ARTISTS TALKING

Introduction

These profiles focus on socially-engaged practice, in which an artist's relationship with people is an integral aspect of the process of art-making.

It includes Michael Pinksy who has supported himself through residencies, Pauline Bailey for whom collaboration in her work is a key element, Martin Heron who was supported through a sculpture residency by Art House, and Ben Sadler whose first residency in a gallery led onto others, creating a support mechanism for his work.

Ben Sadler

Towards the end of the third year I set up a group show at The Custard Factory. It was about us leaving college and not really knowing what we were going to do. Debbie (Kermode) from Ikon Gallery came to see the show and that's how I ended up working there.

Meeting artists who were already established offered a lot as far as getting information as to how you can make your way through the art world. I quickly realised that sending my stuff out to galleries wasn't going to achieve much for me at that point.

In the third year of my degree course we had seminars that spelled out what it was going to be like to be an artist. A lot of people went straight out and started looking for jobs in other areas as they realised that this wasn't what they wanted. As I couldn't afford a studio this started shaping the work so it gradually developed into this other way of working which is more about process.

I did a residency at B16 Gallery in 2000 when I lived there for three months and used the postcode boundary as the boundary of an island. It became a more social way of making work and I've had quite a lot of opportunities come from that.

Doing the Grizedale residency with Phil Duckworth as juneau/projects/, has been my first big collaborative project. With the juneau stuff, I make pieces I'd probably never make on my own, but you put our two practices together and you get this interesting third entity coming out.

Although I still have an independent practice I have realised that the main way I was going to be able carry on producing projects was to have a range of fields of work so you can flip from one project to another.

I make enough money to fund my projects and then everything beyond that is dependent on doing other work like workshops. For the last two years these have been my main way of supporting myself, along with odd jobs like installation work at galleries. I don't make a fantastic amount of money from it.

I think you need almost a predisposition towards being an artist and you have to be professional about the way you do stuff. I think a lot of it is tenacity, keeping on going and taking the knock backs.

I'm quite glad I didn't know any of this stuff when I left college. Having that naivety then is a good thing as it helps you get over the first couple of years, which are really hard, as you've got this kind of blind faith in the whole system and the art world. I'm much more cynical now and I think if I'd been like that then I may well have just given up.

I'd always wanted to do a masters. On a practical level, I like doing workshops and lecturing and an MA will be really useful for that. For me, it's been a way of broaching London and of taking stock of what I've been doing.

You don't normally get to meet other artists that much to talk about work whereas now, on a daily basis, I've got thirty of forty people around who are all in the same situation. It's so much easier to get things done here as well and to learn new skills like video editing. I can consolidate things on my MA and come out of it as a more rounded artist.

Ben Sadler did BFA (Hons) Fine Art at Ruskin College, Oxford (1995-1998 and is now studying on MA Sculpture at the Royal College of Art.

Martin Heron

I started reading a-n Magazine at college. I even started applying for commissions before I graduated. I knew I didn't stand much of a chance because I didn't have the experience, but I thought that going through the process of applying would be a useful exercise.

When I was at college I was really only aware of the commissioning side of public art and not the surrounding practices, such as the community-based workshops and talks that are increasingly common. I began to feel that public art should involve the public, and I still believe that today. When I first left college I worked for several years in a hospital occupational therapy department. It turned out to be really useful experience when it came to setting up and running workshops for other groups.

One of my biggest projects came about when I responded to an advert in [a-n] MAGAZINE for a disabled artist to undertake a six-month residency on the Irwell Way Sculpture Trail. I was keen to get it on my own merit as an artist, but having being diagnosed with a long-term illness at that time, I was encouraged to apply because of the on-site support that was available for the artist if required. Coincidentally I'd read an article in the magazine a few weeks before about The Art House, an organisation for disabled and non-disabled artists. They were brilliant and helped me sort out the paperwork involved with my benefits, and organised technical support to enable me to undertake the work.

