Publications

Maintaining your practice

The continual shaving of UK arts budgets, cuts in mainstream grants programmes linked with escalating overheads and news of an ever-deepening economic downturn aren’t good news for visual artists who depend largely on winning freelance contracts and getting good responses to their project proposals.

To launch a regular column within Opportunities, a-n has been asking artists and curators about their current experiences of managing a visual arts practice in this harsh economic climate. Plan ahead Keeping overheads in check whilst also saving on carbon emissions is a core part of the agenda for artists in rural areas. For Suffolk-based Caroline Wright, the secret is to plan car journeys carefully against both diary and map, grouping her meetings and studio visits accordingly. If you’re planning to take on a studio, consider to what extent its location fits with your normal professional and domestic patterns – such as the school run and where you shop or play. An instigator of the now well-established annual FRED arts festival, Cumbrian artist Steve Messum, says: “As an artist I drive a small diesel car and pay annual road tax of about £35 – down on previous years. My workhorse vehicle (it’s a 4x4 as I need one in the winter snow for getting bread) is a pre-1972 vehicle that is tax exempt and insurance is less than £100.”. Go green Nationally, car drivers are in the majority, with the exception of London where cycling and use of public...

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