The Woolly Elephant in the Room

Migration

Mastodon 2022 logo design 
By Eugen Rochko & other Mastodon contributors
 https://blog.joinmastodon.org/, AGPL,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=120470930

November 2022 is turning out to be period of rapid change and a questioning of power structures. Whilst a lot of the US was focused on political campaigns, there was also a test of boundaries on social media as the Twitter platform reacted to the new owner's radical and mercurial attempts to reshape it. What he couldn't control was whether the users approved and continued to use the site. 

Like many, I felt that Twitter was nearing a point where it may collapse, after many important staff were laid off or resigned. That led to many questioning whether it was worth hanging on what started to be dubbed 'the hellsite'. As a result, many looked to other alternatives and one new option started to get a lot of traction - the Mastodon federated server site, or 'fediverse', of networked online communities. 

What Next?

With so much up in the air, what does this mean for artists, museums and galleries, online collaborations and so on, that used Twitter as a key publicity and campaign tool?

Ultimately, I suggest that it means a period of upheaval and uncertainty but I see a new, positive community spirit emerging on Mastodon. Questions remain on how artists and galleries will network on that platform, as it has no clear focal point yet, whilst still keeping their other accounts alive.

Even as and when Twitter burns down, many useful links have been formed on that site and no-one should leave it until too late to note their key contacts, just in case their favourite faces aren't on Instagram or the like. If you're unsure how to make the transition, there are lots of guides about by now and tools like Debirdify, Fedifinder or Twitodon produce a spreadsheet for you, which you upload to Mastodon to follow everyone on it automatically.

We adapted to the rise of Meta (Facebook/Instagram), YouTube and TikTok without too much complaint since 2004/2010, so I think that where there's a will there's a way and I hope for great things.

You can find me with my new woolly friend at ohai.social/@srfirehorseart

The srfirehorseart profile on Mastodon.

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/

Sketching for MK Lit Fest

Sketch of the MK Lit Fest launch event for the MinK zine.

Live Event Sketching 

In September I was very pleased to take on an assignment for our local literary festival (now in its 2nd year). The MK Lit Fest organisers had seen an artist in residence at another literary event and approached me due to seeing my own sketches of last year's MK Lit Fest event on Instagram.

Sketching at an event is a fun an interesting mix of observational drawing and listening to the speakers. There are many ways to go about this but the one I use is to sketch 'live' on location, adding notes while I work or after the talk. I also take colour notes as I like to add watercolour washes to my sketches.

Another way to work might be to use the sketches as the basis of a more finished looking piece, possibly stringing together a theme or bullet points from the presentations. At this event we went with the immediacy of the loose sketching style which I use for urban sketching. My first sketches took in the launch event, including contributors to the MinK zine, followed by the first star guest. My notes are a mixture of comments from the speakers and background information which I researched when I got home.

VG Lee reading at MK Lit Fest

Sharing on Social Media

When the pictures of my drawings went up on social media, we also tagged in the various writers and local arts organisations. My literary festival sketches seem to have gone down particularly well with the writers from the Polari Literary Salon, based in London, who were delighted to find out that they'd been sketched whilst they were on stage. Other sketchers may have gone for a more flamboyant approach and could have made sketching more of a performance piece but my style is to sit quietly in a corner and to do candid observational sketching.

The organisers told me that posts on Facebook seemed to encourage more clicks and posts on Twitter seemed to generate more discussion. Overall the experience seems to have been a great success for both myself and the organisers, so I'd consider doing this again for another event.

Live Sketching Tips

For anyone looking for tips on practising this style of reportage, I'd recommend investing in a couple of sketchbooks, some pens or brushes that you feel comfortable drawing quickly with, a portable set of pan watercolours, watercolour pencils or gouache colours. Find a comfortable place to stand or sit while you people-watch, if you perch quietly in one place then people and animals tend to feel more comfortable than if you fidget or announce your presence. If you're uncomfortable with drawing people then start practising by drawing the environment and take some life drawing classes to improve the way you draw figures.

Also look at examples of urban sketching on websites. There are local sketch groups in Bedford and Northampton if you want to embrace the social side of sketching and a Facebook group for sketchers like myself in Milton Keynes.

To see more of  my MK Lit Fest sketches, please take a look at my Instagram account @srfirehorseart.

Note: an earlier version of this article appeared on LinkedIn.

MK Fifty

Pathfinding

A quick post, in case you've wondered what else I've been up to in 2017, the year that Milton Keynes turned fifty years old.

Soon after the MK Calling exhibition at MK Galley, I had a solo exhibition at Stantonbury Gallery, Milton Keynes.

This exhibition at Stantonbury Campus explored the unpredictable nature of the urban landscape and the winding path of the emerging artist. These paths were represented by a series of works created during and after my Fine Art degree. The images look at the contemporary art world and the contemporary urban world, asking you to enquire about the usefulness of endeavour in the face of the temporary nature of success and the variety of ways achievements are absorbed by and re-purposed by the environment they exist in. These vignettes of decisive moments in the paths creative artists tread, mark the progress across unclear boundaries between achievement and failure, death and renewal.

