ARTISTS TALKING

# 49 [14 February 2008]

POST SCRIPT – LETTING GO

I’m leaving the blog alone for now. I wanted to be honest about what has happened but I also think that continuing to be negative isn’t a whole lot of good to anyone. Especially when it’s clear that, from the point of view of most other members, everything is fine.

One of my biggest contributions has been to present Exeter Artspaces to the world – to make the case for CIC status, for funding, for rates relief, for public support. To produce online materials, campaigning leaflets and press releases. I once described myself as a "walking billboard" and I was, sometimes pounding the streets of Exeter to talk to artists, arts projects and local businesses.

But what’s occurred to me in the last few weeks is that I was still out there communicating the original version of the project, when in fact it has changed. Exactly how has yet to be reflected in our public face, but I expect it will happen. The point was, I had started to feel dishonest about the way I was representing us. To make things worse, many people assumed I was one of those leading the project, which alienated the remaining directors further.

Lots of people have commented that this kind of management meltdown is not unusual in artists’ projects, it’s just that it’s never been quite so publicly documented before. I have very mixed feelings about what I’ve done here in this blog, but that’s been part of the experiment too. But, I’ve received more positive feedback than negative and, apart from one or two bruised egos (including mine), I think – hope – it’s been useful.

So it’s time for me to adopt a much lower profile, to get back into my studio and let the project evolve the way the members want it to go.

# 48 [11 February 2008]

END OF STORY

Tim says it’s like we pushed a boulder up a hill and they're letting it roll down again.

At the members’ meeting on Sunday I poked and I prodded the directors and I occasionally preached. I felt very uncomfortable doing it. But I also knew I’d feel even worse later if I didn’t at least try to air some of the problems while there’s still time to solve them. Sadly, I don’t think I achieved much except a new reputation as the studio whinger. Most members simply don’t care about things like not following regulations or policy being made up as we go along. Not yet anyway. They are just so bloody grateful to have a studio space and someone – anyone – to run it for them.

There’s a battle to be fought but I can’t fight it on my own.

Someone raised the issue of whether starting to run community workshops could be helpful to our future fundability. Francis responded by saying he didn’t see why it all needed to be so complicated. Our aim was to set up studio spaces "and we’ve done that: end of story."

# 47 [10 February 2008]

PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Several people have said they thought I resigned as a director of Exeter Artspaces because it was too big a commitment for me. Not true.

To recap: I resigned because I believed that some of my fellow directors were not acting in the best interests of the project, its members and their fellow directors.

I’ve now sat here for five weeks waiting for them to prove that their free-and-easy approach to running a studio is taking us where we want to go. I genuinely hoped it would, because I’ve really appreciated all the extra time in my studio.

To be fair, nothing disastrous has happened. Things are bit messier, a few people are behind on their rent, but we’re muddling along. Which may be fine if all you’re interested in is short-term studio space – or, in the case of two directors, cheap storage. However, if you see this as an opportunity to establish much-needed permanent art/studio space in Exeter, you will be utterly frustrated that we’re not grabbing this chance to acquire the necessary skills, profile and credibility.

To have a future beyond this temporary building, we are going to need substantial investment or subsidy and a good few friends in high places. The kind of support we’re talking about is unlikely to be handed to people who don't even seem to be able to organise a meeting properly. We’re asking people to trust us with serious money and some important reputations.

It’s good to dream of the day when we’ll have a permanent base and some professional arts administrators to help us run things. But we also need to imagine how we’re going to get there. Organising viewings of unaffordable, impractical buildings and muttering vaguely about Arts Council support do not constitute a business plan. And sitting around a plate of biscuits on a Sunday afternoon saying "who feels like doing fundraising?" isn’t managing a business.

I want this to work so much that I’ve been pretending (even to myself) that everything’s OK. But it really isn’t. We could squander everything we’ve achieved so far because I’m too scared to stand up in public and voice my concerns about some of the people who are running our project. There, you see, I’m bloody useless too.

# 46 [31 January 2008]

(DIS)ORGANISATION

I had to put my business head on to meet the creative industries man from the council, and it’s been hard to take it off again. Artists are potentially as good as anyone else at doing business, but we may want to do it in different ways. If we decide to break, bend, wiggle or ignore established business principles, are we being creatively subversive and free-spirited or just plain dumb?

