated with the Wood element, it symbolises a return to creativity, growth, and renewal. Yet, many of us are on a limited budget after funding cuts and 'cost of living' savings, so how do we move forward again?

As artists, we are frequently buying better equipment, going on courses for new techniques, having to buy tickets to exhibitions.* All of that is valuable to update our skills, or when old equipment needs replacing. Yet, none of this is an act of creation. We often don't always need to use something expensive to create great work. 

Consider this: Liz Leyh's cow sculptures (and a replica by Bill Billings) were made with concrete and chicken wire, as part of a community art project. They became a symbol of the new city of Milton Keynes (see photo above). Would they have made as much of an impact if they'd been made in bronze or marble?

Artists Are Natural Hoarders

Many arts and crafts people have a studio space, spare room, a shed, or even just a cupboard, full of art equipment they aren't using. Added to which, we often store our old work there too, as an archive or until we exhibit or sell it. 

For example, last year a friend 3D printed a mini press, by the Open Press Project, as a birthday gift for me. I was delighted and would have liked to try it straight away. However, last year was quite chaotic on a personal level, so I eventually put it aside, unused, into a drawer. 

Recycle, Reuse, Reduce 

There are alternatives though. The 'Recycle, Reuse, Reduce' approach to life can also apply to our arts practice. It's also helpful when funds are low. So here's a quick list of ideas for how we can all make more from less in the year of the Snake. 

- Reuse your old print art and magazines - print works can be printed or painted over, used in collage, or in craft projects such as as book covers, or to make cards

- Many b/w photographs or prints can be transferred to other surfaces, to be painted over or made into print blocks

- Photographers: join a 'shitty camera challenge' and reuse your old cameras that have seen better days

- Recycle your old art materials and magazines by offering them to your local art clubs and community services. Libraries and charity shops will accept books and magazines in good condition. Charities that offer art therapy may accept materials, as may children's play groups. 

- Give your old art to your friends, family, or a library. Now it's both a gift and also someone else's problem to store or display. Tell them "it'll be worth a fortune in the future", which may even be true! The central library was loaned paintings by internationally-exhibited contemporary artists Boyd & Evans, which made it more accessible for many as well as helping the artists free up some workspace. 

- Get inspired by the Arte Povera movement - making great art out of unconventional materials 


What do you think of these art tips - do any resonate for you?


* HMRC self-employment expenses

A 2023 Review (Madeleine memories)

Memories Are Made Of This

The year 2023 had a quite gloomy start for the art scene. The coldest Winter for several years, combined with a 'cost of living crisis', and ACE funding slashed for many UK arts organisations, left the arts community feeling quite bruised.

Promotional image for the madeleine zine, with a list of contributors (including myself)

My initial sense of artistic salvation came via Mastodon, the Fediverse micro blogging service that I joined last year (see previous post). On this site, I discovered a lively arts and writing community. The latter led me to re-start reading a book that had been lying idle on my shelves, called The Artists Way. Whilst this book isn't really about contemporary art, it is all about turning on the creativity tap and restarting the flow of creative output. When I found a few writers talking about it online, I decided to give the process another go. This led me to try out the 'morning pages' exercises, to get my creativity restarted. 

My aim was to create more artwork but I soon spotted a writing opportunity that was just up my street. It was to write a short piece for a one-off zine on the topic of memories and comics, which was also fundraising for dementia support. I loved my experience of comics fandom many years ago, when I was actively part of it, and the fundraising aspect tied in with my experience of having become a carer for a parent with dementia.

There's more I could write about that but, to keep my piece simple, I started at the point where two UK fandom subcultures first overlapped in my life. That ended up being about 900 words about the way the science fiction and comics communities were interlinked and how that was important to my memories of the comics boom of the 90's. As a bonus, I found myself listed with several comics creators I admire, including Paul B. Rainey - a Milton Keynes comics artist who took a trajectory to fame in 2023, after his dystopian domestic drama proved a hit with reviewers. 

