the artist

The Artist

WHY
Why do this?
Choose your own adventure could be a description of this website, a sort of running amok of the mind but sorted into a labrynthine trail. But also choose your own adventure is what you do when you don't follow an economic rationalist approach to making art. Instead you might say, hey I wonder if I could do that, and you pursue it in the same way you would a hobby ( that is not worrying about the amount of time or money it takes) At the same time you might ask yourself many questions, such as why am I doing this? Is it really going to do anything? Does it have the effect that I say it does? Does it really make people feel more connected with their community and place if they participate in making a public artwork?                 REALLY?

ONe of the reasons I am writing this labrynth is so that I know where I have started from in my thinking processes. And its always good to remember why you started something in the first place. Then when you end up somewhere strange and convoluted faraway you can say, hang about! I'm not meant to be over here!  we should date this then . . ..   begun in January 2015.

1 It seems to me - that our environment is becoming more and more designed and controlled. And also bought and owned. often the messages that we receive from our environment are generated by people trying to sell you something.
Text and imagery. It seems to me that art is a way of placing into public space, an opposition to this representation of who we are and what we should aspire to be. 

 2. public art , particularly council commissions claims to play a role in representing who we are, but usually does not involve the community as makers. I would suggest that if community are involved in decisions and also making, that there is an opportunity for people to think, learn and project who they are.
Making art is an engaging process which can link people with their communities in a culture which tends to increasingly isolate people.

The physical act of making public artwork is a very powerful force as is also the author's relationship with the place in which their artwork sits over time. Time and the idea of permanence.

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Artists who have dedicated their careers to working in public places are
inevitably philosophers and storytellers.
                                                                                 Terri Cohn


Terri Cohn discusses four artists who work in the public realm, and what all of them have in common she suggests is:   . . .  a sense of exigency concerning the nature and preservation of public memories and the need to engender ties between people, places, collective and individual histories, and value systems emerged as an essential facet of their individual commitment and methodologies.

Audience
What is decidedly different about public art practice is that your work is more dependant on the audience. Particularly as if it is not accepted, it may be removed.

Teaching and learning



Working with people
One of the things I love about making public art with communities is working with people. Particularly when they get the opportunity to make something that goes into public space. Its a very powerful medium. The other thing that happens when you work with people is that they inevitably teach you something. Whilst I am teaching the participant how to make something for the artwork and what the context is, they are also telling me their own story. Working with people has generally been defined as a community arts practice, where the artist initiates collective creativity and also might work with a particular group of people or in a particular geographical place.

The community arts approach also gives precedence to process over product. In an artist's individual practice, the process might be important for them but when they place the final object into a gallery or other place to show, the context becomes focussed on the object which is the end product of that process. Often the object is placed without any context. Its process and history and context are not shared with the viewer. the viewer is left to make up their own mind about what that object means. These two important parts of any creative activity, have caused a lot of issues in segregating community art from fine art. We also need to be careful to define what I mean by community made art because I am not using the welfare-based definition of community art. That is, the art process that I use is not meant to benefit or change the situation of the participant. They are not lacking in something that art will 'fix'. I am interested in community participation as a means of making authentic and in depth cultural expression where the locals or a particular type of community work together to make the artwork, instead of the artist interpreting and reproducing their culture alone.



When a collective of people make an artwork together, the product is often a mix of disparate parts, it is not one product, it is more an amalgam. of voices and ideas and less concerned with aesthetics.
Kelly finds some early references to this dilemma in the community arts movement in the UK, which responded to a statement made by a previous secretary general of the Arts Council had seen his job as nurturing, ' few but roses.' Few but Roses', became a catch phrase, and so the community arts movement developed the oppositional catchphrase of, 'let a million flowers bloom'.
                                                                           (Kelly 1984, - 18)

link to aesthetics - You can go to the

agendas
Kelly suggests that the state funding processes changed the agendas of community arts from an idea of cultural democracy into more targeted projects that served particular disadvantaged groups and also claimed to educate  or intitiate the people into the values of high art, so that they can participate in high culture of galleries, theatres and concert halls. and in its developing relationship with funding, it became welfare focussed, and moved away from its initial impetus of cultural voice and democracy. So waht does this mean for the community artist's intent. (kelly 1984)
It means perhaps that if the artist is interested in a different agenda, they need to steer clear of the term community arts.

My agenda is related to voices in public space, perhaps a democratisation of voices so that community members participate in public space. to create a dialogue about community participation in expressing culture in public space, in providing an 'other' voice besides that of advertising. It is closely linked with the very original motives of community art as expoused by Kelly, but not the later 'welfare' or 'disadvantaged' agenda.