Works on show included photographic prints from my degree final project. As my sketchbooks had been a popular item at MK Calling, I brought a few of those along to share at the private view.

Whilst this was a small event, it at least afforded me a sense of closure about my degree work, as I was able to show more of my final work to the public. This made up for the lack of a final university degree exhibition, a rite of passage which most fine art degree students expect as a matter of course. My final work had been displayed at the University of Northampton for grading by my tutors but unfortunately the university didn't permit me to share this with my friends and the general public at the time.

You can find a couple of photos about the Pathfinder exhibition on Instagram.

A post shared by Suzanna Raymond (@srfirehorseart) on Jul 9, 2017 at 2:56pm PDT

Image: Untitled (Path), a triptych of photographic prints, mounted on board.  Approx. (h. 430cm x w. 230 cm) x 3.

A post shared by Suzanna Raymond (@srfirehorseart) on Jul 11, 2017 at 2:46pm PDT

Installation view of Pathfinder at Stantonbury Gallery. The empty plinths were used to display some of my sketchbooks on the day of the private view but could equally be taken to represent the ephemeral nature of some artworks and artists' careers.

Season's Greetings 2015!

Merry Christmas Fair! View from a #tatemodern balcony. #urban #urbanlife #citylife #lookdownlondon #urbanexploration #cityscapes #urbanlandscape #architecture #london #londonlife #londonist #tatemodernmuseum #igerslondon #ig_london

A photo posted by Suzanna Raymond (@srfirehorseart) on Dec 24, 2015 at 2:02pm PST

Here's hoping you're having a Merry Christmas, or at least good day or two to relax a bit and take stock of how your year has gone. If, like me, you're taking a day to do nothing much than eat, browse the internet and sleep, then good on you.

Last weekend I visited London and had a chance to drop into a one-day arts event in South London and The World Goes Pop exhibition (until 24th Jan 2016) at the Tate Modern. The latter did say a lot about how much exposure and recognition artists get when they are on the periphery of an art movement because of gender or geography. To put it another way, if you aren't in the spotlight or closely connected to the key players, at the time when the art you're making is fashionable, it appears that you may have to wait for revised editions of art history before you get the support you deserve.

This year I have had fun experimenting with using my camera-phone to photograph urban and social landscapes, such as 'new town' developments and arts events, and sharing these on Instagram. In this spirit I'm posting up one of my snaps (from a Tate Modern balcony) to send you festive greetings.

All the best!

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.

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

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.



-----

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

London Art Fair 2014 - review

Doing #LAF2014 like a VIP

"For those seeking out the freshest work and emerging talent, Art Projects features large-scale installations, solo shows and curated group displays from across the globe"
- Sarah Monk in the London Art Fair programme book.

LAF2014 at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

Last year I started to broaden my attendance of art fairs, in a personal quest to understand the art world better. This is partly as an extension of my final year degree project and due to a practical need to understand better how to function now I've graduated. My initial explorations took me off to Big Deal No 5 and Sluice Art Fair, a couple of the many events running during Frieze week in London, though a derailed train prevented me from attempting to include The Other Art Fair as well. Having visited Frieze in previous years as an arts student, to see what were the big names on show, I was slightly uncomfortable with having to pay full price for a ticket especially now that the fair had spawned Frieze Masters. That cost and a curiosity about where graduates went after art school led me to shift my awareness to the venues that would host emerging artists, as opposed to established talent.

It was with this in mind that I gratefully accepted an offer of a free VIP ticket from Axisweb in order to explore The London Art Fair, at the Business Design Centre in London. Having just complied a list of art fairs to visit in 2014 I was keen to start sampling these events to see what opportunities exist for emerging artists like myself.

It was my first trip to this event and so I was surprised to find that it has been going for many years now, in fact the London Art Fair is now in its 26th year. Why it wasn't on my radar may be explained by the fact that the Frieze art fair has drawn more press attention in the last few years and has attracted the general public as well as the arts community. The London Art Fair 2014 is somewhat of a less sexy event, the buzz and vigour of Frieze that comes from having flashy art, big name galleries and two massive tents of art in a London park is absent here. There is a champagne element for VIPs and galleries, with sparkling wine making an appearance everywhere on preview day, leading to a relaxed atmosphere in the evening.

Like Frieze, art as a commodity was also a feature of the LAF2014, with one talk titled 'Is Art Really a Good Investment?', but more disturbing for artists was the booth that purported to offer bespoke art market research to help speculators to track artists' fortunes like stock market investments, with graphs based on 'research and market analysis'. As an established artist your career trajectory is being mapped out for you every 6 months, according to sales of your work. Fortunately the rest of the fair seemed to be more old-school and simply interested in just getting people to take an interest in the work.

Inside LAF2014

The London Art Fair includes artist groups and less-established artists, in the Art Projects section. This is an addition made just nine years ago, which I suspect may have been inspired by the success of Frieze art fair, which also has a large projects area and threads some of its projects throughout the fair.

Up to LAF Art Projects and the cafes.