This question hovered in the background of my meeting last week. First there is the whole issue of whether all visual art can (or should) be considered a creative industry. Philip from the council was interested in how we could contribute to the city’s economic development.

He was comfortable with the artists who are making work to sell through commercial outlets but struggled a little with my insistence on calling myself a professional artist when I do other jobs to support and even subsidise my art practice. He could see the group’s impact on culture and tourism and our potential to create small amounts of economic activity (buying goods and services, using redundant buildings). He really liked the way we pool skills, knowledge and opportunities. He was encouraged by the partnerships we’ve started to form with local businesses and hoped we’d also build more links with colleges. And he was keen for us to have some business advice.

Of course any business adviser is likely to suggest we follow a few tried and tested methods for running our organisation. Things like forward planning and delegating responsibility are bound to come up. When I mentioned this offer of free support to one director, he looked positively wobbly at the prospect. Business training is the kind of thing people become artists to avoid.

It’s a difficult thing. I certainly never want to have to measure the studio group’s value to Exeter in monetary terms. But the actual running of the project is a different matter. Presuming we want to survive, the books have to balance, next week, next month, next year. Our future survival depends on more than just keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll find a new building. We don’t have to be business people, but we do have to learn how to work with them and, sometimes, how to work like them.

# 45 [26 January 2008]

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Our problems with (lack of) collaboration continue, except this time I’m seeing them from the other side. I’ve done a bit of housekeeping to remove the smellier mess from the studios, have been trying to follow through on the rates relief and, yesterday, I honoured an appointment I’d made previously with a creative industries specialist from the council.

But the more out of touch with the centre I become, the less I can do. I need information and – yup – direction. The directors have asked us for help and read out to us a list of areas where we could help. But that was it - they haven’t actually told us how we can help. It makes it easy to head off to your studio and tell yourself that helping out can’t really be that important. Otherwise there would be more fuss about it.

But it’s worrying. If as a member you don't take an interest in what’s going on, it encourages others to make decisions on your behalf. Decisions that, one day, you really might not agree with. For example, at the recent studio meeting, we heard that one set of decisions would be made "at the directors’ discretion".

It’s not that the outcomes of these decisions were bad, but I would feel more comfortable for all of us if the process had been more transparent.

Our directors do not own Exeter Artspaces. They are not our landlords or our bosses. They are the current legal guardians of the community interest company and coordinators of a collaborative project. We need to be involved in what they are doing. For example, the money in the bank account belongs to everyone and – for their own protection as well as ours – the directors need to demonstrate they are being scrupulous in their care of it.

And as members of a community interest company, we really should request that our directors are fully accountable to us. It’s down to all of us to get this right.

# 44 [22 January 2008]

YOURS & MINE

I decided to have a look at the ways artists in Red Lion Lane mark the boundaries between communal space and their personal working spaces.

# 43 [18 January 2008]

THE MEMBRANE

Had a studio meeting on Sunday where it was announced that I was "stepping down". We all skirted politely around the reasons and it’s probably for the best. The remaining directors have decided to try to appoint two directors in my place, which I’d find rather flattering if I didn’t suspect it’s because they think another one is about to walk.

This week I’ve spent something like 12 hours (count ‘em) in my studio actually doing art and managed to fit in some paid work and thinking time too. I confess that now I‘m working there more regularly (and don’t have to set such a good example), I have caved in over the privacy/artpoo thing (see 14 September) and allowed myself to hang some sheets of plastic across the front of the space. With almost everyone else closeted away, I was beginning to feel like a bit of an exhibitionist.

So a semi-public space has become a semi-private space. It’s only three removable pieces of translucent polythene, but it makes a massive difference (and not only to the draughts). It definitely separates me. I’m less visible, less connected.

By resigning, I removed myself from the organisational centre of the project. By making this small change to my workspace I’ve made a physical representation of it. I’ve also conformed to the studio norm – of seclusion. I have to admit it feels cosier, like being behind net curtains, and so just a little bit suburban.

# 42 [12 January 2008]

ARTISTS AGAINST ADMIN

Andy Warhol might have said that being good at business is the best kind of art, but he hadn’t tried running a Devon studio project.