Recently I was involved in an Art House initiative called Outside the Box. The idea was that you received by post a box with an object in it, made a piece in response to it and added your work to the box and sent it on to the next artist, until the project was completed. I liked the immediacy of that way of working. I was pleased when [a-n] MAGAZINE reviewed the resulting exhibition and featured my work.

I think that early on in your career you have to do a mix of paid and unpaid work to get the experience and raise your profile, so that you can apply for better-paid work in the future. Currently I do a lot of work for a West Midlands-based organisation called Creative Arts Consultancy. It's great that now I'm more established, I seldom have to go through the process of applying for commissions because organisations like this tend to approach me directly.

Pauline Bailey

My work always involves some level of collaboration even when it is a very personal project – communication feeds my creativity so much more than working in isolation. On completion of my BA,

I wanted to go straight on to MA but, as a mature student with children and bills to pay, I just couldn't afford it. Despite this, I remained resolute in my ambition to develop a career in the arts and was determined that I wouldn't have to go to London to achieve it. I took on part-time jobs, mainly teaching and coordinating projects and started working for Second Sight, a now disbanded women's video production company in Birmingham.

Eventually I set up my own company, Shomari Productions, organising video, theatre and live art events with all kinds of artists and community groups. From 1999 to 2001 I worked with the Arts and Community team for Birmingham City Council then returned to freelance last year to pursue my own work and to complete my MA. If you want to get anywhere in the arts you can't stand still, things change so quickly.

To be successful, I have had to become completely chameleon-like – juggling running a business with teaching, running workshops and exhibiting.

Pauline Bailey did a BA (Hons) in Humanities and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton (1985-1988) and an MA in Fine Art at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (2000-2002).

Michael Pinsky

Immediately after my degree, I went through the Directory of Exhibition Spaces (published previously by [a-n] and now out of print) and approached literally hundreds of venues ' even on holiday I looked up the local galleries and took my portfolio to show them.

This somewhat manic publicity campaign was a great success. However, with ten shows a year earning me on average just £300, I quickly realised this wasn't the way forward: you can promote yourself forever but at some point you need to start making a living. Since my MA, I have managed to support myself through residencies, many of which have come through advertisements in [a-n] MAGAZINE. As I have gained experience my proposals have become more focused and I am now fairly sure that if I apply I will be successful. Since 2001, I have made a semi-deliberate move into public art commissions.

As part of Hull Time Based Arts (HTBA) River Commissions, I have just installed Symposium, a car cut in half and split across a bridge. Moving from residencies to public projects is something of a leap of faith since my work is generally a bit extreme for many local authorities. Fortunately the more experienced commissioning agencies such as HTBA are prepared to take the risk.

Michael Pinsky did a BA (Hons) in Visual and Performing Arts at Brighton Polytechnic (1988-1991) and an MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art (1993-1995).

The writers

Libby Anson is an independent professional, creative and personal development consultant, who also works as a freelance lecturer and writer.

Abigail Branagan is a freelance consultant and marketing director of the Applied Arts Agency - a retail and gallery space in Clerkenwell, London. Originally trained in fine art, she has been working in the creative sector for eight years and has undertaken projects for a range of organisations, including Mazorca Projects, London.

Mark Gubb is an artist based in Nottingham working in a range of disciplines from painting to installation to video. His installation and film commission for Grizedale Arts references classic British horror and its cross pollination with American culture. A lecturer at the University of Derby, South East Derbyshire College and a regular contributor to a-n's publications, he is also co-director of artist-led initiative Loadstar.

Wendy Mason is a designer-maker in Yorkshire who also works as an arts consultant and trainer.

Graham Parker is an artist, critic, curator and lecturer involved in artist-led initiatives in Manchester. His work has been commissioned by Henry Moore Institute and Tate Gallery, Liverpool (Artranspennine), Manchester City Art Gallery, Compton Verney, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. He has shown extensively in the UK and internationally. He is Visual Arts Officer at Salford University and co-course leader of Tate Liverpool's University Network MA course module and artistic director (with Dave Beech) of floating ip project space Manchester.

Emma Safe is an artist and writer on the visual arts based in Birmingham.

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