ARTISTS TALKING

# 26 [3 January 2012]

Yes Emily Speed you started a positive trend in 2010 ....

The annual Summing Up

In 2011

1. No SUGAR! I gave up sugar for a whole year [minus alcohol]. Feel marvellous. Sugar addiction fixed! I ate no biscuits, cakes, chocolate, sweets or Xmas pud etc. Absolute bloody miracle!*

Only made possible by new passion for work with: 

2. Rosalind Davis - Brilliant, intelligent, funny, passionate, generous & the Marketing Queen. I have learned so much ....

3. Show&Tell 2011 @ Core Gallery. Great gathering & generous sharing of artists knowledge by Freddie Robins, Edwina Ashcroft, Andrew Bryant, Lucy Day & Eliza Gluckman, Graham Crowley, Delaine Le Bas, Lucy Austin & Jenny Wiener to name but a few.

4. ZAP The sad demise of Core Gallery, founded by Rosalind Davis but the fortuitous birth of ZeitgiestArtsProjects to take the vision, for supporting artists with shared knowledge & generosity, forward and expand it together.

5. AIR Being elected to the AIR Council

6. Berlin Going to Berlin - 'just like that!' and creating a wall drawing for Anschlussel London/Berlin at fruehsorge contemporary drawing curated by Andrew Hewish from the Centre for Recent Drawing, London.

7. I discovered Twitter! I love it. Easy, quick, efficient for putting news, ideas & images out there, meeting new friends and having a good giggle. Brilliant invention. Downside: I neglected my blog but who has time to write 500 words when 140 characters can do it too.

8. I created my first 'flower' drawings: Rememberance of plants past. A breakthrough in my drawing. Realised I wanted to work from books - old books with black and white pictures to draw from & literature like Proust - with brilliant ideas in words that can be turned into visual feasts. A turning point. Helped by tutorials with artist, Graham Crowley.

Best Moments etc

Best moment Changing trains at Canary Wharf and Rosalind Davis saying: 'Let's do it .... let's start a new organisation together!' Pre-birth of ZAP [Approx. 3pm, Wed 9 Oct 2011]. And later that day: Best mini-moment Sitting on London-bound train from Colchester after Market Projects: 'Too Many Artists' event [especially brilliant Alex Pearl performance] at Firstsite with Professor John Hutnyk, Julie Freeman & Rich White etc drinking ice-cold G&Ts courtesy of Ros, and discussing the rise and demise of the YBAs. 

Best achievement Being elected onto the AIR Council. Finding out people had bothered to vote - in droves!

Best Feeling Being picked to create a wall drawing by Andrew Hewish (C4RD) for Anschlussel London/Berlin at fruehsorge contemporary drawing - a one-off drawing survey show.

Best Idea ZeitgeistArtsProjects - ZAP. Finally coming up with a name for our new organisation inspired by recent events: the inspirational Sluice Art Fair and the Alisn conference at Goldsmiths for Emerging arts independents.

Best 'feeling moved' moments Curating Home Exhibition with Ros and realising all our effort and work had been so worth it. Thanks to the artists: Rose Wylie, Lucy Austin, Freddie Robins, Graham Crowley, Carolyn Lefley, Kate Murdoch, Delaine Le Bas, Peter Davis, Rich White & Rosalind Davis.

Celebrating drawing in Berlin in France with English & French family & friends

2012 - Things to celebrate

1. Excited to be starting new body of work as I draw my way through the history of English painting in a series entitled: Re-draw. The series will literally involve redrawing classic paintings from history, in images drawn from old b/w books about English painting. I.e The Connoisseur New Guide to English Painting & Sculpture, pub. 1962 etc. 

2. The Launch and future development of ZietgeistArtsProjects with Rosalind Davis at our new premises in South London with a fantastic 2012 Show&Tell programme of speakers & events we have lined up inc. Sarah Williams (Jerwood), Ben Street & Karl England (Sluice Art Fair) & Andrew Hewish (C4RD) artists: Susan Collis, Phoebe Unwin, Virgina Verran & Alex Pearl etc.

3. ZAP support: Lewisham Arts Services confirming a grant for two artists seminars to be held at Goldsmiths in March & the brilliant continued support of the Fenton Arts Trust

4. Taking my new role in the AIR Council forward

5. Starting The Drawing Group with fellow draw-er Jack Hutchinson

5. No more sugar ever!

6. Celebrating 20 brilliant years of being married to TheGoodHusband.

Conclusion: How to live & how to emerge -

Create & maintain relationships & sustain them through generosity & time!

