Self-employment in the visual arts

AIR – Artists Interaction and Representation – have had research done by a-n on employment patterns for visual and applied artists. This was in the context of the Future Jobs Fund and the work done by New Deal of the Mind that I talked about a short while ago. I commented then that the focus on employment by employers, and the exclusion of self-employment, was problematic. The summary of the findings appears to back that up. I quote…

Whilst previous research by a-n, ACE and others over the last ten years suggested at least half of all practising visual and applied artists were self-employed, the new AIR survey reveals that has substantially increased.

72% of artists are self-employed
25% are a mixture of self-employed and employed
2% are unemployed
1% is employed

In terms of status by career stage:

88% of established artists are self-employed
73% of mid career artists are self-employed
67% of emerging artists are self-employed

Significantly, the overall level of self-employment amongst artists is considerably higher than for the creative industries as a whole, where it stands at 41%.

They also note that self-employment is currently excluded by the Office of Statistics when analysing the efficacy of art and design courses in creating employment, which seems perverse, given the career trajectories of those graduates.

Whilst this pattern will not be replicated right across the artforms, it is important that it is taken into full consideration by government and policy makers looking to ‘create jobs’ within the creative industries.

How can bad paintings be good?

Here's a little light relief for a Friday afternoon: a website showcasing (if that's the word) bad paintings of Barack Obama. Apparently there is an ongoing wave of artistic representations of the US President which shows no signs of abating. I find these bad ones - and some are quite spectacularly awful - rather fascinating, more so perhaps than 'better' ones. I once visited the Nelson Mandela Museum in Umtata (near where he was born) and there were rooms of similarly bad but somehow touching portraits by children from all over the world.

I wonder if there is an equivalent phenomenon of portaits of Gordon Brown I don't know about?

The Week That Was

It’s been a funny old week. Last Saturday night I was at the North East Royal Television Society Awards do in Gateshead, with much angst about the future of regional production. Sunday culminated with a meal and a frankly-fantastic Hank Williams tribute band, the Lovesick Cowboys, at my local prize-winning vegetarian restaurant, The Waiting Room. Monday and Tuesday were pretty hard days getting ready and then presenting to my staff material proposals for the Arts Council’s restructure, which must save £6.5M by 2010. (I’m not going to go into all that here, that doesn’t feel right, visit the Arts Council website for a briefing, but obviously it’s been a backdrop to everything this week.) Wednesday I helped sort through applications to be on the Artists taking the Lead panel in the North East. Thursday afternoon I took part in a stimulating think-tank for the Creative Reading Charter (something Arts Council are doing with The Reading Agency and MLA). This was chaired by Sir Brian McMaster and was the first ever meeting in what will very soon be Newcastle’s amazing new City Library. Then I drove down to Middlesbrough for the opening of two fantastic shows at mima – ‘The End of the Line: attitudes in drawing’ and ‘Raising the Bar: Influential voices in metal’ (craft metal not Spinal Tap). Next I went over to The Georgian Theatre in Stockton to see my wife and daughter in the Diaspora Vocal Choir (a collection of immigrants to Stockton from all over the world under the direction of the marvellous Mike McGrother) as part of a celebration of a number of local community arts projects. (Then I went to play fiveaside but we’d be into the S of DCMS at that point so I’ll stop.)

And that’s just the things I can tell you about... (Well, I could tell you about management team meetings and how many emails I've read and sent, if you really want, but you know what I mean.)

The highlight of the week though, was Wednesday afternoon’s Samling Masterclass at the Sage Gateshead. Samling Foundation, run by the remarkable Karon Wright, provide training and development for emerging opera singers, called ‘Samling Scholars’. Six of them were in the middle of an intense week of masterclass work with a team led by Sir Thomas Allen, and submitted themselves to a public version – to a capacity audience in The Sage Gateshead’s Hall 2. At that point in the week, it was just what I needed. I’m far from an opera buff. But the fantastic music was moving and uplifting. What was even better was the way the masterclass format revealed the process of making really great art. A process rooted in dissatisfaction – never being satisfied with really good, but always looking for improvement. Seeing Sir Thomas Allen and colleagues lead the young singers through the piece and find deeper meaning and expression in text and melody and portrayal was brilliant, a vivid demonstration of artistic tradition and development. It also helped me understand the difference between good and excellence in opera singing, just a little, which was great. (Next someone can do likewise for free jazz perhaps?)

