…and a week later, my Touchy Feely wrap-up.

So… where were we?

I was off to the Debate/Panel Discussion which turned out to be neither but instead a very general discussion, ably chaired/managed by Sarah Rodigari* on the topic Art should be instrumentalised to make a better world.

But just before I go into that I should briefly mention the CWA CBD who spoke the following night about their branch and projects. It was unfortunate that so many of the participants had been called back to busy lives by the time Paula Silva, Bec Stevens and Judith Abell spoke on behalf of their project on the Friday  Saturday night which is jolly interesting in terms of socially engaged practice both for its adopted model of and legitimate entry into the CWA network (the acronym stands for Country Womens Association, just in case you didn’t know) but just as much because of the vague confusion it caused me.

Unfortunately I had to leave this session before it ended, but I did get to hear a bit of talk about Bec Stevens CWA project STOP. REST. PLAY. , which was rewarding because this was precisely where my confusion lay.  Bec, who became a mum for the first time well within a month of when I did too, conceived it as a resting space for parents and young children. A place in the city where kids could safely play, tea could be made, nappies changed, sandwiches eaten and fruit divided: a place such as did not currently exist in Hobart. As a new(ish) mum also, I found this space to be an oasis in the city during it’s 3 weeks of operation and I quickly volunteered to be available for some shifts to help keep it running. Why not? I welcomed it, it helped out the CWA project and it was the easiest place to be with my son, Arthur, in tow. Plus Arthur loved to be there.

My confusion lay in the fact that although I loved it, welcomed it and have volunteered myself should another, more permanent, setup be orchestrated, I found myself unable to assess it as an artwork. I assumed I was so grateful for it’s existence in my role as a mum, that I was simply unable to look at it with a critical ‘art’ eye. And in the end I did love it. Why did it matter if I identified it as a good facility or good art? But it troubled me because I really wanted to be able to respond to it as a fellow artist.

When Bec spoke at the final night of TF, she talked about the small CWA shop, a few blocks up from the city centre, and how it was the only place she saw elderly women in the city. About children who are also visually absent from it’s streets.  Without anywhere to ‘be’ within the city centre, factions of our community like children and the elderly have lost ownership of the city. In fact the city is gravely in danger of becoming a site where only commerce has a home as opposed to a place where people ‘live’.  Bec sourced a site for the project with a broad shopfront with the express purpose of allowing children, families, breastfeeding mothers to be VISIBLE, and in doing so provided a valuable picture for our city of just how else things might be. This visualisation of a suggestion, an aspiration… well, of course that’s art.  And I’m suprised at myself that all it took was for me to be inside that frame to have difficulty seeing that.

But back to Thursday night…

It was a pretty rousing conversation and the entire room spoke with passion across the evening.  I do wish I had taken better notes (er… or any) or at least written this summation fresh off the back of it because mostly all I can remember well enough to report accurately are my own thoughts.  I’d hate to misrepresent anyone so this is all I shall tend to here.

I do hope the audio record of this event goes up on the Touchy Feely Tumblr some time soon because, in very brief summation, it was a ripping chat.

I listened and listened and when I couldn’t hold my thoughts any more they tumbled out of me like a big, wordy fountain.  Much of it was thoughts I had already constructed that day and written into my previous blog post but at the core of it was this:

That for me, the word should was highly problematic, for it suggests that artists have some social responsibility beyond attempting, with all authenticity, to produce relevant, wonderful, fine and GOOD art. In my opinion this is the only should an artist should concern themselves with.   This does not negate the work of the artist that does, as a part of their works construct or function, enact some direct societal change, but to agree with this statement somewhat discredits the work of artists that investigate an infinite variety of other subjects, themes and concerns.  It would suggest for instance, that an artist whose works are highly visual, aesthetic investigations does not have the same value as an artist whose work creates a more tangible societal ‘improvement’ (and I think we have all agreed through this project how malleable and subjective terms like ‘improvement’ are anyway).

Ultimately I would argue (and I did) that if you believe in the value of culture; it’s ability to both enrich and elevate society, then you must also believe that to ‘make a better world’, all one need do is to continue to practice as an artist and attempt through that practice to produce relevant, wonderful, fine and GOOD art.