The zine project, called 'madeleine' (a reference to Proust's madeleine memory), was a project led and designed by Simon Russell, an artist/designer posting on Mastodon and Instagram. As well as rounding up 28 writers*, Simon created a successful funding campaign on Kickstarter, which found 108 backers. With Simon in charge of the editing and design, eventually the zine project turned into a small, smart-looking book. After deducting printing and postage costs, Simon was able to donate £411.19 to Alzheimer's Research UK. 

My personal 2023 domestic drama was an experience of recovering from burnout. More about that in the next post. 

Click here for more about the Kickstarter madeleine zine project.

* Madeleine was made by Brad Brooks: Nick Bryan: Dan Butcher: Dan Charnley: Lee Christien: Ben Clark; Eamonn Clarke; David Cranna; Oliver East; Hannah Eaton; Shari Emerson; Tony Esmond; Martin Feekins; Sam Hardacre; Alan Henderson; Nic Ho Chee; Paul Hudson; ILYA; Guy Lawley; Iestyn Pettigrew; Alan Purdie; Paul B. Rainey; Suzanna Raymond; Simon Russell; Jon Sapsed; Dez Skinn; Giovanni Spinella; Myfanwy Tristram.
* The book has been edited, designed and illustrated by Simon Russell

Self-care in Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2022

The Self-care Learning Curve.

Self-care is often understood as a support package that we manage and construct for ourselves. When it's treated as a luxury, we may reward ourselves for our hard work by spending money on ourselves with a meal out, an expensive treat or a holiday. At least, that's how I viewed it until my world changed with three events that redefined my life. 

Fallen tree, 2020. (Black ink on paper)

Firstly, my part-time job with a local charity came to an end, due to funding cuts. As I'd been using that role to pay my bills, whilst I figured out a way to support myself from arts work and plan flexible breaks to support my health, that was disappointing. Most part-time jobs appeared to be mainly geared around working parents, which wasn't the arrangement I was hoping for, so I wasn't feeling optimistic about finding a replacement easily. 

Soon after, I became an unpaid carer when it became apparent that my mum needed help to look after herself. That, in itself, is a long story for another time. As a result I started to look for support for carers and ways to maintain my mental health as I adjusted to my new role. Locally I registered with Carers MK and went to Age UK Milton Keynes for legal advice. At this point I was still hopeful that I could learn how to balance a care role with some freelance arts work, though I wasn't clear how to make that happen.

Finally, the COVID19 pandemic hit the UK, just as my most recent sketchbooks went on display in the MK Calling 2020 exhibition at MK Gallery. The increased risk to my health and upheaval, together with a lack of funding support for freelancers, upset all my plans for urban sketching and community events, as we collectively locked down and readjusted to pandemic life. Whilst some people threw themselves into home baking, I started an occasional sketch journal over on Instagram.

Two years of learning how to live in a changed world. personally and professionally, have given me a new perspective on self-care. This includes day to day support and a new attitude to paid and unpaid work commitments. Here are my revised top tips for self-care ...

My top 4 tips for self-care:

1. Self-care is an essential, not a luxury. If you pass up early opportunities to care for yourself when you have minor health or welfare concerns, they will eventually grow into major problems. At its most basic, it can be as simple as remembering to give yourself breaks, drink some more water and have an early night. At the networking level, it could involve seeking out help and information from charities, support groups and professionals.
2. Ask for help. No-one is going to know you need support if you struggle on in silence. If you leave it until you're in a major crisis before you speak up then you may not get the help in time. Ask for help from friends, family, support groups or services. For example, carers (especially live-in carers) are advised to plan 'respite breaks' - these can be anything from a couple of hours to see a friend and relax away from their caring role, or it may be a week away, if they can get the support for that long. 
3. It takes a village. The saying "It takes a village to raise a child" also applies to public avenues for support - in the community, from your employers/collaborators and from public bodies. If you're trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders, continuous work without a break will drain you until you make yourself ill. Better to learn to spread the load early on and say 'no' a few people or situations that no longer support your aims, than collapse suddenly from the strain of trying to please everyone all of the time. 
4. Know your worth. Potential clients or employers may want you to work for a lower price, more hours or for exposure but you need to value yourself more highly. You have unique skills, experience and perspectives. If you are still learning how to negotiate and market yourself, look on social media for tips and active support groups. There's lots of free advice that's tailored to freelancers and artists, just take the time to find the best fit for your situation. E.g. art opps on Instagram - I share some in my Stories

