art jobs – DRAFT EXCLUDER

A couple of weeks ago I spent a full, entire week only going to my studio to work on my own work. I realised that this was the first time in my entire career that I had done this. I am 37. It is both a strange and not strange thing for a ‘professional’ artist like myself to say. Why have I never been able to do this before?

I think the TLDR here is everyone’s least favourite boogeyman: capitalism! I have to pay bills, and earn income to able to live and have the life that I want. At this point people might feel inclined to jump in and ask me why I’m not making enough money from my art practice to support myself… well, I don’t make enough of a stream of saleable work, and I am not of a level where I have gallery representation or enough of a profile to do so. Some years ago I went down the ‘productifying’ route for my work, and yeah, it was good for a time, but ultimately I made work I resented and didn’t feel like I was challenging myself beyond a need to churn things out because I was worried I would have a bare looking stall at events, or too many empty slots on my online shop. Some people find their niche of making their work saleable, well made, and authentic to them, but I didn’t. It’s a mode of supporting yourself, but I didn’t manage, or have the drive (?) to keep that going- so boo hoo back to the drawing board.

Like many artists I also teach but I don’t make regular enough hours for that to my the sole source of income for me, so inevitably I have a patchwork of freelance and zero hours contracts to keep things together (when it works). Like many, I also had a PT job during my time at art school, so didn’t even dedicate all my energies to my study back then. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had applied myself fully? I also find it funny that that is where my mind immediately goes- it must be some failing on my part- lack of motivation, dedication, talent, skill, when there are bigger, overarching influences that are out of my control. But equally between the ages of 18 and 22 you have a competing range of priorities that shape-shift continuously. We are preoccupied with establishing a new identity, socialising, building relationships… enjoying youth, as we should.

In amongst all this are things that are of my making and not. I chose to undertake an academic masters degree after graduating from art school, at a time when I was getting more opportunities as an artist. So I effectively pulled the plug on my own trajectory to do something I wanted to do, and felt would ultimately enhance my practice. But looking back I see that I ‘dropped the ball’ there, fell off the map and just well… fell off. With age I think, I’m glad I did that then because I couldn’t afford to do that now, and I had some great experiences and made friendships I wouldn’t trade for anything. But when I am reviewing my progress, or lack there of, I sometimes am tempted to file this under ‘master (lol) of my own destruction’.

I stopped making art properly between 2011 and 2013, and didn’t come back to producing work I felt was ‘me’ until 2016. I have written a lot about my use of collage as a way of finding my feet again, and I value that time, but I knew I couldn’t make that kind of work forever. I was always fighting in my own head with myself about going back to photographic work. It was scary because it was hard and I had nowhere to hide.

It’s a long and meandering road, being an artist, or just a human generally, and I look back and see a varied and strange path to where I am now. I couldn’t help but wonder if my art practice would have met even my own expectations if I had had more time to dedicate to it, or even more energy. For a while I tried to come to the studio in the morning and be *productive* before doing manual work in the afternoon and boy, did that not just really add to the sense of- wow this is not workinggggg.

I recognise more than ever that I need fairly specific conditions for my brain and body in order to be able to make the most of my time in the studio:

Not feeling rushed (rushing there- bad, having to rush away- also bad)
No overhanging obligation (a meeting, a deadline, anything I need to consciously remember)
Nervous system feeling REGULATED.

I am pretty sure any artist reading this will be like, gurl that is not happening ever, and don’t I know it. We are always making do, cramming in, contorting our brains and bodies around obligations and demands and everything else, and if you manage to squeeze out a small piece of work, or focus your mind for a short time- that is golden. I need to check myself as well remembering that there are many, many frustrated artists who are denied any opportunity to work, because of life circumstances beyond their control. I have a studio I can come to. I have materials. I have goals in mind. This is very much a me problem but many artists will face it to different degrees- how do you survive? How do you keep making work? Does it matter? Should you keep going?