This was my first week in the studios as an ordinary member. Of course I have regrets, but resigning as a director really has its compensations. All that corporate stuff was eating my right brain. I couldn’t believe how delicious and uncomplicated it felt to go into my studio knowing I only had to worry about my own creative stuff.

Much as I was hoping for personal practice and studio business to merge creatively, business got the upper hand. I’m quite comfortable with business stuff (too comfortable perhaps). I find it quite absorbing in the short term but, in the bigger picture, it is not what I came here for. I think about what would have happened if two or three other directors had left instead of me and how I would have been sucked right back in, except deeper.

In an article last year published on www.aliasarts.org, Dominic Thomas comments on "the artist-led group as the underpaid administrators and managers of local cultural activity" and "the transformation of artists into efficient arts administrators". It’s not just the exploitation – it’s the cost to creative freedom and the impingement on creative time. It’s what thinking about cash flows and health and safety legislation does to your brain.

I’ve worked on this project consistently for 18 months, flat-out for the last five. I’ve built profile and networked us, written business plans and funding proposals, set up a business structure, drafted terms and conditions, created membership systems, issued press releases, painted walls, talked to lawyers, negotiated with electricians, emptied bins, filled in forms … I think I’ve earned a bit of unencumbered studio time.

And after weeks of struggling against a torrent of administration and maintenance work, the disruption of the opening event, bitter cold and Christmas, this week I was finally able to finish the painting that was commissioned from me back in October.

For the time being, I think I’m back on track.

# 41 [8 January 2008]

Continued from previous post...

After 18 months of hard work, this really hurts. A big part of me wanted to stick in there and fight my corner, but I think it’s better to go before work issues sour into something much more personal. As it is, I’ll still be around to help and support the directors where I can, but the legal, financial and managerial responsibilities (and liabilities) are now all theirs. Here’s hoping a new director will change the dynamic and enable them to move on.

I may have given up my roles as a director and company secretary but I haven’t given up on the project and I certainly haven’t given up on the idea of sustainable, affordable shared studio space for Exeter. I hope Exeter Artspaces succeeds (it contains my blood, sweat and tears after all). But if it doesn’t – I’ll be back!

# 40 [8 January 2008]

Unhappy new year. I’ve resigned as a director of Exeter Artspaces CIC.

Six months as a director may not seem long, but we are at a critical point right now and we all need to review our position. Is this what you want? Is it working out the way you hoped? I know some members have done this because we’ve received notice on their spaces.

Getting going is one thing – chaotic, frantic. But now we’re in a whole new phase and our approach needs to change. The studios are in routine use and the directors have to manage a business day to day and plan the project’s future.

Despite occasional frustrations, I rate our start-up a huge success. In recent weeks, however, I’ve repeatedly raised concerns about our legal, financial and other responsibilities. We needed to get organised, not just in an administrative sense but as a team of directors.

I made what I felt was a strong and final bid to sort this out at the beginning December. I thought I’d finally got us started on tackling it. Actions and deadlines were agreed, but no one apart from me and Ruth really did anything. And it all felt horribly familiar.

So last Sunday I had to tell three of our directors that, while I was convinced of their good intentions, I no longer had confidence in them. They offered me all sorts of promises and possibilities, but none seemed to address the underlying problem that we’re simply not managing. Not planning, not consulting members, not putting essential controls in place, not setting up processes, not even agreeing on what’s important…

I’m sure they found my rejection of their suggestions puzzling and hurtful. To be honest, it would have been fairer to them if I’d got madder sooner about some of the things that have been bugging me. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.

Especially as I think they’re not engaging with our issues partly because they don’t have time. One director is living and working half the week in Cardiff with only limited access to email, another is in full-time employment and studying part-time for an MA. The third keeps having to delay or pull out of things. To top it all, Ruth now has a brand new baby son to look after. Although I still have faith in her, I know her priorities have changed.

I asked them to consider moving on to make room for directors with more time or experience to work alongside me and Ruth, but they didn’t want to budge – and so I resigned instead. It’s not just the uneven distribution of work or the frustrations of not getting stuff done. Directors of limited companies can face fines and even prison terms for failing to comply with the law. You have to trust your fellow directors to look out for you as well as themselves. For me personally – at this time with this team – that trust is missing.

...continues