When Creativity and Drive met the J. Sap ( AKA the Job Centre)
I Have Recently took on a new job roll as Administrator / Receptionist for the Conservatoire that I had graduated from 365 days ago.
I remember so clearly in the final weeks along with everybody else, counting down the days to what was known as freedom?. It feels within a blink of an eye I am back but this time as an s staff member and a public face of the school.
This opportunity came to my attention upon my temporarily relocation back to the North, my working hours are in return for studio space while the students take a summer break. To be honest I am really enjoying the experience of having a few months learning and developing some administration skills and most important of all (which any established or emerging artist will appreciate) Free studio space
It has been rather nice actually my time here back up north and I have always had a lot of love for Yorkshire. Returning to daily class again finally having more creative time and space to develop work & generally just be inspired. How quickly though my sense took me back to my first year in training and that daily new dancers concoction. Finding my feet, my core and re finding my seeing has all been missed by my internal system from what my bodies aches and pains are telling me. I wasn’t however prepared for all of the soon to be graduates in there last week of term asking me the dreaded question? “ So what are you doing now”? Joined by the confused looks on there faces followed by the next question why are you here?
Many Questions many reasons many answers…
Then I realized that was me 362 days ago with 3 days till I was freed into the big wide world of dance, I am ready, right?
Having travelled a lot since I graduated, with performing, collaborating and making work for some commission's that i had received and dear I say I even say it, enjoying life! I then returned back home. Which I thought would be pretty straight forward, I shall get a part time job “ I have a good a CV and I can multi task and I have experience” Is what I was thinking “I will take class and find some cheap? Studio space” this is Nottingham it is well resourced with classes" ran through my mind also, wow how wrong I was
It was like real life jumped out of the floor and flashed me with reality so quickly once I had returned, and within 4 weeks I was in the cue pulling at my very first ticket and taking a seat at the job centre. That’s right I shall repeat it again I am not a shamed the "job centre" (I can finally insert a honest laugh at this point) but it did take me a year people.
`I decided to share this question with a mixture of artists and creatives share a few of the responses that I received.
Mina
How do I feel about being an artist in Today’s society?
"I struggle with the concept that I am an artist. I haven’t yet been able to shirk off the negative connotations of what being an artist means (Think broke, self obsessed, over dramatic, snobbish, detached ‘everyday life, and also perhaps not very talented) Coming from an African background meant the term ‘artist’ wasn’t part of my world. Artists were people who lived a long time ago who painted. For some reason I could only equate the term to painters, to this day I still don’t quite know why. When I told my parents at a young age that I wanted a job that I was passionate about and enjoyed they laughed so hard they nearly wet themselves. They told me in no uncertain terms that anybody, enjoyed their jobs, and that a job was something you did for the money. Artist Are you crazy?! That wasn’t a job. In that sense what they were saying was what they had lived, it was true (to them and then to me)
This was their experience coming over to Britain in the late 70’s…their experience and countless others of the first generation Africans that got jobs with the Ford Car Company, Transport for London or a nameless, faceless factory where they packed goods. For my mother it was the Berol factory. She would bring home these amazing sets of beautiful and very expensive watercolors. I had always wished I could draw; maybe using these watercolors meant that I would be an artist? A painter? I never got any further then coloring in my coloring book, and even doing that rather badly.
Since going to London Contemporary Dance and growing to find more likeminded people, I am slowly accepting that I am and always will be an artist of sorts, but perhaps my upbringing will always prevent me from going ‘too far’ As I write this, I realize that this is therapy for me. These terms ‘too far’ aren’t coming from my mouth, but directly from my mothers…she was always laughing at my awkwardness or strange way of doing things, not to mention my many and varied hairstyles and dress sense. Perhaps I will never fully embrace this concept of being and artist, perhaps that’s what drives my art? The need to feel like I have had my voice heard and my struggle acknowledged.
The above is my answer to the second question. ‘How do you balance going for your dreams with paying your bills?” My parents instilled in me certain sense conformity, a sense that I had to ‘keep my house in order’ financially and also as a women; I had to be independent. Hence I have always had other jobs to get those bills paid. Again, harking back to this horrible need just about stay within the boundaries, a feeling that as long as I have my shit together, I can do whatever the hell else I want. Keeping those bills paid gives you another kind of freedom, which being broke doesn’t.