I sometimes think about what would happen if I just gave it all up, like I have tried, that’s enough now. I guess it depends what I was expecting my life to look like. I have painted (sorry) myself into a corner with my skillset and experience and can’t really imagine what kind of ‘regular’ job would suit me, which is why I frequently undertake manual work. On the face of it I have made myself fantastically unemployable to the general labour market. I could start thinking about ‘transferable skills’ but I want to make it through the day… or maybe rEtRaIn In CyBeR.

When I have thought about writing about this previously I just feel like, it’s whiny etc, no one cares about your self made problem. But I also think it points to bigger problems that we all face, that of the role of work and ceaseless productivity drive inherent in much of modern Western life, the cost of living, and how we find and make meaning in our lives. I chose to live like this and I bear the consequences of my choices, but you can’t blame a girl for trying.

I think the real root of the problem is my own level of expectation for myself and my practice, the vision I hold somewhere in my head, which gets vaguer over time, of what ‘success’ would look like for me. I often need to zoom out. Sometimes what keeps me going is the idea that art, and art making, have value, and enhance our lives and experience of the world. That maybe my art speaks to someone and they feel seen and understood, intrigued or provoked, in the way that artworks have infiltrated my own consciousness.

Ultimately I feel like there is something about giving up that feels larger than just a shift in occupation for me. I am not planning on doing so in the immediate future but I am unsure when I will next have the opportunity to spend an entire week in my studio.

It is not yet time to abandon all hope.

long time no… nothing.

I have been quiet over the past few months, on social media, and on here, my blog. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, I just don’t feel the same level of need I used to about expressing myself consistently and frequently online. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the effects of social media on my practice, my own cognition and mental health, and a ‘less is more’ approach ultimately suits me better. I enjoy the connectivity, the instantaneousness, the access to a global array of stimuli. But I also need a lot of quiet time to not feel overwhelmed and disconnected from myself and my own goals. I’m not going to riff about it for too long, as there are people who discuss this topic far more eloquently than I, but I definitely feel a lot better when I am not ‘wired in’. I am also usually more productive and present in my own practice. Social media can be a valuable tool to escape from boredom, inertia, or discomfort, but I also need to sit with what is difficult, and form my own thoughts and escape plans. I also felt alienated by the disingenuous performative aspects of online personas. Yes- I get that the whole thing is in essence performative, but that doesn’t mean I have to want to play. I probably spend or have spent, too much time thinking about my online presence, to the point that I have disappeared up my own… anyway, as an over-thinker, I need to focus my energy on ‘doing’ IRL, rather than fretting about ‘presenting’ online.

As I have previously discussed, I also find social media an unpleasant space to function as an artist. If you post something that is different to your previous works or posts, you might feel a pang of dismay at a lack of engagement. Why don’t people like this one?? I thought I was getting somewhere! Low likes gang I see you! Everything about socials requires consistency- in content, posting level, presence and use of the app. These things are not conducive to everyone’s process, or indeed being a human. I admire people who have harnessed platforms to further their careers, but it doesn’t work for everyone. And that’s okay.

So enough about what’s not working. What has been working is burrowing deep into the research phase of my VACMA (Visual Arts & Crafts Makers Award) project- Abyssal Glow (working title).

It has felt like this is the first time for a long time that I have a solo project that I am excited to progress, to return to, and I allow it preoccupy my mind daily. I keep referring to it as a ‘full circle’ project as I am returning to those long left behind skills- darkroom photography and animation. My inspiration for this project has been a combination of dedicated research, alongside a lot of gut feeling, and the infiltration of different surroundings in my subconscious.

Collage piece as I work through recurrent image ideas.

I have found myself returning over and over to particular images I took in the past, but instead of thinking ‘I need to make something new and stop dwelling’, I have actively incorporated these images into the project, with two of them becoming absolutely central. If they seem important, and keep reappearing, then why am I fighting it so doggedly?

In terms of art historical references, I feel that I have naturally accumulated a series of influences that, although contrasting, sit well together within the overarching project. Basically it feels like I have been supplying my subconscious with what seemed like disparate elements, but they have coagulated together in the background to make some kind of monstrous, cohesive whole. Delightful.

Another collage ‘sketch’ for the project.

