I just want to play with materials and have fun in the studio … but there are other things that need to be done … adminy things and things that are chores … distractions from playing, making, creating … things that play on my mind rather than in my hands!
I’ve not been idle since getting back from Juxtapose. Immediately following was the Res Artis conference (which I attended digitally) – three days of sitting in front of my computer … the good thing about attending digitally was that I could get on with some simple things around the studio while I ’attending’ the talks and presentations … I finished a patchwork (English-piece and therefore hand-sewn) that I began in 2008 in my West Norwood studio! The piece was untouched for several years, late last year I took it up again and made small progress while chatting with Elena on Skype. Now it is finally finished! It’s hardly a monumental work it just required time that until recently I have haven’t had, or rather it hasn’t been something that I prioritised. Fifteen years in the making! That in itself says something … rather a lot! … about my life, my way(s) of working … it is something of a ’durational object’. I think that I will make its long gestation period known when/if it gets shown.
The conference was not quite what I was expecting: ’Designing residencies for everyone’ lead me to think it would focus on, what I now see were my quite restricted ideas of, issues facing artists with specific physical and/or logistic challenges. My views are now, thankfully, much broader and more inclusive. The question of access and economics was of course central but took on various guises which I had not considered. Nor had I really looked at the range of residencies available, nor thought about how they can operate as part of an artist’s on-going and regular practice – I had thought of residencies as the cherry on the icing on the cake … from my place of porridge. Now I see that residencies can be the bread of an artist’s career – a very exciting idea! Something that came up in more than a few sessions was ’selection’ which is of course bound up in questions of accessibility. What took me by surprise was the suggestion of … and enthusiasm for … ’random selection’ as a method of choosing artists for opportunities. The process, as outlined by Jerwood (apologies if it was another provider/organisation – my notes are rather frenetic), simple required artists to complete a simple online (questions raised about that!) legibility questionnaire – which doubled as registering an expression of interest, from that twelve artists were chosen randomly to develop with proposal – with a modest fee for doing so – before being invited to interview where one (possibly more) was selected. The whole process was evaluated and the vast majority of artists liked … approved of … this kind of random selection saying that it was more democratic and respectful of artists’ time. It certainly appeals to me, just think of how many expressions of interest one could register in a week compared to how many time-consuming, imagination demanding, lengthy applications one could make in the same time. If artists were on salaries then spending hours, days, weeks on an application would not be so much unpaid work at the (doubled) expense of time actually making. Random selection seems to recognise that many artists simply don’t have the economy to make appropriate applications (for residencies or other opportunities) which leads to the selection of already successful … or otherwise wealthy … artists. Not only does random selection drastically reduce the amount of unpaid work that artists have to do, it seriously reduces the hours the (usually) paid providers/organisations spends reading lengthy application – a high percentage of which will not … can not … make the shortlist. It seems like a ’no brainer’ win win situation – artists are able to register far more expressions of interest thereby increasing their chances of being (randomly) selected, and providers can spend more time working with the (randomly) selected artists or even spend time developing other opportunities and programmes.
I attended the conference as research for proposing a residency here in Uppsala. What I hadn’t anticipated was that I would even be proposing a selection process/methodology. I would like both the city and regional arts departments to trial random selection for at least one of their awards/opportunities regardless of my residency proposal. Before doing so I need to speak with colleagues who are campaigning for a ’base income’ for artists local professional artists – a large part of their argument is founded on the time spent making applications! So I need to make sure that my proposal for random selection is seen as an additional rather than an alternative way of improving artists’ economic and working conditions.
Here’s what I wrote 6th September … I meant to continue but have been at the ACME/Res Artis Mind the Gap conference (attending digitally) and so I post this now as I get ready for the third and final day of the conference …
2023-09-06
I feel empowered … energised … enthused …engaged. My experiences at Juxtapose have confirmed what is important to me and whetted my appetite for paying closer attention to leading life in ways that are meaningful to me. The question … challenge … task … is how make this a, achievable and b, sustainable. How to negotiate – because it is about doing this in dialogue with multiple others – the terrain(s)? How to operate through and across the various planes that together are one’s life … this is exactly what needs to be explored over the coming year – less than a year now, I have already had one month of my year’s sabbatical.
I want to be a part of the artist-run – that is perhaps the core … heart … of things, there are then all the things that happen … need to happen … around this. Those other things range from the mundane – an income, to the extraordinary – my practice.
I find myself returning to and reflecting on the idea of orbiting.
This evening I begin my slow journey back to Uppsala – intentionally … purposefully … knowingly … slow. Talk of ’slow’ has pervaded … perfumed … the fair. Slow as good, … slow as intelligent … slow as engagement … slow as politic. Slow is the new urgent … urgently slow. Appreciative of the space that slow unfolds I do not feel a pressure to dissect, analysis, understand, assess, evaluate the fair immediately. Instead I shall allow things to settle. I shall learnt to be comfortable with the anxiety that I might miss or forget something vital … eventually that anxiety will lessen – I expect to learn that I do not and will not miss or forget anything essential … it might just be that it doesn’t crop up until much later. Urgency is unsustainable, peace perhaps offers duration.
