Artsmonkey Blog

I remember reading an article in a newspaper a few years ago, asking what our lives would be like if there was no television, if we all switched them off for a day, a week? At several points in my life I have lived without TV. When I was born and up to the age of about four, then later when my father suffered a major injury and our TV died and my mother couldn’t afford to replace it whilst he was in hospital, even later during a tour of Scotland when I wasn’t interested in anything other than ‘Taggart’.

In the eighties my uncle moved in to our flat in Streatham with his portable TV. I had been living in poverty without a TV, feeding myself and baby on £10 a week whilst my partner was up north in a seventies revival musical - then it was a novelty being Tv-less. Now I switch it off , at will, for days at a time because who ever the programmers are, they only seem focussed on young audiences and the kind of stuff I like watching is clearly in the non-commercial bracket or maybe it’s because I’m not a robot but a human with eclectic tastes. I like to dip in and out of genres, prefer quality to quantity and genuinely enjoy good acting and performers who prefer to entertain rather than to shock (although I can cope with that in small doses).

In fact, I am in danger of becoming a ‘new audience’ there is so little for me to watch on the tele despite the variety of channels. I read that young people are switching off from mainstream TV - really?  As a parent this is great news, but as a parent I know it’s because they’re glued to their computer screens having their brains sucked out by msn, bebo, myspace, deviant art, my yearbook, IM, etc., downloading i-films to watch in the privacy of their bedrooms.

 ”New method sought to measure audiences”, no let’s have A NEW MEASURE TO STOP APPLYING METHOD TO broadcasting ?

Caught up with the Peter Hall Company for a matinee performance of ‘Enjoy’. I thought it was inspired to call a play ‘Enjoy’. Lots of jokes about that in the pizza restauraunt after the show when a pre-theatre party arrived and attempted to wolf down pasta and make the final bell before evening curtain-up.
I’ve mixed feelings about Alan Bennet these days, ever since I read the ‘History Boys’ I have an over-riding sense of an old man in a grubby mac. I know he writes fantastic dialogue and people say what a very nice man he is - not that I ever expect to meet him but ‘Enjoy’ was such an odd amalgamation of alienating concept and beautifully observed characters I couldn’t help but wonder if it was really written for television. Did I enjoy ‘Enjoy’? (sorry but I had to ask). In parts the story of the Craven family was moving, funny and entertaining but the museum idea, the distanced observation, the men (and woman) in grey suits didn’t work on stage - all totally superfluous to the central story of the Cravens, their lives and loves and death (well almost). Perhaps, like Margaret Thatchers idea of a ‘Poll tax’, in theory and way-back-when in the eighties it was written, it might have seemed clever and modern and workable. Sadly in the dim reality of the royal circle in the Theatre Royal Bath it didn’t. Well not for me at least, although other people were laughing, I suspect because they desperately wanted to - it has been such a grey, grey summer. I’m sure that actors love Alan Bennet for his detailed, beautiful dialogue, for his wonderful characters (especially the women) but I sat there and craved for the Cravens to be left unadulterated, untouched by the flim-flam of witty, clever invaders. I suppose when you’ve a large company of actors it’s no use using just five of them when you can bung a whole load on in the second act and wake up the old gents asleep in the circle. Oh well, I suppose it’s no suprise I ended up depressed by ‘Enjoy’ and  back in Bath three days later at the Old Mortuary Chapel in Walcot Street to view an exhibition by sculptor and painter Gordon Dickinson and precocious young student Adam Crossland.

Gordon was once a coach-builder for British Rail but now creates giant steel horses for Primary Schools (and Swindon if they’ll only get their heads round it) and elegant eagles on silver birch poles poised to take flight but he also paints abstract pictures in rich yellows, oranges and browns. I was drawn (as I suspect many others have been) to his painting of a small teddy bear he found half-drowned in the middle of a road which he rescued and gave a home to - he has painted this bear stretched out on a vivid yellow background and entitled it ‘just holding on’. I also liked his black textured paintings of flowers, bold and exquisite from a distance, exploding off the canvas as you get up close. The venue was a wonderful bright and characterful place to be (reminded me a bit of Mrs Craven in Enjoy) and I desperately wished I could take the Teddy Bear painting home, although Gordon has since facebooked me a picture of one of his ‘Marcel Marceau’ paintings brilliantly capturing the expression of a man who spoke without words as he plucks with his thumb and forefinger a stream of colour, ‘magic’ from the air. The painting is entitled ‘when you find it, hold on to it’. Now I want one of those as well!

