ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [13 September 2009]

Fresh starts...I'm working on a new Crow! A few weeks ago I got my Arts Council England short and skinny envelope, not the big fat number I had been waiting for. For one fraction of a second it was a bitter blow. But almost instantaneously, a sense of relief and excitement took over. I don't have to be bound by the strictures of the Arts Council, and Crow is insisting on going his own way – perverse little bird – and of course, its not going to be conventional. I’m sort of relishing the challenge. It must be my great-great grandmother’s pioneering blood in my veins. It’s a hard, solitary journey, but who wouldn’t be there for the new visions it's leading to? So, I’m taking an hour out of a Sunday afternoon, while my two girls are at a birthday party with their dad, and looking forward to the journey ahead. Go Crow!

# 2 [14 September 2009]

Feedback from my Arts Council application...the very person who gave me untold advice and support PRIOR to my submission, to strengthen it, was the sole judge and jury once my application was submitted. She took three months then to say it had two major weaknesses which meant she could not recommend it at central decision making level.

What? 

# 3 [14 September 2009]

But thank the universe for wonderful women. I have been working with Anna Sexton, my genius guru (www.opentoarts.com) who has given me inspiration and belief to progress where failure has seemed the order of the day. We have monthly telephone coaching sessions, and I come out of them feeling as if these Crow! dreams will become reality.

And then, check this out....

I decided I needed PR, so I surfed the web, cold-contacted an ethical PR company and Helen Trevorrow (www.greenrow.co.uk) agreed to give me 30 mins of her time. 

Out of curiosity, I followed her on Twitter, only to find, posted a couple of days before our initial contact, ‘...I've 666 followers - please someone else follow-me before I am attacked by a frothy mouthed rottweiler or oversized crow'.

Oversized Crow?...that's my bird! Anyway, long story short, I went in with my 4- and 6-year old, we all sat round the table and Helen and Jane - another wondrous woman - told me to forget PR, set up as a business, write my business plan and get a professional fundraiser to raise the cash (in return for 10%).

And words that ring in my head every day...’If you need £126k ask for it.’ Fellow artists, we do not need to be passively skint!

Women, oh women, this is inspiration. I have permission to be successful and business-like in my art. Thank you for all your amazing generosity of time and spirit, and your wisdom. 

# 4 [16 September 2009]

Gordon, what do you mean by 'unnecessary programmes'? Who was funding them if they weren't necessary? And you don't mean things like the arts, do you, or programmes that improve quality of life?

# 5 [17 September 2009]

I met with Anne Latto, my old Crow this morning. Do you mind being called my old Crow, Anne? She is very inspirational. We sat in her warm conservatory, looking out at the wondrous garden where vibrant plants and scented roses still bloom defiantly in the face of autumn. Like Anne a PhD student at the age of 76, she runs the volunteer workgroup in our ancient local wood, works for Amnesty, directs Shakespeare plays in Reading's ruins, and plots new artistic ventures with me as if time can be moulded and stretched outside of human recognition. When I talk about creativity and life with such a person, I understand that artists are like the flowers in Anne's garden. There is the odd Picasso at centre stage and the eye can't help (almost reluctantly sometimes) returning to it. But it is the mass of cosmos, zinnias, the red hips of the wild rose, the green sculpture of the spurge, the feathery grasses, the almost overlooked yet outrageously lovely blooms of an unknown climber, that create the garden. Every now and again a visitor will intricately appreciate one blossom, exclaiming at its particular beauty, but for the most part each element is embraced as an organism of a greater whole, bringing a sense of wonder and refuge to the rambler. There are plants that are more eye-catching than others, to be sure, but there are no egos in a garden.

I came home and wrote a poem. Not a lyrical number about a symphonic masterpiece of horticulture, but about education in Britain. It ends: 'Na-na-na-na-na/Stick it up your bum/Mum she calls/You never did The National Curriculum.'

That's what I love about art. Sublime. Coarse. It's all part of the same package.

# 6 [24 September 2009]

Been working hard, but nothing to show for it. So I'll show you some piccies from Saturday, the ReOrsa happening that overtook Bracknell. The photos are of my piece - a woven staircase, but check out the whole thing on www.reorsa.org. An artist-led initiative.

Started at 11am, up by 2.30pm, down again by 6pm. Did it really happen? I felt like I had the mother of all artistic hangovers the following day, with not a drop of pernod in sight.

