Message to Self
Really enjoyed Emily Speed’s list of high and low points for 2011.
Here are mine:
High-points
Moving my practice to Deptford, albeit, on a temporary, experimental one-year-basis. Can I afford it? To be reviewed end March 2011.
Meeting new artists in Deptford who are really focussed and serious about their work.
Getting to know Deptford, and watching the art scene change and grow before my eyes. Deptford is the new Hoxton, twenty years later.
Having a studio space again where I can be alone, draw and be quiet [or listen to Mick Jagger singing Faraway Eyes with that cheeky southern lilt in his voice: see U-tube link below. It’s addictive.
Getting work into the 2010 Oriel Davies Open, and the curator, Alex Boyd Saying she really liked my work. Artists need to be valued, rejection is bad for our fragile egos – which definitely need to be stroked from time to time
Taking part in Deptford X & winning a runners-up Deptford X award
Meeting Rosalind Davis, Core Gallery founder & manager
Seeing the Francis Alys at the Tate Modern
Joining the a-n blogging community – a great bonus.
Thinking about the idea of the emerging artist. Is it just a ‘tick-box-funders’ phenomenon, or a real state?
Meeting Jane Boyer through a-n’s artists talking and being invited to partner her in Relay, an exhibition at Core Gallery, Deptford.
Building a website and having 300 hits in 6 weeks
Being offered a tutorial with Graham Crowley. It has thrown my work up in the air, but given me much to think about, and new work starting to emerge as a result.
Thinking: ‘I completed an Open University MA in literature recently [in my spare time, and, of course, just for fun!] – and why am I not using that experience in my visual work? Realising, in terms of inspiration I might turn from fact [newspapers] to fiction [literature].
Having work in this year’s Discerning Eye Show, which is always quite mixed but several friends were in it, so we all enjoyed a glass of wine together, and it was a lovely evening.
Finding the artist Jo Wilton had a studio at the Old Police Station, and spending several hours, since, talking art etc
Amazingly, this week, receiving £58 from the payback dacs fund …. for doing nothing … just having my work featured in a number of magazines and catalogues over the past two/three years. And, wait for it …. I believe you re-apply with the same list plus new ones next year.
Thank you DACS!
Low-points
Being shortlisted for two shows I would have loved to have taken part in, so tantalisingly close but …….
The number of proposals, opens and exhibitions I entered work for, when you hear nothing. Not even a courteous email – just a PV invite a month later listing all the lucky beggars who got in …
All that waiting ……. to find out whether you have got into something
Jerwood Space – Had an interview in January. They loved a Fritzl piece entitled: 24 Years, [see my website, link below] which consists of 24 hand-made and drawn paper models of the Fritzl family residence. It was going to be shown on a long purpose-built shelf in the Jerwood Project Space [the café!] and I was sooooo excited but, after a few months, I had a phone call saying: they had decided the subject-matter wasn’t appropriate …. I suppose I understood but I was disappointed. Then the next time I visited, and had a coffee in the Project Space, I noticed there was a colourful array of painted magazine collages on the walls, featuring … blood & guts.
Realising I feel a little estranged from my artist colleagues and friends in Hastings, now I spend more time in London
I looked back at my 2009/10 accounts and found I made £4,600 last year from projects and commissions. This year, £350 [!] after purposefully moving my practice 60 miles north from seaside to cityscape.
To look forward to
Message to self: Surprise me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVEdYYMlOJ4The Rolling Stones/ Faraway Eyes
Emily Speed – Getting Paid. No 237. 17th Dec 2010. www.a-n.co.uk/p/497389/
www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com