Creative Respite?

This week I was reminded that it's "Creativity & Wellbeing Week 2022" when my request to join a related Facebook group was approved. If you're looking for creative events or ideas for activities in the UK, this may be a good place to start. If you can't make any of these activities, it's still worth using them as inspiration for days out or breaks when you've more time to spare.

The week's theme, according to their website - 

"Creativity and Wellbeing week is a partnership between London Arts in Health Forum and the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance. It is an open festival where we encourage anyone who wants to host an event focused on culture, arts and wellbeing to join us in the programme."

Creativity & Wellbeing project events web page: https://creativityandwellbeing.org.uk/all-events/ 
Search on Twitter for #CreativityandWellbeingWeek

See more of my art on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srfirehorseart/

Ten top tips for ACE funding

Fundraising skills are in demand at charities and arts organizations.

Introduction

In June 2015, Milton Keynes Council and Arts Council England got together to host a free event which aimed to provide “advice on developing successful funding applications“.

Top Ten Tips for Arts Council Funding (2015)

1. Council Resources – Local Council arts development officers may have experience of arts properties, arts strategy, development and monitoring grants, making them an important source of local help. 
2. Creating Your Project – Aim to explain your project on one side of A4, in a jargon-free way. Identifying opportunities to collaborate with other groups and projects in England gets you extra brownie points.
3. Do Your Research – Get information on what’s happening in your field of interest locally and nationally.
4. Needs Assessment - Look for an identified need for your arts project in your local area. This information may come from a local funding organisation’s report, the council’s arts & heritage strategy or from looking through ACE papers and research (e.g. the latest Arts Council Plan in the Advice & Guidance section of their website).
5. Funding – Build in other sources of funding, such as ticket sales and donations. An ACE grant alone will not cover all your costs and you’ll be expected to show 10% match funding (which may be ‘in kind’ offers of space, for example). Other grant funders may require individual artists to work with an organisation, so look for partners to put in partnership bids.
6. Partners – Aim to do work that is mutually beneficial, e.g. running workshops for the host organisation and sharing expertise.
7. Timescale – Project managing your time is very important. Allow 3 to 6 months to bring in the funding. Your event timescale should include all elements of your project, such as workshops and time to report back to your funder, rather than just the final outcome.
8. Artistic Quality – ACE are looking for quality in your arts projects, which is determined by:  a) relevant artistic work, experience and achievement; b) who is involved and the quality of mentors and arts supports. Your executive summary should be about 100 words and is best written like the conclusion to an essay. 
9. Public Engagement – It’s important to explain the Who and the How of audience engagement. You also need to think about how you will measure the success of your events and define your target audience. These are all metrics that will also come in handy for marketing and reporting on your event. 
10. Your Research and Development events can provide data for future funded events, so keep records of attendance and results throughout. Again, this can be fed into your marketing strategy.

Notes

Check for updates to funding criteria on ‘Grants For the Arts’ on the Arts Council England website.

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/ 

A longer version of this article with more resource links can be found at Arts Development Funding 2015

Does anything need updating in this article? Let me know below or via my social media.

Friezeing Out The Emerging Artist

Friezeing your butt off?

