There is a long list of things that require attention … and plenty of material that I want to play with … yet I find the need to write something here and now most urgent … most pressing … most distracting even!
It was my intention to post while I was in the UK, however this (evidently) did not happen. I had not figured that my time there with friends and family would be so very different from my time … or perhaps rather my way of spending time … here. How out of practice I am at being with other people … or at being at home with people with whom I want to make the most of every minute. We spoke late in to the nights and so my usual early mornings became later mornings and then there were things to do, places to be – together with people whom I have missed very much over the last five years. And even if some of those people have visited me since the pandemic travel restrictions were lifted I have not been at home or spent time with them in their spaces and places.
Now I find myself wondering if I should play catch-up – try to write one super post that covers … reports … accounts … recounts … my three week odyssey. This seems an unrealistic and perhaps even meaningless task … and who would I be doing it for. Probably better to let things seep out as and when relevant over the coming weeks and months. My time away was more intense … stimulating … inspiring … diverse … reflective … than I could have imagined. There were many unexpected and exciting encounters and experiences, and even those that I had arranged exceeded my expectations.
There was of course a certain familiarity in returning to the UK, and at the same time it felt rather different from the country that I lived in and that I last visited – no doubt the impact of both Covid and leaving the EU marking their mark … scar tissue?
While staying with my parents in the apartment that they moved to shortly before the pandemic broke out and therefore only known to me as the background of our regular Sunday afternoon tea Skype calls, I had an interview for the technician/curator position with the regional council. The day after my return to Uppsala I had a second and in-person interview. Both of these were good and pleasant experiences, and I have ’resolved’ to accept the job if it is offered. I am far from convinced that it will be offered, I am not sure that my personality and way of being (definitely more Tigger or Piglet than Eeyore or Owl) fits with the existing team who seems quite calm and placid. The job sounds interesting and it seems to offer opportunities to develop my curatorial skills as well as honing my technical abilities. In the bigger picture it seems a less than optimal time to prioritise the flexibility of being freelance over a secure and regular income. There is an almost palpable anxiety amongst the project and truly self-standing artists that I speak to at the studio. Hopefully these tough economic times will pass, as hopefully will the right wing (national) administration, and the more generous support for all the arts will be restored. It really cannot happen soon enough.
I have been asked to ’hop in’ for an artist friend who has had to withdraw from a school’s project. This afternoon I have to research four artists whose work will be the visual and conceptual inspiration for creative workshops to be run at the school. I will admit to being a little nervous about the gallery talks. I am far less used to these than I am with leading practical sessions. On my way to the studio this morning I started to see how I could present the work in a way that feels both comfortable for me and that is hopefully useful to the students in terms of the artworks that they will be making.
My sabbatical is already taking twist and turns that I could not have predicted. I am incredibly grateful that I have this opportunity to explore new ways of being.
On my way London … and other parts of the UK. My flight bords in 30 minutes. I haven’t been in the UK since 2019, and not in England since 2018 … I should have been there in spring 2020 to celebrate my mother’s 80th but Covid 19 came … I should have been there last summer but then staff shortages and chaos at Heathrow came. I feel apprehensive – friends and family have repeatedly mentioned that things have changed in the UK. I am already very aware of this – I can’t … or rather have been strongly advised not to … put anything through my business account – no exhibition tickets, no books or catalogues, no materials, nothing. Doing so would in the eyes of the Swedish tax authority (who have very big and wide eyes) mean that I have traded with a ’third country’ that is not the first country, Sweden, nor a second country, anywhere in Europe or Scandinavia, but a third country – anywhere in the rest of the world. Dealing with a third country requires registering certified accounts with the tax office every quarter, the cost of this alone would wipe out any modest profit that I might make on my practice … in fact it would put in a deficit (according to the accountant who does my annual non-certified accounts). It might seem like a small thing … the price of entry to a show at Tate of the V&A (hardly ’small’ in themselves), a book or two, and maybe some glitter or some fabric … but it means that I am forced to travel to Britain, which will always be my place or origin, as a tourist rather than as a professional artist. And that irks me.
Of course I will go to shows, I will meet my artist friends, I will buy books and materials, I will do all the things that I usually do and no-one will see any difference … not unless they look very closely when I pay … I will be using my personal bankcard, not my business account card.
I am going to miss going to my studio … which after a hectic couple of months is feeling more and more like my happy place.
For about a day and a half I thought that my existential question – what kind of artist am I? – had been resolved by default … but not. A colleague at the studio mentioned that they had been called for interview for the half-time position that has been causing me much consternation, I had not – so I reasoned that despite being invited to apply my application/experience wasn’t what they were looking for – problem solved. It was only when they said something about getting both an auto-response confirming their application and the call to interview that I began to wonder if my application had been received.
I checked my inbox again, and then my scrap-mail inbox … no confirmation of receipt email. So had they even received my application? I tried to find some trace of it but it being an online application all I could find was my word document which I cut and pasted from.
Not wanting to appear ungrateful or ignorant I though it best to email and ask if my application had been received. A few minutes later I was having a phone conversation with the very concerned the head of department – yes they had received my application, and I had been invited to interview. He was on his way somewhere and would be in touch later.
