I’ve got the open call blues. Well, no not really. Frankly open calls are always one step away from a shut door so you get used to it. Throwing your time and effort into an open call is the lot of the artist – and very often followed by a long wait until you get a polite little no in the post. Usually by this time there have been other projects to chase and more calls to respond to so you shrug and move on. Sometimes the no is something of a relief. This time it definitely is.
Often an open call is an opportunity to create and show work without prize or remuneration, which incurs significant expenses for the artist. This is something of an unspoken truth. The organisers create opportunity and the artist gets to participate and showcase their work. Both need each other. Where prizes are involved the numbers go up and the lottery commences.
The alternative is to create your own opportunities which mean organising and project managing in addition to the creative work. Often artists feel torn – it’s stressful trying to do it all. We just want to make the work, though learning to create our own platforms can be a satisfying challenge but you have to work even harder.
There is one kind of open call which sometimes feels more like fundraising – the one where you pay to submit an application. Again, artists pay for opportunity – usually a small fee but if multiplied through many open call submissions they add up.
This isn’t meant to be a downer of a blog post. I’m #justsaying
The other day I got into conversation with an artist who has a gallerist – of course the pressure there is to make work without risk. You can feel like you made it, your gallery takes care of you, and yet you lose on creative freedom. There’s an expectation to produce something safer.
How interesting it all is in terms of creativity.
My instinct is usually not to submit to open calls unless they are bang on my practice. I don’t like to be distracted – my project has such an inner compulsion that it drives itself. I weigh things up carefully, though we all know how valuable it is to show and document our work and sometimes this is a great consideration.
I also want to be able to take my process wherever it needs to go.
Maintaining a practice, holding onto creative freedom and finding spaces to show your work are all great challenges for artists – but I LOVE being an artist and so I carry on.
Putting together a project has to be one of the most satisfying jobs in the world.