London Art Fairs 2015

As I've been a bit busy recently, I almost missed the fact that we'd crept up to Frieze week again. Yes, it's that time in October when the whizzes at Frieze lure wealthy investors art buyers into Regent's Park in order to part them from their money in exchange for some cultural assets. Frieze London obviously have a sense of humour as there was even a talk asking Can Artists Afford to Live in London?,which is available as a free mp3 for those too poor to attend in person. If you got a free ticket or are an emerging artist working at the fair then well done to you!

If you read my last post you may be aware of the existence of The Cultivist, a new venture who will whisk impatient people with money past the boring queues and straight over to a curator and a glass of champagne, and quite right too. Also, I'm sure that with the proper advice, these same lucky folk can go to some lectures on how to spend money on art and skip the hard part of trying to understand why anyone likes it, after all if it's worth a lot of money it must be worth having, right? No need to spend time thinking about what an emerging artist is developing if you can just pick up something by a recently dead famous artist. Chin, chin!

If you happen to be one of those aforementioned poor emerging artists, you can commiserate with your fellow artists flogging their work, and those curators who taking a break from Frieze, by heading over to The Other Art Fair / Moniker where there are somewhat more affordable artworks and snacks. If that's not your style there are sure to be a couple of other art fairs on in the same block at the Old Truman Brewery.

If you're looking for actual creativity, rather than just shopping, then head over to Sluice, which is back after a year's break from London, This is the one of the art fairs that I've enjoyed the most, as you actually get to talk to other artists and small galleries. Busy curators presumably head over there on Sunday after Frieze shuts its doors, so no one need miss the fun.

And finally, this Twitter exchange, with fab Leeds-based artist Emily Speed, summed it all up for me ...

When curators suggest a meeting at Frieze and you're like, NO DUDE, it's £36 and I'd be paying for my own ticket.

— Emily Speed (@speedina) October 15, 2015

@SRfirehorseart @sluice__ aye, Can I do a studio visit? Sure, my studio is here... reply - oh, well let me know when you're in town next...

— Emily Speed (@speedina) October 16, 2015

Happy 2015 to all you lovely London art fair explorers! :)

Disma Life and The Emerging Artist

Sign for the closed Madcap arts venue, Wolverton, Milton Keynes.

Business Development Opportunities

Business Development Officers at art galleries and museums were probably on tenterhooks watching the public’s reaction to Banksy’s 5-week Dismaland in Weston-super- Mare. The event slash mass-installation has been a hit to the tune of an extra £20m of business to the seaside town. That may be enough to reassure the galleries that are banking on big names to draw in enough visitors to shore up their funding deficits.

In a Spiked article Brendan O’Neill (who also writes for the Spectator) says "Banksy is modern capitalism’s loss of faith in itself made flesh." Yet, however much Mr O’Neill and various critics might like to lambast this particular vein, they seem to miss some key points when they pause to mock. This successful graffiti artist with art world links is simply on the money about what the public want to see right now - Banksy has become the validated Jack Vettriano of street art-meets-fine-art. Key figures in the contemporary art establishment have embraced Banksy's work, as he bridges the gap between popular art and in-your-face 90's contemporary art bling. It makes sense that Damien Hirst, a past master of monetizing the art statement piece, was in the Dismaland show. Yet it’s not all about showmanship, as Banksy represents a socially-aware sentiment with Pop Art overtones that is acknowledged by noted artists like Sir Peter Blake. Emerging artists who are currently weeping into their student loan statements could do well to note where public sentiment and art world interests overlap. The verdict of the average man on the Clapham omnibus carries more weight in an art world returning to holding its cap out for private investment.