Adam’s work, in case you’re wondering was ‘precocious’ (especially in price), confident - painted on wood, cardboard probably done in no time at all and very …. well, it seemed angry to me but equally the sort of ‘illustration style’ stuff you’d see in magazines for the ‘teenage-to-twenty-somethings’ market and it worked well against Gordon’s sculptures and paintings.

 As the rain poured down on Bath, I stood and looked out the chapel window to see a grey mist rise, whilst Gordon stirred my imagination with tales of his plans for an exhibition of souls based on his experiences of buying souls on ebay and the stories that have sprung from these mostly tongue-in-cheek transactions. Although I googled “souls for sale” when I got home and realise that there has been hot and heavy debate on this activity and ebay now no longer permits the selling of ones soul(before you rush off to the computer thinking that may just be what you need to raise this months mortgage payment). So, somewhat ironically, my spirits were raised in the old mortuary chapel by the thought of ’souls’ sold for a penny, the debate on the cheapness of life, the morality of it, the creativity and the care with which Gordon (owner of 50 souls) treats it and how he intends to return them intact via the angels of art (and his beautifully animated eagle sculptures). I wandered off, back down historic Walcot Street with my imagination fired, my creativity stoked, my soul touched (but still my own) - don’t be suprised if I become a partner in this venture and start promoting the exhibition any time soon.

This past two weeks of Olympics fever has been the perfect end to a four year endurance test of my own. I am coming to the end of one of those contracts that just kept getting renewed, in frustratingly short bursts but such was my committment to the cause that each time the end was in sight I knew I had another extra mile to go, another personal best to achieve, another record to break and so I kept on until finally a re-mortgage, major house repairs and a dwindling bank balance forced me to re-think. These past few years have been all about team committment, leadership, achievement and personal bests (not just mine) and a certain amount of sports involvement which is unusual in the arts but perhaps only to be expected in ‘youth arts’, which, reflective of the young people who engage with youth arts is always taking on board new cultures, new ideas and also old ones, tinkering with them, tugging at them, re-shaping, re-forming them to see what they can come up with. So whilst the majority of the artsworld were bemoaning the advent of 2012 and the expected bleeding of government investment from the arts into sport and ‘better than Bejiing’ Olympic preparations, young people in the world of Arts Award were rising to the challenge and mulling over the links with sport and art.

In Mountbatten school, Romsey Arts Award participants worked towards running a visual arts ‘master class’ with their arts teacher to design silk banners with primary school students prior to participating in a mini olympics. The whole school has been linking arts to sport to produce a cultural olympiad week - designs for chinese kites, dance performances etc., etc., all part of their own mini-Bejiing ‘08 held in July.

In four football clubs across the South East young people are being invited to work with them by learning how to wirte sports articles, produce designs for promotional material, script radio adverts and use a variety of creative skills that link back into the football clubs more mainstream youth activity. Why? So they can gain an Arts Award and broaden their horizons and skills base. Pretty forward thinking, Southampton, Reading, Bournemouth and Brighton Footie Clubs - shame on you Portsmouth!

Arts is often viewed as a soft option, although some artforms such as ‘dance’ and ‘circus acrobatics’ have more obvious traits in common. Unless you’ve been in a play, produced works of art for an exhibition, performed in a band in front of a crowd, it’s hard to appreciate the myriad of skills involved, especially if you do it well and give off an aura of confidence - it looks so easy, any fool could do that couldn’t they? Sports personalities appear in Panto’s so it can’t be that difficult, can it?