This is no small thing.  For as one participant in this discussion so rightly pointed out, Australia is a country that doesn’t really value it’s artists. I noted last post (and suggested this as a reason for the current prevalence of relational and socially engaged practice), that artists are viewed very suspiciously outside our own field.  To continue to practice and identify as an artist is actually somewhat of a transgression against the wider Australian community. I know that I have been guilty of embarrassment in social situations when answering the question ‘What do you do?’, I have apologetically mumbled ‘Oh… I’m an artist…’ and extricated myself with some speed to avoid accusation and confrontation.

But I don’t do this any more, because despite making work that might appear to be entirely self-absorbed, I do believe that this is my role, my job and the best contribution I can make and I do my very best to produce relevant, wonderful, fine and GOOD art at all times. Of course I don’t hit that target each time. I just keep aiming and hope the bullseyes come more frequently.  And how very Australian of me to construct a sports analogy to defend the value of my societal role as an artist.

So yes, while I have managed (as I so often do) to turn this into a rant about myself, in truth this is my statement of confidence investment in the profession of visual artist. Cheerleading, if you will. Some of you make amazing art projects that, in a very direct fashion, work to improve lives, but relational and socially engaged works are a narrow mode of practice in the larger scheme of culture and there are an infinite number of ways to make art. So if you are an artist who wants to be the good in the world, just go make things and have ideas. Try very hard to make good art. I genuinely believe that this will also make a better world through providing ideas, aesthetics and aspiration.

Yes. I am that idealistic and sentimental.

And so what of sentimentality? The single niche I found for myself within this whole symposium. Is socially engaged art too sentimental? Is my art too sentimental? Well… we never got to that. And sadly I didn’t get a single response to my yardstick work.  So I have to then surmise that yes, it is too sentimental for discussion. I’m still unsure of details such as whether that means that people just don’t feel comfortable talking about it with me because the sentimentality makes them uncomfortable or because the sentimentality makes bad art which makes them uncomfortable, but the experiment so far speaks for itself. Or does it?

I would still, really, like to know.

* Yes, I’ll throw Sarah’s name in again.  She’s interesting, engaged and stayed to contribute right across the duration of the event. Plus she wore a lovely blouse. Okay -  full disclosure: I do seem to have become a fan.

Touchy Feely thoughts to date.

I want to use my blog to here organise some thoughts I have after last nights Touchy Feely presentations and discussion. I hope those practitioners more directly involved in relational or socially engaged practice will forgive me if I am rehashing thoughts you have already talked to death amongst yourselves. I feel like a visitor in a country under slight unrest. I apologise wholeheartedly if this is relational aesthetics 101.

Last night the most burning issue seemed to be about outcome. How do you record an ephemeral work for reportage back to those who funded it? And how remarkable that most artists speaking have, at times or all the time, not felt comfortable reporting the negative aspects of their social engagement, instead packaging the projects in the aftermath as something that more resembles the utopian glimmers of their initial, very genuine, aspiriation.

I find this a little suprising as I have always believed it was an important step in moving forward and in my small experience (I stepped away from the funding circuit some years ago and am only just starting to consider hopping back on the gravy train) reports of the ‘failures’ as well as the ‘successes’ were always a welcomed, and I always assumed, expected, part of the acquittal process.

Last night I raised the subject of ‘community arts’ as opposed to ‘art that engages with the community’. I trailed off a bit without making any particular point as, to some degree, I was thinking out loud. But I was certainly not moving to suggest that one was the right way to go about things and the other wrong… I think where I was going with that subject is it that it seemed a general consensus that it is very hard to get the genuine, bona-fide public to actually engage as you would wish which is often what leads to the ‘failures’ (we also discussed the impotence of the terms ‘success’ and ‘failure’ last night but I use them here for their convenience.) that occur. The participants instead become the invested art community, friends and family rather than the broader community.

When I began my work of the last 10 years where I have focussed almost exclusively on the self, it was in part because I felt very much that artists were mistrusted by the non-arts public. That we were viewed as tricksters, charlatans and scammers (I think I hoped I could win back some general-public pals to the cause of culture by giving up something of myself instead of asking something from them). I think that could also contribute to an explanation of why this mode of working is on the rise. We want to contribute positively. We want to be seen as contributing positively. Anyway… I raised the community arts subject last night because I think in the shift from ‘community arts’ to ‘art that engages with the community’ that there has been another shift where the responsibility of storysharing/data collection and presentation has moved from the public themselves to the artist, and that makes it harder to disprove these negative views of artists and our utopian experiments within the community. The term I used a lot last night and in the wake of the Iteration Again project is ‘colonialism’.