* mentioned on Radio 4 last week as major new trend for 2012 - 'Giving up sugar'

ends

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

twitter.com/annabeltilley

Links

www.sluiceartfair.com

www.coregallery.co.uk

www. air-artists.org/air/article/1801061/778528

www.alisn.org

www.tilleydavis.moonfruit.com

www.jackjhutchinson.wordpress.com/

# 25 [18 November 2011]

how to emerge?

Blogging versus Tweeting?

Last night I attended a talk at the Peckham Space led by Andrew Bryant on the subject of blogging. The blogger-speakers were Alex Pearl and Aliceson Carter. Long before the talk, and in my own mind, and on Twitter, the talk for me had become a debate on the merits of blogging versus tweeting.

Probably, because, until this week, I hadn't blogged for 158 days. 

In reality it was a talk on blogging, with a couple of us louder audience members pointing out the merits of Twitter, not least, for sign-posting your blog!

In Andrew's Bryant's introduction it was interesting to hear some of the reasons why people read or write blogs today:

'a window onto someone's practice'

'a place for discussion & dialogue'

'a way of reflecting on one's own practice, and also as an extension of one's practice' 

I have only come to Alex's blog 'Redundant Alex' recently, and through his own sign-posting on Twitter. In it he talks about everything but art, except in an off-hand way to comment on the creation or demise of certain pieces - cress-based, and proun to life and death at the whim or forgetfulness of the grower. It is self-deprecating, humourous and, occasionally, reading between the lines of this character, Alex, as he cleans the house, and gets rejected from commissions he was personally rung-up and urged-on to take, poignant and moving.

Alex gave a really good talk: a talk he told us (without irony?) his girlfriend, Annabel, had written for him - in the third person. So, as he pointed out, it was like reading out your own obituary! I was listening too hard to write much down: 

'I don't talk about Art much in my blogs, more about my life around it ....'

'Nowadays it is quite fashionable to think about the back-room place of an artist'.

'I hide behind the pretense that it may or may not be real.'

And my favourite, on the number and variety of blogs: 'They are like me quite unsure about what they are.'

He also mentioned that he tries to end on a cliff-hanger!

Now I will now go in search of Aliceson Carter's blog, which I don't know.

Thinking about the 'me, me, me' culture and the art of self-promotion, it occurred to me that the days of an artist sitting in their studio waiting to be discovered are long gone, now there are so many artists - or would that be: too many artists? As Market Projects recently asked - that artists have been forced to take steps to bring themselves to the attention of others - artists, curators, gallerists, press etc.

A decade ago all the talk was about having a website, now that is so passive (although still necessary) then about five years ago it became about blogging and now it's Twitter.

But the irony is that each one, faster and less labour-intensive then the last, leads one with perfect symmetry from one to another and back again.

An artist makes work, they place pictures on their website, they write on their blog, they tweet a message that they have written a new blog piece, the blog piece links them to the website, and the website provides Twitter/or other links with the artist. 

More recently this has been interrupted with the introduction of pictures straight onto the Twitter site. The end of writing? The beginning of pictures with twitter-length captions - comic book/zine world? Indeed, in a recent Garageland call-out proposal I suggested writing tweet-length answers to big questions, mainly because I wanted to see if it was possible, and what would happen if one limited oneself to around 140 characters? Would ideas become such small nuggets of information, they could only be formed into questions to make any sense, and create the usual Twitter-type banter. I felt rising panic as I pressed the send button, it seems an impossible feat. 

Finally: Why do we tweet? Because it's like texting but better because you have a whole audience!

Why do we blog? Because writing into the silent ether can also be satisfying.

ends

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

twitter.com/annabeltilley

redundantalex.blogspot.com/

www.marketproject.org.uk/

Aliceson Carter: www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/article/1608428

# 24 [15 November 2011]

how to emerge?

What has Sluice taught us - Be independent but work together!

By attending this year’s impressive Sluice Art Fair, and taking part in the Twitter/blog/pub conversations that immediately ensued, I believe many of us, including independents like Core Gallery, have become unoffical participators in an exciting, and as yet undefined, movement that heralds the beginning of a new era of generosity and collaboration between networks of like-minded artist-led spaces who are just beginning to understand the power of solidarity.