There is a more recent movement emanationg out of contemporary and 'high' art culture referred to as participatory art, where the artists uses others in their work. This involvement of other people in their work often produces a representation of culture or a reflection on the nature of being human. In these works the artist does not often acknowledge the individual participants as fellow renderers of knowledge or contributors to the artwork, it is like the traditional high art culture, upholding the artist as the producer of the knowledge or work of art.



                                                                       

In someways the community member is directed to do something,towards an overall plan but they also have choices which involve them making the artwork or story their own. This means that the interpretation is coloured by how they respond with their artwork. The artwork changes and becomes driven with how the community participants respond.



In the above photograph, students from Overnewton College were asked to make imagery of local buildings to tell the story of how the goldrush affected the township of Keilor. A group of students chose to do Overnewton Castle. I was surprised that not many of the students made careful replicas of the reference photographs they were provided with. As with the imagery above, most chose to adapt the artwork to loosely represent the place. Overnewton castle in this rendition is more like the fantasy or folly that it was. A small fantasy version of a castle that William Taylor made for his wife. The tall Oak tree on the right, which is perhaps not often remarked on in the actual castle grounds, is now endowed with the stature and prominence its deserves, in its claim to be over 150 years old. A living thing that has also seen the goldrush era!

ideas that other people join in with.
Something is far more powerful and event if its done by more than one person.
As an artist I had an idea to turn this concrete cylinder into an artwork, but I needed to get the local community involved.
If I made this cylinder into an artwork alone, it would be more of a self-interested project and about my own ideas. When local inhabitants are involved the artwork in a way becomes more authentic. It becomes a small but potent representation of the surrounding culture.
The choice of theme was offered to the local historical society, who in turn provided the research and information that was needed for the year 8 students to work on the artwork. The students chose which aspects fo the history presented to them, to use and in turn they also chose how to represent this history. Then as an artist I also re-interpreted the artwork by the way I designed how it was installed onto the cylinder. The accompanying text through which the artwork can be read ( if the audience wishes) also guides that interpretation. The text was written by the artist (myself) and edited and ammended by  experts in the field of history, members of the local Historical Society. Perhaps the artwork is bent and moulded by many people on its way to becoming the final static piece. The artist makes sure that it is truthful ( but this is tempered by the individual's own beliefs and values) and that it is aesthetic and technically competent, but the handling and moulding of the artwork by the community members involved is important for its growth into a community artwork and its ability to speak to people and to speak about the culture and history of community and place.



  

Authenticity
I have done many series of works in public space as a solo artist. whilst these are very rewarding, they are solitary acts and usually I have no feedback from an audience. But when I work with people from the local community there are two things that happen. first is the artwork becomes more authentic ( in my mind) and more powerful. If lots of people make something together it means something much more. Also the artwork has to take on a life of its own out of the grasp of the artist. It is moved and altered by what the community does in the artwork. I think this makes it more authentic.

The second thing that happens is a dialogue or conversation about the work also, that I get some privvy to. This is often an enthusiasm and is relayed by people talking about it to me, word of mouth, relayed conversations, texts and emails. There is an excitement about the project.

oh there's a third!!
The magic of art, which is the reason many people get enjoyment from it is there is a bit of magic or emotion in it. it could be described as akin to the spiritual. Art has the ability to capture some things unspoken and unwritable.
People respond to art because it reflects and plays out a version of their lives in an abstract way. It might show you something that you have always suspected or known about but in a new way, that isn;t easily explained or described.

The artist's role

However it started, if there is an artist involved or in control of the project they are sort of like a funnel that it goes through. perhaps if they are more peripherally involved, only a part of the work goes through the funnel or perhaps the artist gets sprinkled over the top to add the finishing touches.

But generally my experience is that when I am asked to be the artist, everyone throws their two cents in or makes the artwork and it gets tossed in together and magically after it goes throgh the funnel, it pops out the bottom as an artwork.
mmmmmmmmmmm.

You can read more about the artist's role in the ethics page.

Trust

One of the really interesting aspects of the work I do, is that one of the very first things I have to express when meeting with the participants is the idea that if people trust me and make the artwork as I request, they will have their artwork in public space. It will become part of something that will last for a long time. It is difficult for anybody to imagine the final product. Even I cannot see it clearly.
They might base their trust on my past work. I always feel a bit of sorrow for the participants as they make the ceramic work because they cannot see the bigger picture and how it will look when complete. The participant does not understand why they need to make it a certain thickness, why they need to smooth the edges, why paint it and how even their own artwork will look once finished. Because when making ceramics, the clay and the coloured paint will be a different colour when it is complete, there is perhaps a sense of disbelief, a  walking out on a limb for the participant. The participant makes the work with the hope that it will be as the artist says.

Particularly with the colour untramarine, which is lilac when you paint it onto the clay, I have had to say, 'trust me, it will turn out dark blue.'