Cult Cottage Industry 

Jonathan Jones (The Guardian, 2006), arguing against Banky's media-savvy public profile, told us that “Art needs layers of meaning. It needs ambiguity and a bit of mystery.”  That statement makes sense for most artists, providing you’re looking for depth in fine art. If you think that it also still means that buyers still prefer landscapes, Pop Art and abstracts then you’re only partly right. My recent quick survey (I asked the sales assistant), at a local art gallery popular with wedding parties looking for gifts and art to take home, had the response that what most of their customers want to buy right now contains a large element of fantasy or something to make them smile. Thus it makes perfect sense that David Shrigley’s tongue-in-cheek work was also featured at Dismaland.

The current economic crisis has everyone running scared, such that edgy art sells well now if it’s also immediately funny, loaded with irony or comforting in some perverse way.  One of my non-art friends would rather buy prints of blue-sky beach huts and cute cottages than art reminding her of the gritty realities of daily life. Even wealthy art buyers want the reassurance that they’re cared about when they visit the arts or make an investment. It is with those nervous and affluent buyers in mind that two entrepreneurs have launched an exclusive arts club. The Cultivist offers a service to handhold “people who are affluent and realise they need to do something with art”. This service includes fast-track VIP access to everything arts-related, a bargain at just £1,900 a year with no waiting in line with those who have merely obtained middle-income wealth. It’s a marriage of convenience that many arts business development officers must wish they’d thought of it first.

Arts Emergency

At the other end of the spectrum there are artists banding together to create a community conscience and bring back political comment into art, such as Bob and Roberta Smith’s Art Party campaign. Or you could support access to education for young emerging artists via the Arts Emergency mentoring scheme. If you are an artist frustrated with the skewed economics of austerity Britain, then you could also join a public group like the Manchester-based ‘Artists Against Austerity’, a grass-roots artist led collective, who aim to “come together as a community of artists and creatives to stage a series of events/exhibitions … to engage, reconnect and empower communities to join forces and oppose austerity”.  The AAA certainly got their wish when the leading political parties decided to rally their forces in Manchester this October.

The role of protest and representation of the poor is one that some artists have always occupied, one that is easy to sympathise with given the tendency for artists to take on part-time low paid work to support themselves if they spurn more commercial themes in their output. A quick survey of modern art history suggests that artists who highlight the plight of the poor, like Vincent Van Gogh, Gustave Courbet and Käthe Kollwitz, can produce work that gives us beautiful and moving accounts of the human condition. Certainly it is easier to deliver an ugly message when it is presented in an attractive wrapping. Whether these works initiate social change is a separate matter, but they do tend to provoke controversy and that leads to probing conversations on issues, discussions that must be better than just more political whitewash on unwelcome changes in society. If the UK’s recent surge of support for a return to traditional Socialist politics is any indicator of a change of direction, the time of the socially-aware artist may have come round again.

Arts Development Funding (2015)

Arts Development Slide

In my previous post, I was considering the skills that an artist needed to learn to operate in a way that was akin to a small business. I have mulled over this point and come to the conclusion that if we were to ask ‘Does an artist need to operate like a small business?’, the answer could be ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Maybe’.

In short, it all depends on how an emerging Fine Art artist wishes to make their living. Here are the options I've noted so far:

1. If you’d asked your tutors you may have been told, as I was, to get a full-time job and make your art in the evenings and weekends. As a degree student I was disappointed by that suggestion. It seemed to reduce our graduate efforts to the same level as a self-taught artist (and some of those are excellent), effectively making the degree merely three years of negotiating how to obtain a piece of paper with the university’s crest on it. However, some thinking suggests that getting a really dull job will leave your mind to be fully creative in your time off, without the worry of how you’ll pay the bills. 
2. If you've observed graduates working in arts admin and gallery jobs, you’d have seen the concept of portfolio working in action,  a strategy which requires you to fit your art projects around various part-time arts jobs. Working for arts bodies suggests that you’d be making valuable contacts all the while but you may risk get pigeon-holed as a technician or education officer, rather than as a practicing artist.
3. It seems to me that this leaves one other option, supposing you haven’t got a trust fund, an agent/manager, patron or a relative with deep pockets. That option is to make your own opportunities including looking for your own funding.  That may be a necessity anyway even if, as the Guerrilla Girls [1] might have put it, you have escaped the art world with your four free-lance jobs, since your income may still not stretch to a studio of your own and related expenses. So, the way I see it, once you start getting into the habit of organising your own events, promoting, selling and funding your own work, you effectively need the same skills as any other small business person.