Sluice art fair is an example of how when times get hard: the sparkling rhetoric of the commercial galleries – as represented by Frieze - begins to recede, making way for the less glitzy, purer [and poorer!] artist-led concerns to present an alternative way forward. Hayley Harrison summed this up poignantly in her a-n Artist’s Talking blog: Something’s Happening*, when she suggested that we cease to talk about ‘the art world’ but rather begin to call ourselves ‘an art community’. Thanks to Ben Street & Karl England and their innovative spirit, I believe that ball is now firmly rolling. 

Indeed,  Core Gallery, is now looking forward to attending another gathering of the innovative artist-independent clans at the Conference for Emerging Art Organisers in Goldsmiths on Thursday 24 November.

The place to be!

* Hayley Harrison, Something’s Happening #25 [17 Oct 2011] www.an.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1299464

# 23 [7 June 2011]

What is Painting?

[how to emerge ... from the cultural weight of painting]

I want to respond to David Trigg’s call for less categorization in the arts. Starting with the idea that a Jerwood Painting Fellowship could become a more contemporary and inclusive: ‘Jerwood Artist Fellowship.’

I couldn't agree more; why do we feel the need to continue to label the various art forms? Control? Tradition? Exclusivity? Money? That’s a big question.

However, occasionally, the emphasis on one type of art form can be useful. The  last decade has done wonders for drawing, in terms of raising its status, and causing it to be considered independently from painting. Drawing has always been appreciated by artists as something special, that old ‘window into the artists mind/soul’ etc. Rather a clichéd, sentimental approach. Equally, it has often been sidelined or dismissed as an appendage to painting, the sketch for the real thing etc. However, thanks to enlightened educators, once you could do an MA or BA [Wimbledon/Camberwell] in Drawing or enter a competition like The Jerwood Drawing Prize, gallerists and the public begun to take it seriously as the profound and flexible medium it is. This has been extremely important for not just reinterpreting the history of drawing but also, it’s future status.

Today, I am happy to say, drawing just is.

However, art schools, due to financial constraints, are turning back to less specialised courses, often simply entitled: Fine Art. Yet, this might not be a bad thing. Allowing different mediums to integrate, reassert themselves and lessen the obsession we have with painting, and the secretly-held-belief that 'real' artists only paint [and maybe sculpt!].

Ten years ago, people were asking: What is drawing? Recently, I suspect the question has become: What is painting? Especially in the wake of this first year of Jerwood Painting Fellowships and its thought-provoking legacy in the work of Mitten, Nahaul & Till. Work that shouts loudly for David Trigg's idea of a clear and simple: 'Jerwood Artist Fellowship'

And, can we have more of them, please ... three is not enough.

See: When is Painting Not a Painting? By David Trigg on The JVA Blog

http://blog.jerwoodvisualarts.org/?cat=10

# 22 [19 May 2011]

'Only in the making can things happen.'

Wonderful quote from Michael Atavar's exquisite, earnest, philosophical and wry book: HOW TO BE AN ARTIST.

And each time I begin to draw, those words become a revelation on the page ....

Jerwood: Attended the Jerwood Painting Fellowships last week. Is it a coincidence but the artists - three women - seem to be reinventing painting. Painting as painting by Cara Nahaul, painting as collage by Clare Mitten and and painting as photography by Corinna Till. An imaginative show - that stretches the idea of what painting is, and can be, and not with a loud, yah, boo, sucks attitude or in a macho let's counter: painting is dead fashion but in a quiet, thoughtful, sincere way, that an investment of time - 6 months - and money - £10,000 - from the new Jerwood Painting Fellowships has enabled. On until 26 June at Jerwood Space, 171 Union Street, London Se1. And then touring.

Proust: I am reading Proust - Rememberance of Things Past. À la recherche du temps perdu, (In Search of Lost Time). A novel in 7 volumes, and first published in France between 1913-27. Have tried before but never got past first 100 pages - so doing six times better now - and enjoying it. Friends have variously commented: 'Why?' & 'Wow!'.

Top tips to self: Don't try too hard!

It is a time-consuming occupation, give yourself time - a year or two.

Endeavouring to keep the sense of a long sentence in one's mind, from beginning to end, is often impossible and frustrating. 

Let the words and images enter your mind like music or poetry 

Strive for essence rather than meaning

But the great news is .... after  a few hundred words you realise there is meaty, twisting, turning plot, afterall!

Funny, no-one mentions that ... but they often mention the infamous madeleine-scene, which happen right at the beginning.

Also, at hand, I have Eric Karpeles's volume 'Paintings in Proust'. What a culture-vulture that Marcel was, so many words, so many artists, so many works of art described in words - from Botticelli to Turner, Da Vinci, and Gozzoli to Whistler - which gives you a hunger for seeing the real thing. Art history as natural curiosity!

