Today I replied to an email asking if I'd like to be involved in a schools project later this year. It's a project that I did a couple of years ago for an art centre in north London. It felt good to reply positively while also highlighting how I want to work.
The email, like others I've received, gave a certain amount of information about what the organisation wanted from me but it wasn't very discursive, and it certainly doesn't feel as though I'd be entering a 'partnership' with the gallery and the school. This is something that I'm very aware of now (since Eastbourne). It would be interesting to ask the gallery and school if they consider the artist to be project partner or a hired specialist. The email detailed the number of schools involved, the number of hours at each school, the age range of pupils, the artist's fee and the materials budget. Am I being unrealistic to expect a gallery to decide these things in discussion with the artist and the school?
In my reply I expressed my interest in the project, I explained that I have a set day rate and that I don't work for less than a day. I divided the artist's fee by my day rate and told the how many days I could offer.
It took me a long time to write what amounted to about six lines and another while to decide if I should hit the reply button or not. I hit it with some trepidation.
Although it's an entirely different situation the experience resonated with my feelings on reading the letter from a group of sculptors in April's a-n magazine. That is that artists are often the poor relations even in dealing with the organisations and institutions that should be supporting them. How have we gotten in to this situation?