I have no triple checked by email – all possible inboxes – no sign of any communication from the county. There is a bit of history with this – during the pandemic they offered the chance to submit a digital portfolio for a project where the counties would purchase works from artists in other counties. I submitted by portfolio. A few months later at my show at the artists’ club someone from the county expressed surprise that I hadn’t submitted work to the purchasing project. I explained that I had, they said that they hadn’t seen it. A month or so after that I heard from the person who had visited my exhibition … my portfolio had been submitted but had something had gone wrong and it hadn’t been forwarded to them.
We’ve yet to work out what went wrong this time … could I have misspelled my email address on the application … it seems very unlikely …
So now I have to negotiate a digital interview as I leaving for the UK on Saturday and the interviews are next week. That might ot be possible so that might rule me out. If it is possible then I have to prepare for an interview … this time I need to make sure that I listen really carefully to what they say about the role and that I ask the right questions so that should I be offered it I can make the right decision … whatever that might be!
In other news …
I have filled, sanded, and painted the wooden peg that the pink ties were hanging on – it looks noticeably better! The ties themselves are being refined, the manufacturer’s labels and the tail secure loops have been removed – meaning that not only will they hang more elegantly but there isn’t the visual distraction of either labels of loops.
Progress!
How and when to store works? The tie drapes … as yet untitled works in a series … are hanging on the wall in the studio. Very practical questions about them are hanging in the air … hanging around in my head: do I make cartons/boxes for them and pack them away until I have somewhere to show them, and if so how best to pack them … rolled, folded, flat; should I spend time ’perfecting’ the peg on which they hang … do I spend time looking for exhibition opportunities for them – in group shows, open call exhibitions, or do I look for solo exhibition opportunities where they would be one of several works; do I leave one example hanging in the studio?
If I am honest with myself I know the answers to most of these questions … it’s generally ’yes’. I should make a good way of storing them, I should make a good peg (in multiple), I should re-photograph them on the good peg, I should look to get them in to group and thematic shows, and I should have one hanging in the studio. All of this requires my investment … of time and a little money. If I continue to be honest with myself I have to admit that while I like the idea of investing in them my mind is already racing ahead with the next idea … and the next idea … and the next.
It would be great to make a wooden box for each drape – in which they could hang in the same way they do when installed on the wall. This would be quite a project in itself but perhaps one worth investing in. Perhaps this is an aspect of being an artist that I have not yet tackled … embraced … accepted … that in addition to conceiving of the work and producing it I should be thinking about what happens next. I guess I have a ’duty of care’.
While I am on the honesty track … can I honestly say that I have produced the work? By which I mean is The Work actually made? I have certainly made a sketch … but the peg is not what it should be, and ties in several of the colour ways retain their labels – something that I learnt to remove as I paid attention to how they both added bulk and are even visible from certain angles.
The work is not yet refined, not yet as good as it can be … not yet finished! And while it is exciting that the work remains live, it also contributes to a certain anxiety and awkwardness. Perhaps rather than rushing on a new idea I should really … REALLY … finish with this one. I should give it the focus, time, and attention that is deserves … that is needs if it is to be taken seriously.
So about this peg …
A little shy of seven weeks in to my sabbatical I have this fantasy that the rest of my life could be like this – being a full-time artist … participating in art fairs, well paid and interesting projects, being at the studio, having time and energy (?) to apply for other opportunities. Last week I submitted two applications, one for a substantial project here in Uppsala, the other to attend a residency in Denmark in the summer. Soon it will be time to apply for the ’artists’ working grant’, and now that I have time to look at various open call listings I see that there are loads of opportunities.
For me being a full-time artist encompasses projects, bits of teaching, workshops, odd extra jobs such as having been asked to be the installation technician for the upcoming in- and outdoor exhibition in the same building as where the studios are. My aim for the sabbatical was to see 1, if such an existence is viable and 2, if it suits me. Now I have a dilemma … Uppsala County arts department have advertised a permanent half-time post that I have been asked to apply for.
I know that even being asked to apply does not guarantee getting the job … but it has knocked me a bit sideways anyway. Logically it makes complete sense to apply, and accept it if I am offered it – everyone is predicting a tough year and a half to two years for cultural funding, and I personally am sceptical that things will improve after that – more likely we will have ’simply’ adapted and come to accept the new reality, so looking for a regular income makes good sense … it is absolutely the sensible thing to do. It’s just that I am tired of being sensible … being an artist is in itself not a sensible thing to do … being a sensible artist is something of an oxymoron … and my previous striving for it is probably exactly (?!?) what has held me back.
A little shy of seven weeks in to my sabbatical and I am so glad to be away from the local government environment … do I really want to ’risk’ going back into it … even express my interest in going back in to it so soon? I have barely begun to find my own rhythm and routines and here I am considering not giving them the air that they need to flourish. The problem is that I can not guarantee that they will flourish even if I give them time and space … by all accounts it seems that the ground is significantly less than fertile at the moment – and that is something beyond my scope.
The logical, socially conditioned, part of my brain is telling me not only to apply but make it a damn good application and really go all out to get the job. The creative artistic part of brain is feeling betrayed … I promised myself that I would focus on my own practice for the year … that I would look for artists’ opportunities – residencies, commissions, projects, exhibitions … and I already have several things booked in both autumn and next year – something to mention at interview I guess …
The title of the current show at the Hepworth Wakefield (which I now realise closes before my UK trip) is ’If Not Now, When?’, it’s a question that rings loudly in my ears …