Drawing: Engaged in new large scale drawing derived from a 1950's Encyclopaedia of Plant Portraits. Fascinated by the composite small b/w photographs that range from 2 inch flowers to 300ft trees. Scale and variety, mesmerising. Working on large roll of 300gm Fabriano (Grosso). Surely the Rolls Royce of paper.

Title: 'Rememberance of Plants Past (hand-drawn extracts from: The Encyclopaedia of Plant Portraits compiled by A. G. L. Hellyer, 1953)'. [See details of images above].

Show & Tell: I am currently organising a series of talks entitled: Show & Tell at Core Gallery, Deptford, where we ask artists to tell us through words and images how they got where they are today. Jenny Wiener was our first speaker. I think the audience enjoyed it so much, because JW was generous and honest in the telling of her story, the highs and lows, the joy and disappointments of being an artist today. We all learned something.

Next up (May 31) will be painter, Graham Crowley - chaired by Rosalind Davis. And in July (5) I will be chairing the talk by another massively talented and original painter, recently with work in the British Art Show, Phoebe Unwin. Can't wait!

I sold two drawings earlier this month - hurrah - best feeling in the world!

Had lunch with the artist, Susan Collis, yesterday and found myself saying:

'I am still emerging ... and probably will be until I'm ninety!'

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

Follow me on twitter@annabeltilley

http://coregallery.co.uk/show-and-tell

http://www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/page/3097/Jerwood...

# 21 [1 April 2011]

Art is difficult

Many of us struggle everyday with the difficulty of making work and the pertinent questions that often emerge afterwards like: But is it art? [and is it any good?]

“Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art. All this can be hard work. Sometimes in recent years I’ve felt that the parameters have changed. It seems too often a luxury product, a weekend hobby. The only question asked is ‘what’s the price?’ When I was studying the stakes seemed higher. Art was challenging, like Kant or Hegel or Derrida. It was something really worth thinking about. A part of it should always include having to scratch your head.” 

The simplicity of this statement from a world-renouned artist like, Anselm Kieffer, puts the daily struggle [and joy] of being an artist in perspective. If Kieffer finds art difficult, then there is hope for the rest of us.

Kieffer's words speak to this artist as she has just struggled through an uneasy six month period of making new work. Letting go of the old and, frankly, not knowing where to turn.

Total freefall.

how to emerge?

Back to books, history, textiles, nature and seeing old things in new ways.

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

Anselm Kieffer Interview Review section, The Guardian, Saturday 19 March 2011. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/mar/21...

# 20 [11 February 2011]

how to emerge? Drawing ...

Spent three hours, yesterday afternoon, between London's National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square drawing and looking, and all for free!

Aren't we lucky. YES WE ARE!

I know we are in the midst of savage cuts. Cuts, cuts, cuts but, still .... there's something amazing about being able to spend a warm afternoon, out of the rain, looking at Tudor kings and queens. Seeing the real thing. And a whole history of modernism, up close and personal, Monet, Degas, Pissaro, Matisse. And for nothing ... not a penny [except TAX, of course, but it's so worth it] 

Then, squinting up at Nelson, I walk straight on up to Picadilly Circus and Regents Street -dodging Japanese tourists - to Saville Row and Hauser and Wirth to see the new Martin Creed show.

Fantastic, in parts. Still thinking about the colourful abstract paintings in the first gallery, and the Dog photos. They did made me laugh, and think of Crufts, dog-lovers, cheap birthday cards, and what a sentimental dog-adoring nation [not me!] Britain is, all in one. Presume irony reigns?

Then on to Gallery two, two doors down - a vast white space with a single revolving sculpture [or strong simple message]. And spent a wonderful hour contemplating Creed's monumental neon sign: MOTHERS ... and loved it. The word revolves slowly, then faster, up to 7 revolutions a minute, so you feel a light rush of air on your face. What simple joys, sketching and watching. The audience, students and the well-dressed, alike, drifting in off the street, intrigued. 

Finally, a Nelson's Column for Women.

ends

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

www.hauserwirth.com

www.martincreed.com

# 19 [9 February 2011]

Update: New Year’s Resolutions & January 2011

Giving up sugar

It is now 39 days since I last ate any sugar – chocolate, cakes, sweets, biscuits, sugar itself, etc. And far from feeling deprived, I actually feel liberated!