This project has contrasted with many I have undertaken previously as I actually feel comfortable in it. I don’t feel like I am scrabbling around to bring something together, or forcing an idea that doesn’t have a lot of mileage to be something bigger than it should be. I am in a good space in this project, it is a place of refuge and stability. It is a place of depth, and I feel more than ever the influence of my subconscious on my practice. This sounds a bit airy but for this particular idea, I have been mulling over themes and influences for so long they have become part of an internal vocabulary. I don’t really like describing something as ‘feeling natural’ because what does that even mean, but it feels unforced, and even… easy? Maybe it’s the development of my own visual language.

I don’t mean easy in the sense that I am not challenging myself, but that I am working around, and through, any obstacles. I think what I am experiencing is the realisation that I actually have a lot of experience now. I am mid-career guys. So perhaps the sense of confidence just comes from a solidifying of my identity as an artist. I feel much more at home there, and I can tell people what I do without the same level of uncertainty or imposter syndrome strangling me into shamed silence. I feel I have a lot of tools that support me, like a good foundation: a studio, supportive peers, access to materials and equipment… some of the basic elements I didn’t have for a long time. Being out there in the artistic wilderness is one of those oh it’s character forming things, but it doesn’t necessarily engender a desire to continue on. Being an artist can feel like an isolating, solitary experience, and sometimes you need it to be, to find your own direction I suppose. But it can also make it feel like an unrelenting slog with little reward, and a precariousness that many would find intolerable- both in an intellectual and material sense. I suppose it is.

I think another contributing factor to this sense of solidness in my identity is being employed as an artist. Being paid to work as a skilled professional in a variety of settings, as an artist. I spent many years as an arts organiser, supporting the careers of artists, designers and makers, which gave me a greater understanding of how the cultural sector works, and a sense of satisfaction in promoting visual art etc, but sometimes you need to decide if you want to be a cheerleader, or if you want to be on the other side. To be honest, part of this decision to move away from arts organiser type roles was also that every post I applied for in the past year I didn’t get an interview for- not that I felt entitled to yeahhh- but it just spelled out to me that I wasn’t going to get anywhere pursuing that avenue as a means of supporting myself.

Image Credit: https://www.instagram.com/freeze_magazine/

I am often moved to have strong views on ‘art jobs’ because as an artist it can seem like a good idea as they are adjacent to your practice, but they can also take up a lot of the brain space that your own creative endeavours require. Throughout the years I have, alongside my freelance work and practice, had non-related jobs, such as roles in administration, and more recently in physical work such as cleaning (more slog). These jobs do not attack the part of my brain I need to be creative in the same way, and yes they present their own challenges, but they do not take away my desire, or ability, to maintain my practice- a new development! Some of these roles also offer the same level of pay as creative sector roles, so it doesn’t seem like some grave mistake. Unless I actually want anyone to read my CV I guess…

I am grateful for the roles that I had as an arts organiser, but I know it was the right decision for me to instead choose to pursue roles as an artist- teaching, commissioned works, workshops etc, and supplement that with ‘non-art’ work. This is the method I am using at the moment, and I very well may end up eating my words, but I am sure there are many creatives out there who can relate to this push-pull of finding work as an artist. It’s not even like there are a lot of ‘art jobs’ out there either. Who’s to say anyone would want me anyway? I certainly didn’t have much success in my last round of approaches. I also think that maybe it’s my age (oh no guys, mid-career), or that my CV is a weird mish-mash that lacks cohesion and is in no way at all linear (true). Welcome to life as an artist I guess. I don’t hold these views in a bitter way, as I think it’s clear to me what’s ‘for me’ and what’s not, in many senses. I also have to be at peace with my own life choices- to choose to pursue a life as an artist, with its innate instability, inconsistency and challenges, when I could have done… something else. I have always said that I would keep going until I couldn’t any more, I would keep trying to live this way and make it work, and maybe one day I’ll have to give it all up and retrain in cyber (we still haven’t forgiven Rishi for that one). But I keep on.

Always a WIP.

Thank you for reading.

More on my project soon (me or otherwise).

J 😊

Category: art jobs

Time

A time to be small.