Susan Jones

Nobody wants you but everybody needs you.

Susan Jones, artist and director of AN.

25th July 2011. Guest Lecture


The romanticism of the term Artist - genius, talent, outsider, shaman, etc, artists fall in love with the profession. But artists now must advocate for themselves, their position, and be involved in the value exchange.

Not everyone acknowledges, like the Ontario arts council in the 1980's, that "Artists are at the centre of all arts practice."

Artist Maddie Nicholson - the media representation of artists is mad and bad.
Now artists are supposed to achieve public good. Public arts bodies justify the value of art and artists by the importance of art to culture. Art as a transferable experience and enterprise.

Artist
- maker of unique works for sale
- animatuer - encouraging other people's expression
- public servant - making work to commission for public spaces, regeneration.
- economic unit - a small business or creative industry employing others
- social worker - empowering
- educator delivering into schools and establishments
- innovator of new arts ventures - creators of arts festivals, open studios, etc
- visionary - a social conscience
maybe
-impoverished but fulfilled
-incapable and needy - waiting for others to discover them, show them how to do things properly, or fit in.

Variable contracts.
Unpredictability and uncertainty in patterns of employment and income.
Concurrent projects.
Availability.
Antisocial hours
Location.
Vulnerable to fashion, trends, etc.

AN Artist Emily Speed - Artist livelihood strategies.
- job satisfaction / autonomy / control / finances / status
- powerless / low income / lack of control.
fraught with rejection and financial instability.

Mediators - agendas and expectations
"There is nothing reprehensible in artists seeking to extend cultural democracy by opening their practice to others" Francois Matarasso.


Art is often seen as a social instrument. Most artists now deliverers of public policy. Efficacy - how well they achieve social improvement.
Art measured by altruism - may institutionalise cultural mediocrity. Art without compromising.

Hans Abbing - Why artists are poor. Most artists earn very little. Often artists subsidise the arts.
Gift giving rather than market.
Emilia Telese - "The Gift Controversy" Are artists able to free themselves from the constraint of those who find and legitimise the artist's role. Taint the practice?
Running a one person business - a lifestyle business / sold out.

Graham Crowley - art consultant of market and media.
Hunter and hunted approach. Galleries - artists.

In UK higher fine art courses per capita.
Arts council considers money is not the driving force for artists - psychic income.
Becky Shaw. not an identity but something you do and make.

Quality - the artist deals with everything - business, lawyer, negotiator, etc. artists mediate our practice.
Regeneration - community development, appropriated by artists. Commission - set out our terms.
John Newling. Laying down early marker. Open discussions. Collaborator and contextualiser. Create aspiration of the organisation.

Term artist meaningless to many people. - interpretable, confusing - also dents confidence of artist.
Artist involved in broad spectrum of creating art. Professional, educated, salaried.
art reminds us of complexity.
Definition of artists and practices.

self determination - public/private enterprises.
Modular education. contract nature of employment, project to project rather than continual studio practice.
Speed of change in artists work - study, employment, self employment, etc.
Interactive, negotiating role. collaboration.

Getting ready. "Luck is being ready" Brian Eno.

Careful preparation, laced with seeing what happens. Making own luck.
Unlearning helplessness.

Q arts.
art intimidating nonsense - conversations, ideas, discourse - comprehensible.

Science/ art. Genuinely interested. Intrinsic art values - a synthesis.

The artist-
Innovative and conservative
Multiple truths held lightly
Live, think, act globally and locally
Embrace spirituality
Think holistically and systematically
Tolerate ambiguity and difference
Reflexive learners
Contextualise - put themself in process
Value ethics, ensuring right action over fixed principles
Assume personal responsibility and accountability. Practicalist and general
reason abstractly and narratively
Trust physical evidence

Long history of art activity. Art strike - 1990,s Stuart Holme
Provocation. Not art institutions but underworld of artists.

working artists and the greater economy. NY. campaign for fees - just and sustainable.
UK march - mass protest, coalition cuts - AIR activists.
Art bombs - peaceful interventions - coloured smoke.
resistance and support.

The necessity of the arts. Protecting rights, fees.
Raise awareness of art and artists in culture.

Being an artist - modes of practice in an age of austerity -
be active
support each other
be an artist
be an activist.

Widen definition of art.

The best tools for survival are flexibility and an aspiration to innovate, along with an understanding that far more things fail than succeed. Paul Ormond - why most things fail.
No artists - no art market, museums, galleries, no art jobs.
Be a role model. Make things happen.




Reflection

I had to watch this lecture over several sessions of just a few minutes each. I found the pace just too fast to take notes, so I had to stop and start it alot. It was a bit read out.

A call to arms in a complex world. It depends how you look at it - it can be a multi universe, with the possibility of carving out a niche for oneself, choosing form all the multiplicity of possibilities and areas of art activities, or it can be an impenetrable maze, full of trails leading nowhere and futile effort, lost in the wind. Elements of both.

It takes a long time to figure it out, as long as a lifetime, or an art practice. Being an artist is a lifestyle business.

I did like and agree with Brian Eno, that luck is being ready. One can spend years and decades in getting ready. Part of the trick must surely be in practicing recognition of the luck, grasping that breakthrough moment, and not being too used to being on the sidelines. I've always though of that as not leaving any stone unturned. There are alot of stones, alot of pages, alot of actions, thoughts and decisions which all add up to an art practice, or a life.

Abbing. He was talking about his book and philosophy, Why Artists are Poor. It was fascinating and insightful to hear him explain how individual artists subsidise the arts. I asked a question - I said that I can't have been the only person who came along that night to see him, who was an artist, and was there some insight through this in figuring out how to be not poor. He said no. Big laughs and further discussion.

26th July 2011