Perhaps, unconsciously, I am giving up things beginning with ‘S’ as I stopped using shampoo to wash my hair in September, instead using plain or rosemary infused water, and occasionally a pinch of baking powder.

In studio by 9am

Yes, most of the time, and it feels great!

Writing more reviews

I have written several which can be viewed at the link below, and really enjoyed the experience. It has caused me to think on a deeper level about artists making work today, printing and painting in particular, and how these new concerns and trends might relate to my own drawing practice.

“What I see in all the work is a sort of anti-painting; often colourful, sometimes grim, featuring out-of-context motifs, small windows of intense drawing, elements of wall-paper type decoration, out-of-focus objects and figures; and, occasionally, paint [usually gloss] thrown smartly across the surface of the canvas; a definite blurring between reality – the object, the figure – decoration, and a sort of grimey, plasticine-coloured abstraction.” Extract from my February review on Phoebe Unwin - www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/preview/1086603

More drawing

Yes, yes, yes and being fed by seeing more shows. Thinking and writing about them.

Walking & Talking

I do this three or four times a week with artist and writer friends. It is a great opportunity to discuss books we are reading and shows we have seen etc, as well as escaping out into the open away from being desk and computer-bound.

New Projects

Towner: I will be showing a new drawing installation entitled: Silhouette in the East Sussex Open at the Towner art gallery in April.

Jerwood: I am currently creating a new series drawings for The Jerwood Project Space which will be shown in July/August 2011. The idea is based on the traditional still life with a modern twist.

Core Gallery: Excited to be co-curating an exhibition called: Home at Core Gallery, Deptford with Rosalind Davis. I had the idea back in November, suggested it to RD, and off we cantered, with no backward glance. It has been a valuable time of new ideas and collaboration, an incredibly stimulating and enjoyable experience – particularly, the give and take, and slow build of ideas when you are learning to work with someone new.  What has also been highly gratifying is that all the artists we wanted to work with, have come back and agreed to take part. Susan Collis, Delaine Le Bas, Rose Wylie, Lucy Austin, Peter Davies, Rich White, Kate Murdoch, Emily Speed, Freddie Robbins, Graham Crowley

Best Shows: Painting – Phoebe Unwin – Wilkinson, Vyner Street  - until 6 March

Also really enjoyed The Salon Photo Prize at Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner St, until 26^th February.

Reading: Fiction: Just starting We had it so good by Linda Grant. Non-fiction: At Home by Bill Bryson

Listening: When I am drawing Radio 4 and also, Radio 7 [soon to be renamed Radio 4 plus]. At the moment I am enjoying brilliant readings and adaptations of Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky

Looking forward to: High-abstract – an exhibition by abstract critical, a new organisation supporting abstract art.

This means I am going to have to think about, read about, and probably write about abstract art – something new for me. Already, I have reached for Alan Bowness’s compact tome Modern European Art* for a short refresher course on the birth of abstract art. The press release says: An exhibition of high-ambition, high-complexity abstract painting and sculpture 1960–2010.The exhibition will feature key works by artists Alan Davie, John Hoyland, Fred Pollock, Alan Gouk, Anne Smart and Robin Greenwood. A catalogue will be available with essays by Mel Gooding, Robin Greenwood and Sam Cornish.

High-abstract: Poussin Gallery, London – 11 Feb – 12 March

ends

.* Modern European Art by Alan Bowness [London: Thames & Hudson, 1972]

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

Interface reviews: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/16286

www.mattroberts.org.uk

www.poussin-gallery.com

www.wilkinsongallery.com

# 18 [4 February 2011]

How to write?

Just received my February a-n Magazine and I see that on p.16 an extract from my New Year’s Resolutions (Blog 15) has been quoted:

‘See more shows and write more reviews. Thinking about what we have seen, and writing about it is good for us.’

What I mean by this is that the time, thought and analysis that goes into writing a review usually means that the writer has had to think about the work they have seen on a deeper level, and I believe this feeds into our own practice.

I am currently writing about difficult things because I want to understand them.

I don’t find the process easy. I don’t mean the writing itself, but working out ones ideas, what one wants to say, and how best to say it.

Writing is a craft where less is always more. One easily writes 1500 words, and then has to hone it down to 750. And it is this process of self-editing that is so liberating. As you do this you find the essence of your idea, the real thought behind your words suddenly becomes clear.

The easiest reviews can be where you feel something extreme, you love it or hate it, so that the passion carries you through. The hardest are when you feel nothing, the work is so mediocre [in one’s own humble opinion]. And one thinks: ‘What’s the point?’ For this work. And for looking, thinking and writing about work in general.