While I have to believe that the sentimentality of the artists impetus is entirely genuine, I do feel that the appearance of ‘colonialism’ must be very carefully negotiated and shed because of the way it pushes potential participants/audience away. And I do believe something may be able to be gleaned from the field of community arts practice to assist in that negotiation. Because regardless of whether artists begin to talk about and celebrate the failures as well as the successes, unless we view each artwork as the experiment it is, learn from those failures and take that knowledge forward, there is a distinct possibility, as Amy Spiers suggested, that artists may become trapped in a cycle of wishing to do good in a world that simply does not want their version of what ‘good’ is.

I may be wrong, but when discussion turned to funding last night, I got the impression that, largely in this mode of practice, funding goes towards the cost of documentation. Well produced photographs, video or a publication that asserts the artwork took place. If it is true that the failures fail to be reported and investigated because one feels responsibility to the funding body to present only a positive outcome, then surely it is better to dispense with the idea of funding a document at all. Just make a work. Let it be over when it is over except in your thoughts and words and the way it goes on to inform your later practice. I suspect I’m oversimplifying the problem but perhaps, as in Sarah Rodigaris case, the work remains truly ephemeral. It just happened. The work for anyone but Sarah or those she encountered must remain an elusive concept and we must simply trust that it occured.

By this I don’t mean to naively suggest that projects centered in human interaction should cost nothing to produce. Just that perhaps this problem might be simpler than it appears. When I was a child and wanted something that cost I found ways to make the money or if you like, to fund the project. It might serve us well to revisit this mode of operation as Sarah did in selling off her belongings. Sell something. Make something someone needs. And when we do apply for funding, rather than focussing on publications we should consider instead, applying for an area of the project where ‘value’ is more concrete- the wages of the artists involved. I know the artists time and talent is often devalued in favour of other aspects to enable a project to take flight on limited funds, but it should be non-negotiable. It shouldn’t require documentation or a successful outcome, merely a well-kept timesheet. Success or failure, receiving a wage will still help you move forward to the next project. But I have digressed…

At the risk of sounding like a sudden evangelical Sarah Rodigari fan, I was cheered by her reluctance to give too much away of what occurred on her journey. She seemed protective of the people she encountered, who became enmeshed in her artwork along the way and the more I digest what she has made and what she has to say, the more I believe that this may be a little lacking – that is to say, the lack is an understanding that when you are engaging with the public for the purposes of creating an artwork, those who do enter into the role of participant are doing so very generously and we need to consider more carefully what they receive in return for their engagement and what we do with the material sourced from/through them. And this is outside of any University driven ethics requirement, but rests simply in human responsibility to other humans.

Unless we are particularly resourceful, we pay in some way for every other material we might use as an artist. How are we paying for this material? How are we paying the public for their engagement? We can’t be naive and ignore the fact that a successful project is often our stepping stone to the next opportunity. But how are those giving time and sharing their lives being valued and compensated? I don’t believe that answer is that participants should be paid (I was uncomfortable with Hobart artist’s James Newitt’s 2009 work $1 for your story because of the named value it put upon the participants contributions) but I do think consideration of the possibility that neither the artist nor a funding body entirely owns the content (their likeness, experience, words or emotion) that people contribute (whether or not they are anonymous) is an important ethical idea that must be given greater consideration in documentation, reportage and promotion. The art project merely becomes a facility where this data is stored and respect for the data and it’s true owner must not be forgotten.

Perhaps this has not become as big an issue as it (arguably) should, because as many pointed out last night, the reluctance of the general public to become involved means that so often the demographic of participants is made up of friends, family, other artists; people with a personal investment in the success of the project. But if this issue was to garner greater consideration, perhaps the desired participants might not be so hard to source, projects might have more genuine outcomes, experiments might have more accurate results that we can learn from…

What do you think? I don’t know if I’m right about any of this but I certainly wonder about all of it.

I am glad to have all that off my chest and in safe blog storage for later rumination because tonights Touchy Feely panel discussion examines the suggestion that ‘Art should be instrumentalised to make a better world.’ and requires me to think about different things.

