Prodding at a very specific vulnerability
My sticky notes from Poor Artists by The White Pube:
On the urge to make art above anything else:
I didn't tell my friends and family what happened when I fell through the floorboards. I didn't have the words to talk about it at that point, only the sense that I wanted to live every day with art and only art in mind, like a superfan, devotee, groupie or professional hermit. Besides, I struggled to admit this wish because I needed it to sound serious, and it never did. When the aunties used to ask me to move back, and when they'd tell me about jobs going, they were prodding at a very specific vulnerability. I was convinced they saw 'Artist' as a pipe dream I could let go of when push came to shove.
Something the writer Clive Barker said in an interview:
My life as absolutely been transformed by the imaginative possibilities offered to me by artists. Isn't that one of the reasons we go to books and paintings and theatres and movies? We go because we want our lives enriched and that enrichment is a kind of change. We want our pain illuminated, and if it's illuminated maybe it isn't quite so bad.
On art school and a peer community:
Think about what you've gained from being here. You are about to graduate with a peer group of about two hundred people who are interested in the arts, enthusiastic, aiming for all sorts of specialisms -- people who might provide you with opportunities later on, encouragement, or a couch to sleep on; and if an opportunity pops up in Birmingham or Shanghai, you'll be so grateful for that couch. There isn't much in the way of support for artists, but a network is certainly one of them.
On forced individualism:
Funders want to back projects that are social and useful and good for publicity. But you know what was good for the public? Pubs, and they keep letting them close down. I heard the philosopher Mark Fisher talk about that at Rich Mix years ago, how capitalism has utterly forced individualism on us. Its separated everyone violently so we can't discuss its effect. If we could get together, we might realise our problems are common problems that aren't our fault, even though we tend to blame ourselves, thinking we're the failures, we haven't worked hard enough. Capitalism wants us to internalise that failure because not only will we try working harder to get ourselves into a better place, but if we think it's our fault we won't relate it back to the structures that keep us feeling like shit.
On day jobs:
He never had luck with funding or galleries. He worked in a shop and he told me once that he felt like he'd lost his identity. It sounds over the top but it so thoroughly destroyed the fabric of his existence to live the wrong existence. I get in my head about it, thinking he'd probably still be alive if there wasn't such a problem with how money is distributed in this country...
On the way money is distributed:
When I mentioned Universal Basic Income earlier, I didn't want that to sound like politicians talking about the magic money tree. These things don't have to stay in the realm of our imagination, they are already in reality. There's a pilot in Ireland that involves two thousand artists being given €325 a week. It's taxable and we don't know if it will last, but that's one attempt at levelling the playing field. If we travel a bit further, look at artists in Norway who can apply for an annual stipend. They call it a Working Grant [...] In England, there's no longevity for artists. That's so dangerous.
Down to brass tacks:
Most artists can't afford to be artists, and yet, that doesn't mean you should stop trying. It is probably an irresponsible thing for me to say, but I do believe deep down that it's worth being skint and free, rather than a bit better off and suicidal.
Mum said I could grow up to be whatever I wanted to be; school said all we had to do was go to university; university said stick together and see where life takes you. Things had not been going to plan, and I was stuck doing an irrelevant job that used up all my time and energy.
A theory bro speaks:
Bataille says that it's work -- the forcing of the self to do things other than those things that it would want to do -- that is the source of everyone's problems. That's when consciousness becomes divided from the self. ... He defines work as being an obligation to do things you don't desire, which I think is a massive problem for art because art itself is a very desirous act.
Anarchism isa distrust of authority. It's a political philosophy that images you don't need permission to do things. You can just do them. In fact, you can do whatever you want so long as it doesn't exploit another person. It's maximum freedom with maximum equality. That's the life it promises. A life in which your needs are met by your community, and your community's needs are met by you; and where that community is your primary social obligation, because there would be no welfare state to rely on. As it happens, there would be no state at all.
On dole scum:
everybody has already been made to hate people who don't work, even though working conditions are often so unendurable for the workers that they would rather go on benefits, so how fair is it to hate them and their refusal and their imagination for another way of living? The hate is tactical. We don't want to be hated, thus we try to convince ourselves we love to work. But even if we got rid of work and money, there would be roles that people took on of their own volition, such as teaching and nursing and farming, because there's a satisfaction we get from those activities that isn't financially motivated.
On "the art world":
Making art is such a lively way to spend a life, and yet, all the structures surrounding art are lifeless.
On leaving the art world:
In 1970, the artist Lee Lozano began leaving the art world. First, she boycotted galleries and dealers. Then, she cut holes in her paintings. She struggled to pay rent on her studio and eventually had to leave it. Lozanno marked her exit by calling it her Dropout Piece, writing "I will be human first, artist second. I will not seek fame, publicity, or suckcess." She stopped speaking to her collaborators and left New York for Dallas...
On a studio space:
I feel like a teenager when I'm here. A studio is close in spirit to a teenager's bedroom, because it's where someone gets to be obsessed with whatever they want, and no one bats an eye because a teenager's role is to have obsessions. I hyperfixate to the point I forget about everything else to a dangerous level. I don't need dinner, I don't need a wee.