Mediocrity is a passion-killer, in all aspects of life.

Then, occasionally, you see something. Something that appears to come from nowhere, that catches you off guard, and momentarily, your visual thirst, and sense for seeing something new and good is quenched. It is that inspirational.

‘That’s how I felt last night about seeing the work of painter, Phoebe Unwin, for the first time. Put crudely, there is a David Hockney – on largactil* – about them, more faded, and of course more abstract, but still that wonderful awkwardness, the pause, the hesitation, the small steps, you feel in the painters mind as the brush moves across the canvas to capture the idea of an image, something just out of reach.’

ends

*Largactil is an antipsychotic drug. Psychiatric patients taking it often suffer from restless limbs and the desire to keep walking on and on, using small shuffling steps, despite the lack of anywhere to go.  This is commonly referred to as the ‘largactil shuffle’.

Part of the latter pargraph includes an extract from my review: ‘Phoebe Unwin: Between Memory and Observation’. You can read this review and others at Interface.

www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/16286

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

# 17 [19 January 2011]

After visiting last week’s Future Map 10 exhibition* at London's Zabludowicz Collection, with it’s boastful bi-line: ‘showcasing the finest talent from the University of the Arts’, I have been thinking: 

Why are we churning out so many artists? 

Because we seem to have created a culture of art-school factories: get-em-in and churn-them-out, resulting in an unsustainable number of artist-graduates, for whom an actual career as artist, curator or administrator is unlikely. 

Why do so many people want to go to art school? 

One theory points to the past two decades where the YBA’s, and the likes of Banksy etc have become cultural celebrities, resulting in the media-led idea that art can deliver culture, status and money. But only for the fortunate ones: the so-called successfully emerged artist?  

Making a living from art is difficult. The value placed upon the idea of emerging, and taking part in activities that may help you to emerge is a double-edged sword – sometimes beneficial but always costly - in both the artists own time and/or money.

Most internships are voluntary and, while providing useful contacts and experience, rarely lead to a paid job within the organisation. This is precisely because few organisations can actually afford to pay for staff, unless they are free. Another example of artists being used for their skills but exploited  or undervalued in terms of remuneration.

Due to cuts, few galleries, public or otherwise, are able to offer artists an exhibition fee. Rather one is expected to exhibit for free, not just for the glory, but in exchange for the esteemed value this may or may not have in enhancing one’s career or CV value - that slow accumulation of competitive tick-box experiences.

There are more open art competitions than ever before, but often artists pay the gallery a fee - £8 to £50 - for the chance of having their work selected. However, research shows that many of these competitions attract hundreds or thousands of aspiring entrants, so chances are limited. Administering these opportunities can’t be cheap [even with the hardworking unpaid interns ] so that the competition proceeds provide some sort of life-line for less commercial galleries. Yet, galleries would cease to exist without artists. However, it seems doubtful many artists feel this sense of power.

Yet we live in hope – Why? 

Because of the advent of a whole new generation of purpose-built, modern art galleries - Tate Modern, Baltic, Towner, and the soon-to-be-finished Turner, Margate and Jerwood, Hastings. 

Art is the new religion - quite literally, as churches and chapels become art galleries. These art-venue success stories, said to be across all classes, have sold us a new and successful image of art in our culture. Art being valued, artists seen as heroes, cultural leaders and people to look up to. It used to be film stars and pop stars, and now it is [a few] artists.

No wonder young people want to grow-up to be artists, it equates to the celebrity culture of the past two decades, but with a middle-class culturally- aspiring twist.

What is the point of making art? 

I can’t speak for a twenty-something. However, for those who choose to study in their forties or fifties, a second [mostly unpaid] career in fine art, obviously isn’t about money and success. It is fundamentally a more philosophical pursuit, in search of trying to make sense of: how we live now? 

I believe work is made, in the hope of asking: how to be? and how to live? 

Not: how to emerge?

However, in the end, whatever age, stage or experience we are at, we all seek to be valued - to have our large, insatiable art-egos stroked - and be told that our work is good. And for that, most artists give their time free, give their art free, and [happily?] continue to pay-up for the poor odds of gaining an exhibition opportunity.

So remind me, why do we do it? What is it all for? 

And, what real alternatives are there? 

ends

* To read  'Art without a Heart' a review

of the Future Map 10 exhibition follow this link: http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/preview/984...

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com