This was my favourite moment: a shopper who looked rather careworn and tired stopped to ask "What's this meant to be?" I replied, "It's to make a drab staircase look special so that when you walk up it, you feel special." "That sounds nice," she said, then looked at me with that where's-the-piss-taking-camera sort of look, looked away and asked, "Is that really true?"

Also liked the old battleaxe who swept past and informed me she had never seen such a load of old rubbish in Bracknell. Tee! Hee!

Was it all worth it? It was as it was, and art is always better than no art.

But a lot of effort..........

# 7 [4 October 2009]

I write about this in my ‘art’ blog because art is not about art if it is not about life. I heard today, unexpectedly, of the death of my secondary school English teacher. It was not just his death that shocked me, for he was young, but the unhappiness of his death. I was surprised, too, by the effect the news had on me. My teacher was not the sentimental, saccharine Robin Williams of my schooldays, and he was never carried high upon his cheering students' shoulders. But he was the teacher who presented a novel – The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (brave choice) – in such a way that the first seismic shift in my confident, inherited belief system took place. In that, he ‘changed my life’. I have never forgotten that, but the impact of the first two years of his wonderful teaching were swamped, in my ungenerous and critical student mind, by the last two years of our teacher/pupil relationship when I considered him to be dogmatic and rigid in his thinking. Ironic, perhaps, considering the flexibility he introduced into my own thought. (And I never forgave him for choosing the poems of Sylvia Plath over The Four Quartets…)

We sparred. But I took it as given that he was as strong and certain as he seemed. As an adult I have found that he was not. As any other human being, he was fragile. I think now that his attraction to dark works and dark poetry reflected an internal bleakness. And I wonder whether the fact – and I see now that this is not the stuff of jokes, as we liked to think at school – that he had the chill misfortune to be  the handsome visual double of Peter Sutcliffe did actually cast a dark shadow upon his life.

Perhaps he thought his life was too ordinary, and his gifts had not been met in teaching. Like most ordinary people who live ordinary lives, teachers most particularly, and artists, he gave gifts and planted seeds. But perhaps he - like many others who give gifts and plant seeds - never saw the oak trees grow. Perhaps he stopped believing that from his work trees did grow.

At some point in my life I stopped believing I must be a frothy cherry, and I aspired to be an oak. Many people have played a part in this transformation, and he was one. I thank him.

# 8 [5 November 2009]

Wey hey! Back after an absence. Shall I start my posts with that lovely phrase, 'Dear Diary...', thereby keeping at bay the terrible affliction of Blogger's Block (why?...for whom? ...the futility of the artistic life...oh, woe is me!).

We have a new wave of internet democracy, and each of us has a voice (a Face, a Twitter, a Blog). There is wonder and power in it - a chance for each of us to be heard. But my, the frenzy of it all! Each of us shouting to be heard, with only the most conscientious taking time to listen to her neighbour's voice. It brings to mind those raucous images of tens of thousands of jostling seabirds, all shouting out their own stories, each desperate to be noticed and singled out. The lucky pelican may win the Turner Prize, another may be spotted by a dealer (Saatchi even), the bird with the most beautiful pouch will become a supermodel, and the laconic pelican with a career in television presenting will win a million followers. And the rest of us...

...I once was walking on my favourite beach in Wales, when something caught my eye. I bent down and picked, from amongst the million pebbles, a round, smooth, palm-sized stone. On it, an artist had drawn a sandalled foot, each toe perfectly contained within the curve of the rounded stone.

It was truly like finding an incredible treasure, and my excitement over it has never dulled. It sits on my hearth, a small work of art whose maker I will never know. Had I stumbled on an undiscovered Picasso in a junk shop, I would not have been as thrilled (though a lot richer).

The act of art requires constant unquestioning faith. We have to create in the absolute belief that, of all the thousands of pebbles on the beach, our one small pebble will be found and treasured. Whether it be a blog, an oil painting, a chance comment, or a way of life, seeds will be sown. We need to dream, not of the seedlings, but of future forests.

And without creative forests, our world cannot survive.