Now, hopefully, I can go talk on topic without doing boring dredges back to last nights yak-yak that send everyone snoozing and are alarmingly ‘off-point’.

I shall hit the ‘publish’ button and go form my thoughts about that right now…

Bigger than I could blog

Hi.  How are you?  Isn’t it amazing?  It’s 2011.  And I meant to write this post yesterday to mark the New Year but as is the fashion in my current life as never before: here I am , late again.

So what happened here?

Last year became enormous as did I.  As my pregnancy progressed, I got slower and tried frantically to fit in more and more before the baby arrived.  It was a time for doing, not time for reportage.

And now Matt and I have a son, Arthur who is nearly 8 months old.   He was mostly born at home, in our kitchen with a quick dash to hospital in the last 40 minutes where a careless (lady) obstetrician pfaffed about too much and too roughly with a ventouse and in the end my midwife says I pretty much pushed him out myself at 20 minutes past 12 on the morning of May 8.  He is a tiny Taurus Bull, born in the year of the Tiger who we refer to as the King of the Bears.  Grrr.  Snort.

Parenting is every joyous cliche I have ever heard and more and Arthur is a funny, exquisite, calm, stoic and generally delightful little boy who likes books, drumming, dancing and rabbits.  I think I speak easily for both Matt and I when I say our lives are far greater with him in it.  It has been so enjoyable I simply haven’t wanted to tear myself away in order to put into words something that might simply be indescribable.

I have decided not to return to work and instead, stay Mama-at-home/Artist-at-home and am slowly starting to make that combo work.  It means financially life is rather slim but I have been here before when I first found I needed to retreat from the cycle and I find I need and am happier with less and less as time progresses.   The investment in spending my time growing vegetables, ideas, images and a person is proving infinitely more gratifying.

Around me in 2010 people were born and people died.   I welcome all you fascinating creatures who have arrived with open arms and to those who left, I just dearly wish I had the opportunity to say goodbye or to ask you to reconsider your journey before you set off.  Everyone leaves a ragged, raw hole when they go.  Everyone.

Despite these sadnesses I thank you 2010 for witnessing me turning 40 , for the 10 year marker for my marriage but most overwhelmingly for Arthur.

Soon I will post some brief catchups on what DID happen after I stopped recording but looking ahead, placing one foot in front of the other, and despite my tendency not to, this year some resolutions became clear as I showered away the last dust of 2010: to remember fun and how to have it; and to put an end to waste – wasted resources, money, emotion and time.  I can and will cut back on all of them.

I wish you all the best for this year, whoever you are.  Be as happy as you can and remember that aching void that would exist if you did not.

Happy New Year.

x

In which I replace the word ‘dealer’ with ‘pimp’ and the word ‘artist’ with ‘artstitute’.

So here’s the thing. I’ve never had any commercial representation (well, DUR like I haven’t mentioned that about a zillion times before but stay with me…) and to be honest I have, for some time been terrified of it. My time ensconced in a happy studio collective a few years back was both fun and educational but I was pretty exclusively surrounded by artists who were and are taken pretty seriously in both the art community and the marketplace, who made some (if not mucho) income off their practice and to a man seemed to be full of resentful stories about the wrongdoings of their dealers.

While once it had seemed to me that the logical way to make a living as an artist was to match-make yourself with the right dealer and if your primary practice didn’t seem to have a market, develop a sideline, once I had vicariously lived-through-my-studio-neighbours, I instead saw this path as a trap. A trap I figured I was smart enough to avoid.

However here I now sit a) having failed at art teaching b) having failed at arts admin and worst of all c) with sketchbooks, notepads and odd dusty back rooms of my brain piled high with unmade works that have not had the equipment, time or money to be realised (those good ol’ art-related jobs that keep your toe in the industry are, to be fair, immensely valuable for the experience and knowledge gained within, but the pay is beyond shite and the demands on both you and your time stretch way beyond the boundaries of your employ). This means my art practice has a particularly slow burn and what’s more I seem to be skint.

So what’s the next step? Well, monkeys and squeaky pigs are pretty cute but for whatever reason (honesty, practicality, plain old snobbery…?) I don’t view them as a part of my practice. Sure, I hope to find a place to sell them because I really need some cash (hey, the brain assisting naturopathic supplements I’ve come to rely on aren’t free you know… ) but they are pretty much without philosophy or concept. A product. A simple toy. And what I imagine I will be able to charge for them actually leaves me on less than minimum wage for their production anyway, to tell the truth.