I recently made a Solo entitled ‘Solo Number 30’ At first I felt a need to make something that would wow a predominantly non-dance audience and dazzle them with my amazing flexibility and six pack. However going to dance School at 26 and having previously been quite an overweight teenager meant I had NEVER had a six-pack and was never going to! Plus, that flexibility had never been my strong point. Right now I am a thirty-year-old women. This solo forced me to be honest with myself and with where I was at in my journey as, dare I say it, ‘An Artist,’ a woman and more importantly a person. I decided that being honest was the best and only thing that I could do, being vulnerable was hard for me but very necessary.
It seems that I touched people with that piece as I guess we are all searching for self-acceptance in one form or another. The struggle continues…"
Mina won the Deutsche Bank Award 2010 for cultural entrepreneurship in Contemporary Dance. Find out more at www.minaaidoo.com
Janice
" Balance is a word I've come to hate and become obsessive with. How to balance all the aspects I feel are important in my life? But being able to balance is so regimented. Dividing up little pieces of myself to many things when what I'd really love to do is completely tip the scales one way and ignore the empty side (which I'm sure is symbolism for a bank account) so yes I suppose the answer to you question is I don't know! "
Maria
"It has been a massive shellshock going from a very hectic lifestyle in Cheltenham, fending for myself, piles of coursework to work my way through and a part time job at a local nightclub. To suddenly moving home to Nottingham and having no work thrown at me. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to self initiate small projects and apply for positions within companies that may one day lead me to my dream job of being a picture editor come art director of a fashion magazine.
So what is it I have actually done since my final degree shows with my fellow class mates?
- applied for editorial jobs and internships.
- began making props for up and coming still life shoots, delving into modular origami and sewing to name a few crafts.
- and I am currently in talks with a local café to sell my images in his café, and hopefully hold a solo exhibition later in the summer at a sister restaurant.
-mainly though I have found time to open my world back up, and look further than university, see what is going on around me creatively, read books, follow more blogs. In doing so I feel I am now ready, after a small slowed down break from photography, to hit the industry at he speed in which I left university, running."
http://maria-luisapiliero.blogspot.com/ --- my main blog
http://seam-zine.blogspot.com/ --- the blog I kept during my final project at uni.
Grace
"Recently I have found myself being rudely awakened, slapped by reality.
At the moment it is the often the prospect of getting involved in a project or simply letting my creativity flow, then realising my working hours in “reality” inconsiderately get in the way.
Now I must be honest and I cannot say I don’t get an empty pang in my stomach when an artistic opportunity is taken from my grips, but this has become a frequent occurrence of late and I always endeavour to ‘look on the bright side’ even if the bright side is covered by a grey mist.
Real Life Vs. My Life
Being part of the nine to five loop made me realise all too quickly that it was definitely not for me and I was not for it. The rigor of working in retail, completing the same tasks day in, day out was something I couldn’t and still can’t get my head around. I don’t see how a person can get a sense of achievement or any joy from their days when in this sort of job.
After working solid thirty-six and a half hour weeks for 9 months I began to panic. With zero to very little artistic exposure or the time to expose myself, I questioned whether I’d left it too long to get back in my loop! What if I had? How would I cope? What else would I do? A million questions were somersaulting in my head. The thing was I could see myself doing nothing but dancing, making work, being creative, collaborating, all the things I love to do!
No one knows what I do or who I am at all when I’m at work doing my ‘regular job’.
I go
I do
I leave.
And that’s how I like it. I have developed a ‘love, hate’ relationship with my source of income. Perhaps its because I despise the fact I have to do this other job that I have no passion for, just so I can pay rent, bills and live life. It actually keeps me on my feet if I’m truthful.
When I get on my bicycle home up that hill, then I’m Grace the artist again, not that I ever forget who I truly am. I’m always in the back of my mind ".
Rosanna
"You gotta be resourceful. Don't worry too much. Yes it is hard, but if you want something then you just go for it don't you".
No comments:
Post a Comment