# 9 [24 November 2009]

Dear Diary,

Have you seen the film Brazil? Can't say I'm loving it, but we've been watching it over two days. Anyway, in between showings, I phoned Company House with some questions about setting myself up as a company, and suddenly I found myself in a scene from the film. It was bureacratic madness! Sheer madness! Sorry, I've never heard of a Social Enterprise. It's forms 10 and 12. Oh no, those forms do not exist. But I have them here. Sorry, they do not exist. Please try and calm down, madam, I am trying to get to the bottom of this. There's an SE form. Well, surely that's it? Oh no, that's a Societo Europea. I'll pass you on to my colleague, Mark. He may know something about them. What are they you say? Social Enterprise! Mark knows. He tells me the forms I have been dropping marmalade on for the past two months are redundant, having been replaced (European Directive 0.6 subsection A, 2006) as from 1 October 2009, with the new EN01 (18 pages long), along with Articles of Association and Memorandum. What are they, I cry? They don't seem to be on your website. Oh no! says he. You will need to get them from a solicitor. But don't send them in. Just keep them for your records. That sounds expensive and unnecessary, say I. What are they? A Memorandum is a nice short reminder on a post-it, isn't it? Oh no, says he. It is a very expensive legal document. Oh, says I. Am I still setting up a Social Enterprise? i don't know, says he, is it a company with limited guarantee. How the hell should I know, I say with my hand over the mouthpiece, I'M AN ARTIST AND I'M REALLY TRYING TO BE BUSINESS-LIKE. I was recommended to set up a Social Enterprise, says I. Oh, he says, company with limited guarantee you want, then. And I want to cry.

I'm meeting the potential subscribers (yes, dear Diary, I need two of them and I love you for not asking me what they have to do) in the pub tonight. I know they will ask me probing questions. Can't they just sign the box? I've just read something about filing returns. And quorums. And underwriting debt. Will that worry them?

Why am I doing this? I forget. It's like writing a blog. Someone recommends it is good for establishing a network, for increasing visibility, viability, all those great dynamic, visionary words. So you forge ahead with enthusiasm and a vision of the future. Then the solitary nature of the activity, the monotony, the futility, the words without pictures - they hit you like a sledgehammer, and you write all about it, and that is your last blog entry. Ever. And with your dynamic, thrusting arts business, you file the reams of paper you've printed off in an efficient-looking folder headed 'SETTING UP MY COMPANY'. And off you go to drink a cuppa, eat a cream cake, and watch an episode of Neighbours. Ah yes!

# 10 [10 December 2009]

Dear Diary,

How are you? I feel I should have visited you before now, but I haven't. I've been too busy being busy.

Three things I should have told you:

1)I am still setting up my business. But rather than my usual rip, shit and bust it approach, I have decided I need to research my options, and in sedate fashion find out the best way forward. I have signed up for several (free) Business Link workshops. And have thus ascertained that the business will be a Social Enterprise rather than a charity, and I think a CIC will be the most appropriate.(What does CIC stand for, you ask? I wish I could remember...several Googles later: Community Interest Company). The question is, what sort? Limited Guarantee or Limited Shareholders? Who will be my members? What will the Articles and Memoradum of Association be? Will I get an accountant or do it myself? Can I make friends with a local Justice of the Peace and save a solicitor's fee? Not my usual style, but I like this new, professional me. I need to buy myself a pair of half-moon spectacles. On a string.

Speaking of purchases, a fellow punter came in to one of the workshops with a very smart looking binder notebook (A4), with all his notes. It looked so professional. In attempting to emulate him, I ran in to Smiths before running for the bus I cannot be late for - school pick up - and came out with a hideous lurid pink one. Perhaps it gives out a sense of vibrant energy, but in truth, it is horrible. Oh well.

2) I wrote a play.

3) I got back to Crow! today, and am writing it as a film now. I shall show you a few of the sketches from my storyboard. Well, what do you think? Do you get the idea? I'm excited. I have such a flavour of the piece in my mind...

Now, dear Diary, I can sense your discomfort. You are so much less interested in my magnum opus, and far more worried about all these big spaces in the middle of this blog. Aren't you? Well, here comes a biggie...

Is it representative of meditation and yogic practice? A communing with the internal yearnings of my artistic spirit?

Indeed, it is to make my attached images look as if they belong to this post. A little aesthetic indulgence.

And back now to Crow! What a good day it's been, back to the vision, and away from business models. I dream of seeing it realised....will someone please give me the Munny?