Arts and Culture Development Day (June 2015)

In early June, Milton Keynes Council arranged for an ‘Arts and Culture Development Day’ with Arts Council England [2]. There had been a similar event last year but this time the format was different, apparently because Milton Keynes arts grant funding applications had been less successful than usual, which was a concern for ACE and the MK Council arts team.

This was a free event “For artists, arts organisations and those who use the arts in their work. Come and join us for talks, advice and discussion on the development of arts and culture in Milton Keynes. The event will include advice on developing successful funding applications as well as a chance to hear more (and have your say!) on arts and culture opportunities in Milton Keynes. “

As usual I made lengthy notes but I’ll stick to the key points in this post. Lucy Bedford* has also allowed me to share the event slides, which I have put in the cloud here. [3]

Key points from my notes:

• Council resources - Lucy Bedford*, in MK council's arts and heritage team, now has 10 years of experience of arts properties, arts strategy, development and monitoring grants, so she’s an important source of local help. Likewise, if you’re outside MK then it’ll be worth checking what arts officers may be able to offer at your local council.
• Creating Your Project – Aim to explain your project on one side of A4, in a jargon-free way. Identifying opportunities to collaborate with other groups and projects in England gets you extra brownie points.
• Do Your Research – Get information on what’s happening in your field of interest locally and nationally.
• Needs Assessment - Look for an identified need for your arts project in your local area. This information may come from a local funding organisation’s report, the council’s arts & heritage strategy or from looking through ACE papers and research (e.g. the latest Arts Council Plan in the Advice & Guidance section of their website).
• Funding – Build in other sources of funding, such as ticket sales and donations, as an ACE grant alone will not cover all your costs and you’ll be expected to show 10% match funding (which may be ‘in kind’ offers of space for example). Other grant funders may require individual artists to work with an organisation, so look for partners to put in partnership bids.
• Partners – Aim to do work that is mutually beneficial, e.g. running workshops for the host organisation and sharing expertise.
• Timescale – Project managing your time is very important. Allow 3 to 6 months to bring in the funding. Your event timescale should include workshops and other events in your project, such as reporting back to your funder, rather than just the final outcome.
• Artistic Quality – ACE are looking for this quality in your arts projects. ACE need to know a) about relevant artistic work, experience and achievement; b) who’s involved and the quality of mentors and arts supports. Your executive summary should be about 100 words and is best written like the conclusion to an essay.
• Public Engagement – Who will engage with your activity, how will they engage, how will you measure it and who is your target audience? Note that any research and development events you run can provide data for future funded events, so keep records of results throughout.

Footnotes

[1] The Guerrilla Girls – conscience of the art world
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/advantages.shtml
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/info/owa/owa.shtml
[2] Arts Council England – Funding
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/browse-advice-and-guidance/great-art-and-culture-everyone
[3] MK Council slides from the Arts and Culture Development Day

What an Emerging Artist Does All Day

Shelfie - for World Books Day, 2015

Now, you may wonder why there's a big gap since my last post and that's because I have recently started to explore the murky work of funding.

As an artist, I have had to get to grips with the thorny issue of having a more defined attitude to selling work, rather than just hoping some exhibition visitor will make enquiries. To this end I have been attending a series of workshops run at the NN Contemporary gallery in Northampton. Over three workshops Tracey Clarke, a business development bod for the Crafts Council and NN, has been gently guiding us through the steps we can take to lead us From Art to Commerce.

