I am no longer the chair of the Uppsala Artists’ Club! After a less than smooth meeting – the out-going committee including myself were under prepared – the incoming committee had the all important ’constitutional’ meeting and they are now the group with the responsibility for running the association. I am a disappointed that I wasn’t able to give more time to doing the things that I wanted to do as chair, however I have to remember that I was chair of a committee rather than a director of an organisation. It’s going to be interesting to see how I feel about being an ordinary member of the club – I declined the invitation to be any of the sub-committees, not least because the one that I was initially asked to be on was the one that has to find new committee members – which I imagine is a tough ask and time demanding in the beginning of the year – exactly when I am busy with all the proofreading for Supermarket. I was a member of the club for at most one year before I agreed to be on the committee. I am looking forward to returning to this much less active role.
I have learned a lot especially in the two years that I was chair. I still struggle with group decision making and collective responsibility. I find it hard to enthusiastically present an idea that the committee approved by a majority vote when I personally disagree with the suggestion. I am also uncomfortable with everyone on the committee being equally responsible for things when it is very clear that we have very different levels of interest and engagement.
Knowing how demanding being on the committee is I do not want to be one of those members who is full of ideas about what ’they’ should be doing … at the same time I have lots of ideas precisely about what ’they’ should be doing. Part of me wants to be an actively engaged member and another part of me wants to be a very passive member, at least it feels as though I have more control over my level of engagement now … I’ll see how that goes!
If I recall correctly it is the first time in eight years that I am not on one committee or another.
There are things that I want to do but I think that I want to do them as an independent/freelance artist – for example I want to get a city wide Open Studio (spring) event going. I think that it would be much easier and much more fun to find one, or at the most two, other artist(s) to do this with. Likewise an Uppsala Art Weekend (autumn) – this might simply be pulling together information and promoting a weekend where there is already a lot going on. I am interested in doing things that promote Uppsala as a place for contemporary practice. This is perhaps where Glitter Ball could be useful … perhaps I could attend the KNUT meetings (periodic meetings for those arranging artistic/exhibition programmes here in Uppsala) in my capacity as director of Glitter Ball.
But first I need to finalise the Meetings programme for Supermarket, and then get on with the new chapter of my Following Eugène project.