The LAF2014 layout had the more established and commercial galleries taking up the ground and mezzanine level. The Art Projects took a bit of seeking out, as they were up another flight of stairs (see picture) sharing the Gallery Level 1 floor with the main cafe. You needed to climb yet another flight of stairs to find Photo50 up on the top floor. In some ways the Art Projects, where I finally found Axisweb at P27 and The Catlin Guide on P25 were well-catered for, with their own stand guide and gallery listings but they didn't feel like they were central to the event with their remote location. There are pros and cons to this of course, the problem being that you'd have to feel energetic and motivated or visit over more than one day to have time for both the central galleries and the project spaces. The pros seem to be that the projects get good press coverage and having their own space gives it a community feel. Certainly, once the preview evening kicked off there was quite a party atmosphere in this section.

The Axisweb team at P27.

In the Art Projects my first port of call was Axisweb, whose stand was next to the Film Screening Room, where I found a chatty Lesley and Ruth and a retiring Mark. They helpfully explained their role in promoting their 2000+ selected members, including the four artists' work they were showcasing for this fair. An earlier search of the site's member's list had revealed some Axisweb artists I know in my area. They also explained their multi-tier membership plan - they recently introduced 'Early career' membership options for recent graduates, which I found helpful to know as it's cheaper than their standard membership. According to Lesley and Ruth, Axisweb publicise themselves to universities but it is hard to say if mine mentioned them. I think I discovered Axis via Facebook and Twitter initially, but obviously I'm happy to have heard of them now.


The Catlin Guide were two stops down, with book of 'New Artists in the UK' in a handsome blue slipcase. Their guide fits in with my position as an emerging artist who has just graduated. The guide showcases new work by 40 graduate and post-graduate artists that had their final show a year ago, to hold a window up to work made 'during the crucial first year after leaving art school'. [1] The guide is presented as a lovely, high quality book but the selection of artists does seem biased towards UCL and UAL graduates, though nine other universities do get a mention. Also I'm a bit skeptical as to which 'crucial first year' they mean seeing as many of the graduates are at MA/MFA level. Still, I'm sure they mean well and it is great publicity for some artists' names.

Axisweb tote bag.

Now I had promised to compare LAF2014 to the two other fairs I mentioned earlier. First impressions? Overall, as an emerging artist, I preferred Big Deal No5 and Sluice 2013. Yes, their locations were a challenge, BD5 being hidden in an underground car park behind Oxford Street, Sluice requiring a trip accross London to a hired space in South London. Yes, that meant that these fairs were probably less likely to attract big collectors and press attention. However they were free entry, they had the cool buzz of running in the same week as Frieze, at the stands I had the opportunity to see and talk to other artists as they set up or manned their stalls. The atmosphere drew you in with the frisson of participatory and performance art alongside traditional media and I felt that these were events I'd happily visit again.

How does the LAF compare with Frieze, BD5 and Sluice? Obviously this fair is on at a completely different time of year. It's an established London event but relatively low-key. As an emerging or mid-career artist you'll probably have to entice people upstairs to see your work. Groups like Axisweb can give you a place to meet other contemporary fine artists with a less commercial angle. I found it a fairly sedate event with some commercial stands showing depressingly derivative 'art' but then large art fairs aren't usually aimed at conceptual artists. As Sarah Thornton notes in Seven Days In the Art World, this kind of art fair may be less interested in art that can't become an easily retailed commodity such as invisible or ephemeral art. [2]

Although the focus of LAF2014 seemed to be on British art, there was a also healthy international presence in the Art Projects. The talks, performances and film screenings give the projects area a live presence, even if they are hidden away upstairs. I missed the talks but the film room seemed very popular, even with its dodgy projector, and was packed to the hilt the time I popped in. I also found art I enjoyed at the Hanmi Gallery stand where there were clever videos, by South Korean artist Junebum Park, that I could relate to my own practise in terms of modern urban landscapes and their social impact.

A friend asked me about the LAF and I confirmed that yes there were 'weird artists' there but, no, the fair seemed mainly aimed at buyers, potential funders and maybe other dealers.. As Axisweb explained to me, the London Art Fair was mainly showing traditional media in 2D and 3D. This meant that there was nothing too strange, difficult or flashy in most of the spaces or on the walls, though there were art films in the corner screening room.

Overall, the London Art Fair looks like it'll retain its place as a fixture in the calendar for contemporary artists as it is a tried and trusted means of kicking off a new year of art events and it's in a central London location with good transport connections. As I was lucky enough to have a VIP ticket, I didn't have to face paying for entry myself. Its value to the emerging artist is probably mostly as a way of gearing up for the year ahead and as an opportunity to take part in a showcase, so put it in your diary for next year but get a discounted ticket from Axisweb or The Art Fund, or even better bag a free VIP ticket from a stand if you can.

LAF2014 VIP art swag

[1] Hammond, J. (2014) The Catlin Guide 2014, Caitlin Holdings Limited. 
[2] Thornton, S. (2009) Seven Days In the Art World. Granta Books, London, p. 104

More Axisweb LAF blogs at http://www.axisweb.org/features/news-and-views/in-focus/laf-bloggers/