It has been a long time since I attended a fair that isn’t Supermarket, and an even longer time since I attended a fair outside of Sweden. It has been enriching … nourishing. As I continue to settle in to Uppsala I want to develop an international context. Yes there is much to be done in Uppsala – to be honest that can easily feel as though I giving a lot of myself without getting so much in return … I am sure that this is both untrue and a phase that I go though in the process of settling and find my place and pace. I have thoroughly enjoyed the range of perspectives and references … the openness to listen and to speak. It feels as though I come to understand myself through my response(s).
This morning Pam and I are meeting for coffee – it so exciting to have open ended discussions with her … to be working towards something as yet unknown and to be comfortable with that. The abstract …enquiring … unchartered … nature of our thinking and working is such a joy. Drawing the map as we go … which of course requires a particular level of attention and sensitivity. I am very pleased to be developing this working relationship.
How much crazy to let out? Both my practice and my extended practice need and deserve attention, nurturing, support. That is what this year is about … time, space, experiment, deepening, extending … finding my faith … finding my brave.
I have … get … a sense of wholeness and belonging here. I had a great conversation with Hans and willy – two artists who run ruimte Caesuur. In the flow of exchange I spoke of my dilemma about… reactions to… thinking through of… having been asked to apply for a half-time job. Speaking about it felt a completely natural thing to do … just as it has done at the studio … it makes me realise that I am among … in the spheres of … genuine colleagues and peers, and that when in the right place the length of knowing each other is less significant than the sensitivities that one has for each other … home.
And of course I want to be home, I want spend time with my art family.
I have spent many years as a tourist … as various tourists. There is a Swedish saying that to be away is nice but to be home is best (borta bra men hemma bäste). I think that I have been away too long … that perhaps I went a bit native. Last week while sorting things in the studio an old postcard fell out of a box … or a book or something … it’s one that I probably bought while on my foundation course or at Dartington – it’s a kitch 50s(?) cartoon of girl with a suitcase, the slogan … motto … again something about how pleasant it is to return home after being away.
On Thursday evening four of us – Alice, Bengt, Filip, and I walked home from the last stop on our tour of off-site spaces. Turning on to a long straight road that took us through the woods Filip started telling Swedish jokes … simple kids’ joke that were rather lost on Alice and me but he persisted with good humour. An image came to my mind … the four of us setting off on this long road … Alice leading us – she was the only one with any battery left in her phone for following the map… and our distinct individual physicalities … Filip with his blond beard was the Lion, Alice the petit and youthful Dorothy, Bengt with his silver grey hair and metal rim glasses was Tin man, and I in my second-hand suit jacket was Straw man. But in my case did the comparison go further than the merely visual? Scarecrow – the lovable one … the one without a brain … or rather the one who doesn’t know to use the brain that he’s got. It might be stretching the metaphor a little too much but isn’t Scarecrow’s resolution – or homecoming – at the end of the film to recognise that he has intelligence, that he has agency?
It’s early morning, I’ve been for a nice run along the canal, where I passed by revellers not quite yet on their way home, and through the habour and waterfront area. I thought that I would this blog would be about my day of Think Tanks – the themes and discussions, the ideas that I will take back to Supermarket, the ways that Pam and I might develop and expand the connections between our programmes … but no I find myself thinking and writing around what home might be for me … and how might be setting off on my way there.
Words and phrases come out of my mouth … and they surprise me … terms and and ideas that are both mine and yet somehow also a little foreign … perhaps remote is more accurate. I am thoroughly enjoying the conversations and discussions here at Juxtapose. They are giving me much to think about … both directly and indirectly. I don’t think that it’s too overblown to say that I love being here … being amongst other artists who are also engaged with critical and alternative contexts in, through, and across which they are extending their practice. My way of being and thinking makes sense here … as it does at Supermarket … which now that I come to think if it is my longest standing ’job’ – at least 12 years now! This is the arena in which I want to spend my time and energy. Do I dare to make it real?
This is a pertinent question. Last Saturday when I was at the launch of the a project in Uppsala I was asked by the head of the regional arts team to apply for a job that will be advertised shortly. He described the job and the ’particular … special’ kind of person that they are looking – which he has heard is the kind of person that I am … someone capable of working practically/technically to install artworks in public buildings but/also to curate the works that will be installed. The position is half-time. In many ways it sounds ideal – a good combination of both physical and intellectual work, half-time, regular income. And yet it makes me nervous … I promised myself a year in which to focus on the practice and less than a month into that year I am being seduced by the possibility of another job. Of course there is no guarantee that I would get it even if I apply for it … I have to admit that I am very flattered to have been asked – I didn’t know that that the head of the regional arts department knew who I was.
Do I dare to dream? Dream that I can make it as a freelance … free range … free … artist. Coincidentally (?) the theme for Supermarket 2024 is, with all the various intonations, ’Dream on’.
I spoke with an artist who I know from Supermarket, she is leading a Think Tank today looking at ’foresight tools’ for advancing one practice and arts organisations. Her session is a late addition to the schedule and I am already signed up to another session at the same time but I am thinking of changing – not least because her topic sits so well with Supermarket’s theme and I know that she regularly attends Supermarket so it would great if she could moderate a meting there too. But also I perhaps need the time and space to consider my own process and route towards achieving what I want … dare I take steps towards what I want … even if I can’t fully imagine what and where that is … dare I imagine where I would like to be in ten or fifteen years time and then work back to see what I should be doing now?
After just one day I have met such fantastically interesting and passionate people all of whom I want to spend time with … find ways of working with … dare I say that this is where I want to be?
