ARTISTS TALKING

Bringing you updates and announcements on a-n people, partners and projects.

New to team

We’re very pleased to announce that John Beagles is joining a-n’s Commissioning Editors team. Based in Glasgow, John has exhibited widely and internationally with collaborator Graham Ramsay. They’re currently showing in ‘Romantic detachment’ at PS1 in New York runs until 7 November and they recently had a solo show at Chapter in Cardiff. Their work can be seen at www.beaglesramsay.co.uk

John brings to the team his substantial knowledge of issues around contemporary practice and of artists’ activity in Scotland. He also writes and is a lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art.

Led by Gillian Nicol, the Commissioning Editors team develops and commissions new content for use across a-n’s published products.

Code of practice for the visual arts

In publishing the Code of Practice for the Visual Arts in June 2003, we made a commitment to its wide distribution, by free access on www.a-n.co.uk and through a printed booklet. By June 2004, we had distributed 20,000 booklets. A further 20,000 will be distributed during 2005-06.

As part of our strategy to keep it ‘live’, between November 2003 and August 2004 we undertook twenty-five presentations or seminars with some 550 artists and arts professionals participating. Event partners include the APD network, Engage and NALGAO, galleries and cultural industries organisations.

If you’d like to host a Code of Practice event in your area, we are looking for partners for events during 2005/06. We provide an experienced presenter who can field questions and generate discussion, an information pack for each participant and promote Code of Practice events as a calendar in a-n Magazine. Hosts are responsible for handling promotion and bookings for events, providing equipment and venue and usually make a financial contribution to the overall costs. For more information contact, 0191 241 8000 or info@a-n.co.uk

Evaluations to date reveal widespread satisfaction with the Code of Practice, with artists and arts organisers recognising it as a means of framing good practice against their approaches and strategies.

“I’ve already used the Code to negotiate with a teacher in a school I was working in. I said I needed it back, but he’s kept it.” Artist in education Sheffield

•93% said it provides useful guidelines they can apply to their practice

•89% said it provides practical examples that they can employ in their practice

•89% said it highlights how artists and arts professionals apply these principles to their practice

•82% said it is something they will refer to on a regular basis

•83% said it demonstrated how they could apply the guidelines to their practice

•86% said it enabled them to recognise how they could improve their professional relationships

•87% said it suggested where they could go to for access to further advice and information

•62% said it helped them to identify areas in which they need more training or support

•72% felt more confident about embarking on professional arrangements

•63% felt they could behave more like a visual arts professional

•75% said they knew more about how to avoid difficulties within professional arrangements

•80% said they knew more about artists’ approaches to professional practice

•76% said they knew more about where to look for professional advice and information

Asked about the websites they regularly used for professional development and information, top sites for artists and arts organisers were www.a-n.co.uk (83%), www.artscouncil.org.uk (30%) and www.artquest.org.uk (29%)

We also used the Code of Practice seminars to find out about the kinds of training and advice arts professionals though they would need in the future. 39% identified the need for specialist training including making presentations, marketing and business techniques, IT, web set up, 35% wanted access to mentoring, 18% wanted their own website. Significantly only 2% said they wanted legal advice, a statistic that mirrors findings from monitoring a-n’s artists’ telephone, run between 1997-2001.

Additional resources

Additional resources have been published since a-n launched its Code of Practice for the Visual Arts. Launched in June, The artist’s development toolkit provides self-reflective material for artists at all career stage and for art and design students, enabling them to review their position and develop their practice. This material is free on www.a-n.co.uk and accessible to artists coming through www.a-n.co.uk and through participating organisations in the APD network.

The artist’s contracts toolkit went online on www.a-n.co.uk (subscriber-only) during July. This interactive material aims to provide thinking and learning material around “preparing thoroughly”. Artists can use the material to create their own contracts or inform negotiations over contracts.
Next in the good practice portfolio is establishing a charge rate for a working artist – see inside this issue – part of a new set of practical and negotiating material around artists’ fees and payments to be published for artists and employers during 2004/05.