What Am I?

What do you want to do when you leave uni? That question that gets utters more and more as third year comes and (in not to long) goes. I'm a student doing a joint honours degree in Fine Art and Art History, so this immediatly raises questions as to what I am, and what I want to do. While it is not easy for any student who graduates and then has to decide upon their future, it seems increasingly difficult for arts students who don't appear to have any set career path in front of them.

This problem has many dimensions and many different angles and I don't pretend to be aware of them all and I certainly don't pretend to understand them all, but what I can say is that becoming increasingly obvious that any arts student has to be versatile. There has to be an openness about the arts almost as a given due to the nature of many arts based organisations, i.e. an open mindedness to dance, music, poetry amongst many others on top of the traditional fine arts. After this though I find that many graduates are trying several different roles in order to develop themselves, this includes writing, curating, selling as well as physical craft based skills. Many roles in the arts include several skills but also there comes the problem of lack of experience in a certain field, this is where the versatility comes into play. A Broad range of skill sets will allow for doorways to open without perhaps overly specific experience

All of this is well and good, but it doesn't answer the perhaps maybe initially simple small talk question of "what do you want to do when you finish uni?". Given my above thoughts I would say that any answer will probably just list off all my previous work experience as a specific field hasn't yet emerged, so perhaps in order to answer the question, the best answer might just be "Art stuff probably"...

Uni Summer Holidays = Art crisis

The summer holidays are a a time of mixed emotions for Art LAD, why? well because of several things. First; no studio, the university closes the studios and doesn't allow you to use them until about one week into term. Second; Where has all the decent art gone? Art LAD feels as though this summer has been relativly     poor on the art front. There have been several good shows, Hirst, Invisible, Deptford X; however, most of London hasn't quite cut it for me! I wanted more. This I suppose is a question of taste and thus I shall say no more.

Back to the studio problem though, where can one have a space to do work without having to pay asecond rent effectively? For students who are already paying £3500 to have the use of studios it seems a little ridiculous to have to pay over the summer, but yet still be expected to carry on working and thinking about work. This is another area where the Unis let down the students. Virtually all artists like to have a separate area to do their work, they like to have some  type of separation.

While this studio down time has been an inconvenience to me and my work (having to complete work for two shows in my bedroom was, excuse my French, a ball ache), there is the added benefit of being able to do an internship with ALISN at their gallery Lubomirov-Easton and write for Artfinder (check out my profile). In all I felt a slight art crisis this summer, by way of lack of quality art in London and from myself!

Invigilating delight

Many gallery interns and workers alike spend many hours every week invigilating various shows and works throughout the various galleries in our fair town. Many of these interns also find themselves doing this without previous knowledge of the entailment of a gallery interns duties. While invigilating is an essential role within a gallery as one serves to protect the artwork as some kind of art bouncer (although in reality there isn't much one could do as the chances are that the intern is scrawny and arty), and also there to provide a Q and A type service for customer who assume that because you spend all day sitting there in the same room the work, that you know every last thing about it.  While I might have had some of the easier invigilating jobs, working in smaller galleries hence being allowed to sit and use a computer, I feel that there is a certain sense of duty as an art student and art lover to start at the bottom and to quote a great man, Mr. Bean, "And my job is to sit and look at paintings". In this fast paced social media world, a few hours of contemplation breathing in the aura of the art (haha) can't be all that bad. I still maintain that it isn't the most enthralling job; however, the corniness of the aura of the artwork, being around the physical object itself rather than viewing it on a screen, can really help in the understanding of works, and can possibly really help draw out some useful criticality for young artists and critics.

Are art students losing out to art conversion students?

 I have noticed recently an increasing amount of people involved in the arts how have either taken a secondary degree in the arts or who have had some kind of conversion/postgrad qualification. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but perhaps it would be prudent of Arts based educational establishments to further prepare thier students for life beyond university with more applied skills. Now of course there are many creative entrepreneurial students from arts backgrounds; however it remains that there is still a low employability rate from this area post graduation. 

