I’m a free Birds, RIP uni

The past year has been quite a journey, I began as exclusively a painter, I’d been selling and exhibiting as a painter for a couple of years, but I was at a point where I wanted to expand my practice and push the limits of what I could do. This was because a lot of my work had become terribly similar, and I didn’t feel like I was growing as an artist, and honestly a lot if my artwork started to feel like a product since my predominant driver was sales. This year I took the time to both deconstruct my practice, and also my intentions behind making work. Little did I know that the intention behind my work would end up being questioning the intention behind artwork, wether that be pleasing an institution, an audience, parents or gaining sales. This was something that really started to come together because of doing my MA, since being part of an institution whilst creating art has affected my art so greatly, due to the expectations of each unit, the potential opinions from tutors and peers, the facilities and education provided and even the ethical guidelines within the university. To be completely honest, having all of this around me felt restrictive, and I almost felt held back, and I wanted to rebel against that, which is what my recent work has reflected. It’s all my fight against, honestly insecurity, I’m both rebelling against the expectations others may have if me, and also the expectations I have of myself.

It’s all been really diaristic, my words in the books I’ve made, and on the walls all reflect thoughts Ive had throughout the past year whilst creating work. I didn’t want to hide these thoughts, or somehow romanticise them to make them palatable, I just wanted to say them bluntly and as they are, which either seems to make them uncomfortable or funny to read. Where my work is currently, I don’t aim to answer any questions, more just promote people to ask them more, I want people to look at their own work and ask themselves why they do it, and to ask themselves if they love it. This goes beyond just art as well, with this line of continuous questioning and curiosity, I want people to question what they do in there own lives, why they do it, and if they love it? I think a lot of us don’t really how much things around us have influenced the way we live, and I think questioning is always a good way to help ourselves understand our what’s and whys so we can live authentically and truly.

With this project specifically, at the same time as opening up this line of questioning with the audience, I also wanted to poke fun at how we value art in the art world. I have very strong values, and my ethics are really important when it comes to creating work, so creating something that wasn’t using loads of brand new materials to just sit around or go to landfill was really important to me. So for my books I created I set a rule with myself that I’m not allowed to buy anything to make them, so both the books and the word piece on the wall are completely made from waste or artwork that I repurposed. This rule was also out in place because I believe that some limitations can really help breed creativity. This was really important for me when playing with value, since it’s essentially just all rubbish presented as an artwork. The fact that people can also pick these up and take them home was also really important since I wanted to create something anti-capitalist, and handing my artwork out for free felt like the most appropriate way to do that. It also helped create a more intimate connection with the viewer rather than putting these statements out in a way that the viewer is separate and they have to stand back and look but not touch, they instead get to interact and keep the work. Not only do they keep the work, they also get to pick the ones that feel most relevant them since every book is different.

The destroying of artworks was also really important, as it plays into what the work is titled, ‘What will you get out of an art degree’, which feels like a question many art students get from family and peers, who have this assumption that there isn’t much worth to art, which is usually because they believe there isn’t much worth to a career path which doesn’t easily make someone money. So, to play directly into their hands, I destroyed all of my work from this degree to make these books, so once my degree ends I will have absolutely nothing physical how for it as it should fingers crossed all been taken home by other people. So what did I get out of my art degree?

Now that’s a big question, I believe that the value in doing my art degree is not the physical things I made, or the potential money I could make in future. What’s been more important to me is too look at creating work that aligns with my ethics and are true to myself, rather than faking my way into a career path that I don’t believe in. It’s allowed me to pick apart what I do in a beneficial way, so that I can have better conversations through my artwork with the audience. I think the biggest help to my practice however is having a fucking nemesis, the university gave me so many things that could influence my work (learning objectives, shit facilities, restrictive ethical guidelines) that i had the motivation to finally say no, to finally look at pleasing the world around me and telling it to get fucked.

Going forward after my degree, I want to continue the art business I had before, but with less limitations and less fear in my work. I don’t want to allow good sales and social media interact to dictate what I create, I instead want my work to be better for having those conversations with audiences. Within my business, I do also want to implement some better practices when it comes to sustainability such as with what materials I use, and where I buy them from. I really do hope to get to a place where art can be my full time job as a self employed person, but honestly if it’s always something that follows alongside me, I’m also happy with that so long as I’m not sacrificing what I want to do as an artist for profit.

Throughout the last year I have also pinpointed other skills I have, and things I enjoy which include, social media marketing, teaching and organisation. Since just selling artwork can be a difficult way to make a full time income I can also expand what I do into teaching classes (of which this year I’ve done two casual art ones and taught kink stuff occasionally too), monetising social media and I have a little gut feeling in the back if my mind about hosting some sort of event, or group in future that helps build community between artists and helps them promote themselves. I don’t currently know exactly what that will look like, but we will see over the next few years.

So yeah, thank you for reading, I’m honestly so excited this is over, as weirdly, it feels like I can finally make art again.