With the exception of a couple of professional artists who had lost their direction in their practice, most of the attendees had mainly sold via friends or family. What we lacked was a plan as to how to create sustainable incomes.

There is no quick fix, as we found. As artists we need to research our field and be more business-like as well as have the courage to continue perusing our creative paths. After the February workshop I had several things on my to-do list, one of which was to update my blog, so here we are.

As for my bookshelf, that now contains books on funding and business as well as art, not as a result of the workshop but rather due to a part-time job for a charity, which I started at the end of last year. Although charities seem to be largely interested in grant applications and government-led funding, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and just ask people directly to help your cause. Active fundraising, research and marketing go hand in hand, as Tracey pointed out to all us emerging artists in the workshop. Dealing with funding issues for a charity has certainly helped me think more carefully about how you ask people for money and I aim to have fine-tuned that skill by the end of this year. 

Let me know what you think about arts funding. Is it getting better where you are?

Chat to me on Twitter or Facebook.

On Being An Emerging Artist

Untitled (Triptych), 2012.

What New Artists Need But Their Art College Rarely Explains

Whatever kind of 'emerging'* artist you are at the moment, you probably went through some long moments wondering how on earth you were going to make a living and still practise your art. If you were lucky enough to jump straight from graduation into the spotlight of a showcase that supports your development, then well done. There are a few showcases that talent-spot and help show your work to galleries interested in new contemporary artists, you may even be spotted by a speculating collector or gallery owner keen to snap up a bargain an early exhibition of your work.

For most new artists, having studied studied Fine Art or painting and drawing at an art college, life after academia encompasses a period where they came out of it realising that, even though their contemporary art sensibilities had been polished to a shine, they were nevertheless ill-equipped for forging a career in the arts. They may not have realised there were showcases graduating students could apply for and they may have subsequently found out too late to meet those deadlines. The new artist may even be told after graduating that their last three (or four) years of degree work have little value and that post-grad work was where it started. Or they may hear from more experienced folk that an artist needs to get an MA to be taken seriously.

If that's what you experienced, this situation probably came as a bit of a shock for those of you that hadn't noted the lessons of art history or missed the confusingly vague slideshow on arts jobs offered by your university careers' advice service. If you made an appointment with a careers service advisor you probably were given the suggestion to get a job in graphic design or the like, or your tutors said you could create your work in the evenings and weekends like they did. They are probably studying for their PhD and you may wonder what that has to do with your art practice, given that it may be a requirement of their teaching position.

If you took your career seriously then you may have already invested in studio space, or started exhibiting your work at local venues. Some of you may have created your own websites, social media, business cards ready for enquiries but, unless you had a rush of visitors from some timely press coverage, you're probably still waiting for enough custom to pay your studio rent.

You should probably learn to pace yourself, as your glory days may take a while in arriving. If you're feeling frustrated by the slow rate of perceivable progress then take heart from Jeremy Deller's assessment of his own progress towards becoming a contemporary art star:

.. becoming an artist took some time. “I had no idea what I was doing basically,” he says about his twenties, when he took an MA in art history at Sussex University
  - Lunch with the FT: Jeremy Deller

What Are Your Options?

So what are the realities for most artists? Art history shows that a lot of well-known artists  have had to start by grafting in jobs that weren't art-related in order to pay the bills. Maybe they went back to live with their parents for a while - Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller hosted his first exhibition at his parents' house. Perhaps they ran workshops or got their post-grad teaching diploma and went back into academia.

Taking a look at the emerging artists I know locally, many have arts-based roles work as technicians or become support staff at galleries and other local arts organizations. They may practise 'portfolio working' (a useful phrase I spotted in my university's careers slideshow), which basically means having several part-time jobs in freelance or permanent roles. You'll find that flexible part-time jobs are in demand amongst artists who want an income whilst still having a bit of time to work on their practice.