In order to solve this universites, colleges etc must provide at least some lessons in some form of business related areas, this would give all students a better founding when they are released into the real world, whether they go on to be artists, gallerists or waiters. Even though there are great career services at many of these establishments, not enough of the students regular see or visit these services. 

Because of this I propose the introduction of some kind of compolsaory careers lecture for arts students to attend once a term in order to give them a better chance of getting a job within the arts to ensure the developement of the field upon them graduating. 

try this one out IdeasTap

Yoko Ono- #smilesfilm

Im afraid I'm in a synicle mood so this is a synicle piece inspired by these words;

Send a smile to your friend so he/she can smile, too.
Think of a way to do it.
You could send a photo that says ‘smile’,
or a picture, a story, or a piece of pie,
but specify that it’s a smile you’re passing on.
Ask him/her to do the same:
to pass on the ‘smile’ in his/her own way.
Love,

Yoko Ono

What does it mean to smile? well its some form of facial expression characterized by turning up the corners of the mouth, this often to signal pleasure. What if we are broadcasting that pleasure to everyone at the will of one person? Does it not remind you of some kind of quasi Kim Jong-Ill brainwashing. While there remains some nice gesture in getting everyone to smile and send it around the world, to "brighten" our live ands days etc. I find it somewhat more sinister in terms of our kneeling to a celebrity artist. Smile like your happy, then submit it via social media to an online database, to me that seems like keeping up appearances as it were; however, i think i have taken this too far, smiles are infectious, and this is a cute way of perhaps extending alot of Ono's other works that imply a universality between us all. A smile is a simple thing that transcends boundaries of all kinds.

So in light of this don't miss the Yoko Ono show To The Light at the Serpentine Gallery

Escaping South London

Don't get me wrong, I love south London, especially South East London where i have been based for 2 years now; however, after putting on a show this week in Peckham at the Last Refuge, and inviting everyone under the sun, including bosses dads, mums, uncles, aunties, various contacts etc, south of the river just seems to far for anyone with the dollar or the interest to come. Traditionally arty types have moved to wherever is cheap and infested and overrun that area until it is expensive. They then migrate with the new generation to a new area and do the same again. It seems as though South East is where this is happening again with areas like Deptford seeing a large number of galleries etc popping up; however, while the art types in terms of the practicing artist are in great number, the buyers are not, and this leaves me with the sneaky suspicion that perhaps crossing the river South was a bad idea.

Now while I am aware that while being a Goldsmiths student Deptford seems like the perfect area to get work shown as it is just up the road, I do worry that I will get stuck here and never escape, I can already feel that worry of crossing the river to go North to visit friends and family, the classic North/South divide has hit me and I'm worried that it might soon be too late...Despite this I am glad to have such a fantastic art community around me, I just hope that we can move our work North of the river, to the business side of things when the time comes. 

Art Lad of the Month- Nick Horton

So it has come, the Art Lad of the Month or alotm. anyone who foloows the twitter account will already know, but for those who don't, this month the inaugural month into this award has gone to an inspiration of mine, a recently fellow student, who has combined LADy behavior with an art degree of a high standard. That man is Nick Horton. I think Nick is a fine example of an Art Lad, why? well because he may not convey the stereotype LADy behavior, apart from going to the gym; however, he is a fine considered man, a gentleman (gentleLAD) who took me under his wing, showed me the ropes and and passed on the great wisdom of the grandfather of Art Lads (this a man to be revealed at a later date), plus he has also just finished his degree show.

His work utilises "lo-fi" elements of popular culture, through technique (spray paint) and text, to create atmospheric space like images. He is certainly a painter interested in the act of painting, in the gesture of a mark made when plunged into historically referenced theories on perspective and form. There is also some nod towards a containment of the universe, an ever expanding object, placed into an oblong which is very measured and precise. Have a look at his cargo page or his page in the Goldsmiths Undergraduate catalog