But I know I could make ART that sells. I have a good eye for trends, memes and waves of ‘taste’ and if I knew I had an art pimp ready to take stuff on I could be churning that art out. I don’t mean to be facetious of course, I really couldn’t make things that I didn’t at least like myself, but at the moment I could quite happily pass myself over to life as an arts-titute. I know there are artist acquaintances of mine who think I am nuts in that I never expect to make a buck out of what I do… but am I just fooling myself if I believe otherwise?

I ask you my tiny readership – how do you get pimped? Are disgruntled complaints about the pimp system justified or just a bit of a whinge? Would the artist-neighbours I once had really have been better off without the pimps? Is it really so predictably naff as you being ‘discovered’ by someone? How does the whole pimp-deal work? I mean I know the general going percentages for the art-pimps cut, but are they pimping you, day in, day out and occasionally advising ‘we’re running low on art, can you please do some more pitchers?’ or do they only go a-selling when you are the feature of the week in your bi-annual, just-me exhibition? So many questions because I am so naive about this whole system… I’m not joking… I just don’t know.

My artwork is one of the rare things in my life I have very few doubts about. I stand by it. I have received a lot of great positive feedback about it lately, both here and by email and so I am really interested in the lack of response here to my monkey-product (as opposed to the capital A – ART). You are small but usually so regular, Readership… are you telling me by your silence to screw the product, just make the art?

If so dear Readership, could you please do me a favour? Unlurk and give me a piece of your mind. Also, tell me your experiences (and those of others you may have) of the dealer/artist (I still rather like pimp and artstitute as terminology though but let’s be clear…)relationship in the comments. No names please. Let’s play nice. Informative but nice.

And now I’ll go ‘cause speaking of art I have a fantasy of a creeping cat-fungus that I want to realise…

Excuse me while I care about my future for a minute…

You may or may not be aware that after decades of plucky fight by artists advocacy bodies, the Australian Government has announced the Artists’ Resale Royalty Scheme.

Until now, if ever a collector of your work, resold your work with the value increase that this market activity entails, the only person to benefit financially from that sale is the collector. The collector sells a work they bought for hundreds, for thousands because it’s value has increased. How has it increased? Through the artists continued hard work and dedication to producing quality work and finding a market. The artist? Still eking out a life in a rented home with cracks in the walls and wishing they still had those few hundreds to help pay the power bill (Yes. This is my life.)

This scheme attempts to redress this imbalance by giving artists a percentage of the sale price each time a work is resold, which of course is an excellent start, but it is currently drafted only to apply to works first purchased and then resold after the proposed implementation date in 2009.

Election promises by the current government indicated such a scheme would apply to ALL works in copyright and the proposed model will leave visual artists with only a fraction of the $$$ benefits they were expecting.

It’s not greedy. It’s simply trying to bring the rights of visual artists into line with those of the creators of other copyright protected material such as filmmakers, composors or authors.

Please sign this petition urging Minister Garret to cut artists some slack. And tell your friends.

End transmission.

election

Being such a fecking wag, I sent my friend Tricky a birthday message this week that said ‘Allo. For your birthday I got you a new government.. She responded awesome! Thanks for that – it’s just what i always wanted.
Me: Oh good. I hope this one does the job OK… I couldn’t tell from the packaging…
Trix: i know – the two packages look remarkably similiar. lets hope we’re both wrong.

I think that’s the general vibe right? Am I right?

I’m $189,000,000 worth of pissed off

That’s how much Howard promised Australia’s Christian community he would spend ‘cleaning up the internet’ last night.

In a transparent dive for the Christan… wait… I’m sorry… ‘Family’ vote (since when did one equal the other, I might ask) he has promised to crackdown on ‘cyber-smut’ and provide filtering software free to every household in the nation.

I might just add here that most internet browsers already contain filters in their preferences, and that I would have thought the best way to keep your kids safe from child predators and web-porn is to supervise their use and to talk to them about all this stuff.

…but maybe that’s just me.