Clearly this was a powerful experience for the ‘scholars’. It’s intensive and expensive, and not a process supported by Arts Council funds at the moment, though we have supported some Samling projects previously, as well as rather reluctantly turning some down. (Karon takes the approach of inviting us whether we fund or not – in fact, I suspect she takes some kind of masochistic pleasure in ensuring I see how good their productions are without our support.) We can not support everything, nor should we, and there are other ways for young opera talent to develop we do support, but there's no denying the excellence of the art created. But I’m glad Samling continue to find support when and where needed.

So I was reminded, in a full and tricky week, about the nature of art, the power of art, and the challenge of art, all at once. (If this were a story I would of course have moved it from Wednesday to Friday afternoon for dramatic closure effect, but life is not art…)

The Week That Was, by the way, are a great band from Sunderland. Watch one of their videos here. It wasn't filmed in our office (that only makes sense if you watch it) though it does feature someone who used to work here. (Hi Laura.)

When is a hoax not a hoax?

I nearly posted about the art project celebrating the Czech Presidency of the EU earlier this week – a giant model kit with different bits by 27 artists, one from each country. The British one being missing, to reflect the supposed attitude to the EU. I thought it was kind of funny. As did the Telegraph’s EU correspondent. The brochure did seem oddly full of visualartspeak though. (Visualartspeak is like artspeak with extra syllables and more reference to French philosophers and less reference to English as it is spoken.)

Well, turns out it’s actually even funnier as there are not 27 artists, just one, David Cerny. This is being reported as a ‘£350,000 EU art hoax’. (Certain newspapers must have thought their dream story had come true but for the absence of explicit reference to asylum seekers. ) It's also caused diplomatic ripples as reported here. So long as David Cerny hasn’t fraudulently made off with money that was designed for other people’s fees, I’m not sure I see this as a hoax so much as a fiction. (Thinking of the way early novels like Molls Flanders and Robinson Crusoe purported to be true memoirs.) He has played with images of artists as well as of countries. It’s a classic kind of arty anti-art gesture, or more simply perhaps a properly serious spoof of the EU, artists, artspeak and the commissioning process. Although it plays into prejudices that all modern art is somehow a confidence trick on the public, it seems a serious, though amusing project.

Whether it's a belly laugh, a smile or a smirk the work raises it's undoubtedly a lot funnier than the new BBC radio comedy ‘Broken Arts’, which is, I think, an attempt to spoof arts programmes and the arts. But then, I do often think certain Radio 4 evening comedies must be hoaxes as surely they can’t seriously have gone through all the commissioning and editing processes and still have been thought a good idea. (I will, however, forgive them a lot for the brilliant Count Arthur Strong and Listen Against.)

Credit without the crunch?

One of the things I do for the Arts Council is chair the board of ArtCo, the trading company which runs both the Take It Away and Own Art interest free credit schemes. I never thought I'd find myself having meetings with credit providers but there you go: great art for everyone, by any means necessary. (Not that credit provision really counts as sticking it to The Man!) Although some purists have baulked, especially in the visual arts, where putting the subsidy into the customer rather than the curator/gallerist/artist has raised eyebrows, both schemes have made a real difference to many people.

Last month Take It Away combined with Oasis and NME to promote that scheme, and learning to play an instrument. Now Own Art has recently given you the opportunity to creating your own art collection on line. It's a fun diversion - it's a Sims-style design game - and you can also found out more about the scheme. As I say, this may not please purists.

You can find my own art collection on there somewhere. My real house is actually decorated mainly with books and records and the shelves to keep them on. The rest is largely maps, both literal and metaphorical.