Well olympian achievements aren’t just for sports men and women. Although I was riveted to the television when I watched David Davies swim his marathon, silver medal winning 2 hour open water race. His determination to carry on, despite the distinctly unsporting attempts to ‘knobble’ him (only one red card ref? there were two of them trying to drown him). The whole thing really reminded me of a Youth Arts Company I know and their gargantuan efforts to apply for and secure funding. No one can doubt the excellent work they do, the committment of the  Gold Arts Award achieving company members and the Co-Directors Nina & Jason from Peer Productions but it’s a race and there are only a certain amount of spaces at the finishing line. All sorts of obstacles in the way, only young people can apply for some funding pots, you have to meet the funding criteria, it’s not about how good your work is or the noble past acheivements of your company, you can’t just re-jig the funding application from your last application. Its tough. Each small pot of £1k or 15k applied for has to be fought hard for, homework done, budgets produced, boxes ticked, people wooed, hearts and minds won over and then you might be lucky to get it but it’s only a years worth. Funding is usually for no more than three years and is rarely enough  to enable artists and arts organisations to produce all that great work that people want them to come up with. You just have to keep going and give it all you’ve got, except in the Arts the finish line is constantly being moved a bit further away.

I don’t know much about Sports funding but Arts funding is a gritty business, unless (I hastily add) you’re an Arts Award centre and only looking for up to £500 pounds in that case you can apply for an ‘Access Fund’ Grant where the lovely fund sponsors  ‘Deutsche Bank’ have worked with Trinity Guildhall to produce a one page application, with a broad set of criteria and positively no hoops, no tricks - if only it was always that simple.

Well it isn’t. Embarking on a career in the arts; in film, dance, music, theatre, digital media - it’s a slog and no mistaking. Just as it was for those Olympian sports men and women in Bejiing, it’s a never ending road of reaching out for the unattainable. You have to have guts, focus, determination and discipline - if you don’t you won’t get the work and never be in the running for that ‘big one’ not necessarily a Bafta or an Olivier because they are (if we are honest) slightly elitist and not fully representative of the Arts. So what is the artistic equivalent of the Olympics? Well, it’s quite likely there isn’t and never will be an equivalent, because the one point where the arts disembark from a raft of commanalities with Sports is in celebrating our acheivements - we are rubbish at it. We either sing our own praises too loudly or we’re too busy working on our next artistic endeavour to stop for a pat on the back and as for competition… well that’s another discussion entirely. In the meantime, I’m off to mull over my achievements and the nature of them. I’m too old to be given a supportive glad hand by the youth driven culture of the arts - there is no platinum Arts Award for the over 25’s - so no-ones going to do it for me. Did I do well? Was I exceptional? Oh I don’t know. I’ve done good things with good people, I’ll miss it, I’ll miss them - it’s opened my eyes to new horizons, I’m bouyed by the passion, the drive, the sheer imagination of the teachers, arts officers, youth workers, education officers, care workers, mentors and artists that I have met. I feel privileged, tired but privileged and couldn’t really care less about whether I’ve earnt a medal or not. Some of the most precious achievements are felt but never known.

Whilst grateful to to Arts Council England South East, for the opportunity to network and get ‘on message’ at their annual, smoothly oiled ‘Spring Briefing’ this years offering has left me with a gnawing feeling of doubt - are they really listening? Apart from the wonderful food, the smorgasbord on offer for our delectation and absorption came under six headings (oh okay, if you must know; work related learning, catalyst for change, creating the conditions for excellence, the great outdoors, increasing engagement, stengthening the visual arts) The buzz-words of the day were ‘risk’ and ‘excellence in the arts’. Patrick Sandford (Nuffield Theatre) and Andrew Nairn (Modern Art Oxford) think we should be aiming higher, striving for excellence, treading the path of the great masters who have gone before, and that Brian McMasters’ paper on ‘Excellence’ is on the money. However those of us whose work is perhaps less ‘product’ focused and more focused on the process, the journey, the experience - weren’t so sure.