A wee fraction of that amount could do wonders for the state of the public health system is all I’m sayin’…

OK… back to pictures of rabbits and art n’ that….

under my wheels

Oooooh – I forgot to say that Alice Cooper was awesome. There he is there, isn’t he awesome?

From go to whoah – that man knows what a crowd wants. There was one hit after another with the new songs slipped in seamlessly. He set an amazing Ramones-style pace for a chap of his vintage and didn’t seem to need a little lie-down until well into the second half. I think it was just a costume change really, while his daughter, Calico did a bit of a floaty and bendy dance – work and his band did a three man drum solo, but I’m sure he had a quick cuppa and a sit-down on a Jason Recliner placed conveniently just behind the giant spider set.

He drove a stake through the heart of a plastic baby, slapped a giant dolly around and got hung on a gallows-on-wheels at the end but it’s hard to talk highlights… the songs are all so good and there were so many I wanted to hear (I wasn’t disapointed – there was a Welcome to my Nightmare medley in there).

It’s far, far easier to say there are two AC songs I hate: Bed of Nails and No More Love at Your Convenience. I heard neither and therefore was a happy, happy girl.

I remember a few wee kiddies bursting into tears and having to be removed during Steven and I was struck by the fact that for an ode to necrophilia, Cold Ethyl sure does rock.

The only disapointment was the size of the crowd but this could have been resolved by putting up one or two of those posters being flogged on the merch stand. Fire your Australian promoters Alice, I’ll get you a LEGION next time…

In other observations – Launceston has a hellova lot of fat people in it and they all love Alice Cooper. I don’t meant to be unkind and I am MORE than aware of my own portly stature but these folk were real, proper, Dr Phil watching fatties and I’ve never seen so many (particularly with such odd fashion choices) hanging out in the one room… weird…

So anyhow, thanks Alice – I had a ball. I heard you got a round of golf in at the Launceston Country Club as well so that’s nice. Come back soon.

No way – Australia Day.

Maybe this feeling is just a hangover from seeing a pack of brainless arseholes wearing Australian flags around their necks as capes while beating up anyone they drunkenly determined to be ‘un-Australian’ during the Cronulla race riots, but does it seem to anyone else that a surplus of flag seems to really bring all the uber-twats out into the open?

I left the house today for some peace and quiet (a cold stout with some old mates at a (mostly) empty pub up the road:- bliss) after having to deal with stereo neighbour Australia Day parties all day.

There was a girl dressed as a lamington at the bank machine. Her friend had an appliqued galah on the back of her jumper…

When I popped home briefly before escaping for some cheap thai food, neighbour one had calmed down while neighbour two had got to ‘Hotel California’ point…

I witnessed three fights in the two-block walk and this was only at 7pm…

One was one of those where the teenage girl leaves what she suddenly realises is a completely rooted relationship with all the dignity she has left while the idiot dumpee shouts her name in the street and smashes bottles in the gutter as she walks away.

On returning home now after dinner, neighbour two is at white-man-can’t-reggae point with a mass singalong to ‘Dreadlock Holiday’.

It surely can’t last much longer…they must be gonna pass out soon…

I’m agreeing with the Big Day Out people.

Down with cheap, meaningless displays of patriotism. Down, I say.

EDIT:
…in fact, if you REALLY want to do something to show your love for this country, why don’t you try voting Howard out in the next election.

That might actually mean something.

…and another thing…

We’ve indulged in a little capitalist, consumer joy in the post-christmas sales. Got two new frocks for a start.

One other thing I did get though was a cheap Divinyls best of CD. I’ve been thinking about ‘Science Fiction’ ever since we were in Tabor. I liked to sing it when I was on washing up duty and cooking up my ‘fluid’ in the kitchen…

But anyway I digress…

What I woke up wanting to say is that Divinyls and Chrissie Amphlett were awesome. Forget about ‘I touch myself’… Forget about it being a bloody fine line between pleasure and pain…

What about ‘Science Fiction’? What about ‘Boys in Town’? What about ‘Good die young’? Eh? EH?

How about Chrissie being an awsome vocalist who frightened the pants off every bloke within a 3 mile radius at a point in time sadly lacking in strong, unique female performers? Eh? Eh? EH?

There’s a woman who was doing what she do-do long before Courtney Love ripped her nightie and was a better musician to boot.

She deserves a lot better than to be relegated to a simple urban legend because of a questionable wee-wee incident…