Beware the comfort of becoming someone's employee, especially in a full-time role. That's not to say you shouldn't do take a secure job, rather a warning that it can become a trap of sorts once you become dependent on the benefits of your role. One artist warned me off taking up a (temporary) council arts officer role I was applying for, saying that it would distract me from my art work. I put my tender application in anyway, hopeful of a living wage and a way of networking but, even though I felt fairly well-qualified with my prior work experience, it seems that I didn't meet their criteria.

There are lots of unpaid roles about, some disguised as volunteer roles (you're only truly a volunteer if you don't have to work fixed regular hours or aren't a substitute for a paid employee), some roles are boldly advertised as unpaid internships, some work is on offer for artists that (once you've paid the admin fees and for your own travel, etc.) may cost you more than the token fee offered. Prepare yourself by reading Alistair Gentry's 'Career Suicide' blog for advice on how to avoid getting ripped off by fake opportunities, check out the AIR - Paying Artists campaign and the handy a-n Signposts publication.

The Business of Being an Artist

Still you may wonder where your career as an artist fits into these options and rightly so. At some point you have to concede that you, as an artist, are self-employed. Regardless of which shows you do, who supports you, which groups you join, and what else you study, you are the only one driving your practise forward now.

You are a small business and you now need to learn some small business skills.

There are plenty of resources on offer, once you accept the situation. Groups like a-n  and ArtQuest can advise you on best practise, business tips and cheap insurance, HMRC offers free small business courses and so on. You'll need to register yourself as self-employed once you're ready (I felt that I'd wait until I had my first freelance paid role).

I'll admit that I've been slow to take these up as I was initially fighting against being self-employed but knowing the help is out there is reassuring. Bear in mind though that, as a small business, your job as an artist will probably mean up to 70% of your time could be taken up with the machinery of running a business and so only part of your time  will be left for developing your practice.

In Conclusion

The general drift of what I've seen so far is that you do need to have a 'day job' to pay the bills. Ideally you'll also avoid jobs that offer you lots of 'experience' but so little money, unless you really are learning something useful. However it seems that you must be prepared to be self-employed, or at least flexibly employed, embrace a certain amount of risk and possibly give up the day job at some point in order to have the art career you hoped for.


Notes

* Of course there is the whole question of what is an 'emerging' artist anyway and when can it be determined that we have stopped emerging, but that topic probably warrants its own article.



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Some Famous Artists and The Jobs They Started In

On that note, here's a reminder that you're not on your own in your winding path for recognition:

• Andy Warhol was a very successful illustrator before he moved into fine art. 1
• Francis Bacon supplemented his early income with interior design.
• Jeremy Deller, who used one of his jobs to design slogan-covered t-shirts as conceptual art, "worked at jobs including postman, driver and shop assistant at Sign of the Times, a Covent Garden clothing shop for which he designed T-shirts featuring lyrics by Philip Larkin" 2
• Jeff Koons worked in sales and finally as a commodities trader in Wall Street before he hit his stride selling flashy art to wealthy patrons.
• Richard Serra's first job was working in the steel mills, to support his studies at Yale. 3
• At different points in his life, Duchamp was the following: professional chess player, self-publisher, painter, volunteer for military service, art dealer, gambler, inventor, librarian, secretary to a French war mission in the second world war. He also dabbled in cleaning and fabric-dying businesses, thought of becoming a professional cameraman and was eager to market self-designed chess sets, optical machines and scientific toys. 4

Many of these artists incorporated the skills they gained in their early jobs into their arts practice, which only seems to have aided them in developing their ideas.

Notes

1. Warhol:early work http://www.warhol.org/collection/art/earlywork/
2  Lunch with the FT: Jeremy Deller www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1e3fbcca-f9c4-11e2-b8ef-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3Gmus5iM1
3. Man of Steel http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/oct/05/serra.art
4 Marcel Duhamp: A riotous A-Z of his secret life http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/apr/07/marcel-duchamp-artist-a-z-dictionary