Simon Fanshawe hosted the day and I loved his plea for Regionally Funded organisations to not sign their Arts Council funding contracts but to draw up their own agreement and reinstate the artistic integrity and aims at the beating heart of the organisation so the contract allowed for more of a dialogue (all very well for him to say perhaps - he’s leaving!) but there’s plenty of actors’ agents and business managers who would agree that a contract is a working dialogue that should be shaped and formed to reach a comfortable state of agreement, a plateau of understanding, if you like.

The day was full of mixed messages: we were told at the start of the day that ‘all the innovation in digital media is driven by the market’ and yet the presence of digital media at the conference amounted to the showing of a few short films (sorry Glyndebourne yours didn’t move me other than to consider the pun on ‘photo-stitching’ and to remember to get my hoover fixed) and the brief titles on the power point (must we still be doing this?) When asked at the end if any of us knew about ‘twitter’ (only one example of how social media is used in business and communication these days) just four people raised their hand. Does this mean, as artists, that we are ignoring the vast and creative use of digital media in the arts and at what cost? Or does this simply reflect an ignorance at management level in the arts rather than at grass roots?

We were also invited to discuss ‘excellence’ in the arts but despite Gavin Stride (panel member and Regional Council Member) admitting it’s not a word in his artistic vocabulary and that he is more likely to think about the ‘ambition’ of the company the panel seemed to think this was an acceptance of the need to put the word ‘excellence’ at the centre of our working ethos. Indeed who really is prepared to think of themselves as being ‘excellent’, as artists we always strive for something more, something unattainable perhaps? To me excellence smacks of ‘ego’. But I was reminded this week that we all have differing perceptions of the meaning of a word, I was challenged over my use of the word ‘celebration’ which to me was to laud and reflect but to another conjured up visions of a more vigorous applauding. Whatever excellence is, it is unlikely to be ‘excellence’ that people aspire to - more likely to be the best, the chosen, commercially viable or good, or satisfying/pleasing/rewarding.

In one of the workshops ‘catlysts for change’, some of us were invited to meet Jon Adams, a visual artist who having struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia has only in recent years had the confidence to apply for funding and pursue a career as an artist. By his own admission, his art is hidden because he considers himself disabled by his lack of confidence - therefore his disability is a ‘hidden’ disability - you can’t see it, touch it, smell it. How, I can’t help but wonder, would he ever have come into the light, if all we focused on was ‘excellence’ which smacks of ‘the chosen few’ - oh yes it does, the ‘winning team’.

Does the word ‘excellence’, best serve the arts? Is it the concern of most artists? For those not in the arts world would the embellishment ‘excellent’ sway their decision to attend/participate/purchase/view/support. Surely many artists are striving for originality - how can something untried and untested be labelled ‘excellent’? Bill & Ted (who were whispering in my ear all the way home) “Most excellent, dude”, use it spuriously to express their pleasure at something, there is no quality in their judgement. After all, who is to say what is excellent - the market drives art through it’s utter abhorence of it (Damien Hurst - pickled sheep/ Gone with The Wind - The Musical) or it’s placid acceptance of it (anything Shakespeare/The National Portrait Gallery/Angel of the North) or it’s sheer exuberent love (although not always lasting) of it (Street Dance, Jordan - the autobiography, Disney, Eastenders etc.) Being the nation’s favourite artist, artform or art icon is gratifying I’m sure but does it automatically imply excellence? I don’t know. I understand where Patrick Sandford and Andrew Nairn are coming from, I totally supported Sir Peter Halls outcry at the lack of vocal skill that a rising number of actors fail to command during their live performances in theatres. I want to witness skill and craft not least in theatre, I witnessed a street performance during a festival some years ago that left me breathless at the performers skill in delivering their entire show before a threatened tumultuous downpour that was so impressive and crafted that the audience would have happily stood wet but ecstatic in the thunder and rain just for five minutes more. But there has to be room for experiment, for fumbling journeys of mistakes (through which we learn) and innovation and originality.

As someone noted at the event, most of the great masters were not recognised as such when living, only when dead. Their concern whilst living, was the exploration of their art, their style, their revoloution in their art-form, breaking barriers, challenging perceptions, breaking new ground. And what of the young, the unconfident, those not percieved as gifted and talented? Where does excellence lie in their vocabulary?

I am seriously fascinated by social media, the accessibility, the randomness, the fun and yes, even the geekiness of it - learning about IT issues and concepts and software ( I always thought a widget was the clinky thing at the bottom of a can of Guinness) such as Digg, del.icio.us, stumble(upon)it, trackback, technorati - all new words of wonder to me.

Today I started on Twitter, skipped to frogblog and tripped over a ‘blogroll’ of intreaguing titles such as “CULTUREMAKING” and “Herd - the hidden truth about who we are” and on to “The Buzz Bin/Transparent Bundles/Logic+emotion/Edge Perspectives, stopping at Digital Influence Mapping Project” It’s a roller coaster of interesting reads, mind expanding concepts and the totally unfamiliar but exciting unknown territory - all just a click away.

I got sidetracked by an article on ‘How stuff spreads (4) The bottle-glass trick’ http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO3TQfXz5A  and the quote “ Things are - or seem to be- constant motion…whenever you lift the cover, the thing you expect is not there. Bottle or glass?” but eventually i found my way back to Tim Leberechts frogblog site and his article ‘The Future of Business is Social’. Well here in the Arts world we’ve always thought that, so maybe our time is coming round again…

I’m coaxing thoughts into being about an online youth arts event, with podcasts and live web conversations so audiences can watch from the comfort of their youth club/school/home etc., but ask questions and help shape the event through their ‘real-time’ feedback or watch it later via podcast or as a ‘you -tube’ post - I’m picturing lap-tops and web camera’s wirelessly transmitting away, twitter feeds and twitter clouds floating in the internet ether and then, humbly, I realise that this is neither new or exciting to the social media literate and what a way I have yet to go as a social media ‘beginner’ - Bronze level but aiming for Gold.

Having taken a solemn vow to watch every forthcoming episode of ‘Midsomer Murders’ since Jason Hughes aka ‘DS Ben Jones’ agreed to run a masterclass for our Arts Award launch - which was, frankly, everything we wished for and more - what do ITV think they’re doing. I had MM withdrawal symptoms over Christmas and had to content myself with old repeats and Poirot re-runs and then we get an episode in February and then that’s it! Back to re-runs. What is going on Mr Programmer (it has to be a man as a woman would know better than this). Get your act together - I want Midsomer Murders and I want it now! I don’t want to be interrupted by Grand Designs Live (although I love Kevin McCloud - I’m all Grand Designed out mister!) I’ve made a vow and i want to stick to it on a regular basis - the ante has been upped - Messrs Hughes & Nettles make a fab team - they can act! What a bonus! I don’t appreciate the current trend for ‘Make a grab at fame/tear your intestines out on TV’ so we can watch you publicly humiliate yourself’. I think I might respect Ruth Jones & Co., but it’s comedy and I don’t need it. I want Murder Mystery (quite frankly). I’ve been raised on Wycliffe, Christie, Rendell, PD James, Reginald Hill, Highsmith, Inspector Linley et al. Read the books watched the series - and I want more! Regularly, not one Sunday on, and then another two Sundays after or more.

ITV this isn’t good enough - I am not alone and you are not respecting your target audience (do you even know who we are). You can’t give us better actors, better plot-lines and then not deliver the goods. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not on. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER or I’ll have to take up knitting and turn the useless TV off altogether.

Back to small provincial City from two days in the ’smoke’ where I walked the culture laden streets of Southwark trying to avoid being mowed down in the rain by actors and dancers rushing to and from rehearsals at the Old/Young Vic, The Union, The Jerwood etc., most amused to find that London Taxi Cab drivers don’t really have ‘The knowledge’ anymore but still retain their sense of humour when oiks from the country like me can’t quite remember how to we got from Southwark to Camberwell and what road our Hotel is on, especially when I refer to a triangular patch of grass surrounded by traffic lights on all sides as a roundabout.

Really enjoyed my late night tour of major roundabouts south of the river, not quite on a par with a Banksy tour but saw a lot I wouldn’t have seen if I had remembered the name of the road the Hotel was on, so all good. Didn’t quite manage to avoid the very suave and pink shirted Director of ‘The Jerwood Space’ who found me wandering the corridors with my little case on wheels trying to find my way out having taken a short-cut - although, in retrospect he may have, in fact, simply been throwing me out in a nice, polite fashion as only people with status can. But despite views of the Tate Modern and the Pickle (or was it Gherkin?) quite glad to be home, head crammed full of facts, figures, debates, job-lists, stomach full of food and wine and heart full of love for the joy of London and it’s quirky little pockets of raw, dickensian, vibrancy where Hotels are named ‘Mad Hatter’ and people still smile at you before they poke your eye out with their standard issue black umbrella.

Ah London, I may not be able to sleep when I’m with you but you do make me laugh.




Okay, so stepping away from the master-classes for a moment. I’ve just seen a preview of Daniel Craigs Brit-film ‘Flashbacks of a Fool’ and am resonating with the title, the story-line, the music and the locations - can’t wait (not that I am or have ever been, I hastily interject, any kind of movie star/ famous actor whose mouth is full of smart words and whose body is full of s****). My facebook friend Doug McFarlane, of UK Theatre Network and creator of ‘Making it in Hollywood’ sent me a message yesterday bemoaning the complete absence of British films at the Cannes Film Festival for the second year running (Frankly, if Sean Penn is the chair of the judges panel - should we be surpised?) Doug asks are we making good enough films in Britain ? Is the UK Film Council doing enough are we being too complacent? (see also www.britfilms.com) Probably. It should be easier to make a film in the UK - the Film Agency for Wales are busy blazing a trail - what’s to be done? Obviously it would be nice if all our acting talent didn’t trot off to LA for a better lifestyle and a living wage but then America’s bigger, the film industry older and more established, more varied with more choice and more money. Oh I don’t know I’ll have a good think about it whilst I’m watching ‘Flashbacks…’ at least I think I will, Daniel Craig is rather mesmeric on screen





Last September, to celebrate the achievements of the first two years of the Art Award we launched a season of master classes across the south east. Recently I was invited via facebook to join the group ‘masterclass’ set up by the Theatre Royal, Haymarket and if you haven’t visited the masterclass website and are interested in theatre then I urge you to do so: www.masterclass.org.uk. It’s the way forward, giving aspiring young theatre practitioners (or actors and directors and writers, ‘creatives’ perhaps would be a good word) the opportunity to listen and meet ‘face-to-face’ in a thriving, professional working environment (as opposed to the sometimes more precious environs of drama school) with some of theatre’s heavy weights. These ‘down with the techno-theatre bods’ have also produced a useful DVD for aspiring drama students AND there is a link to their ‘rehearsal blog’ featuring video-casts of said rehearsals for the musical Margueritte starring Ruthie Henshall. Masterclasses may seem an old fashioned concept but mixed with some creative interactivity can be inspiring and affirming experiences. Here’s an extract from an article about our first master class last year: What do I do when I have to stop dancing? The basis for offering a master class was to build on an Arts Award national poll, where in the south the top ten names included admirable but largely dead artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Bob Dylan, Jane Austen and Peter Kay (obviously he’s still with us) as the nations favourite Arts Heroes and Heroines. The challenge being to attempt to ground the current thirst for quick fix fame and fortune and offer some balance against the desire to worship celebrity ‘idols’ rather than appreciate and value our gifted grass roots ‘artists’.
Our launch event at Brighton Dome featured a ‘creative industries panel’ where young people had the opportunity to learn more about the wider creative industries sector led by young people from Peer Productions in Woking, some of whom were amongst the first to achieve their Gold Awards in the South East and where participants got to meet face to face with people who had a proven track record in their careers and could demonstrate for example, that once you can no longer work as a dancer there are other opportunities open to you. Stars of that event were: Dave Philpot from Skint Record Label who came with freebies (smart move Dave) and John Manning, Freelance Casting Director who just about managed to escape with his integrity intact from the question, “so if I haven’t been to Drama School would you consider me for casting?”. (more…)