How is my sense of worth as an artist affected by fees/funding I do or don't get Paula Varjack, 25 January 2015 I am exploring this question as research for show I am developing. If you are interested in other questions around this theme, or want to be part of my research, please check out my development blog http://showmethemon3y.tumblr.com/ ————- I felt like this topic was present in the themes of many other sessions around money and the arts. This was great as it meant it could build on conversations that had happened through out the weekend. The session became very dynamic as many different people at different career stages and aspects of the industry dropped in. Somehow we still seemed to share similar sentiments. It got particularly animated towards the end as we began to discuss long term aims of financial stability, which was also the theme of an earlier session. the conversation. started around the idea of funding schemes for “emerging” artists If you are looking for funding as an “emerging” artist most schemes are designed for people under age thirty, rather than taking account of the amount of time one has been making work. This is problematic if you are like two of the participants aged 30 and emerging. One participant who is studying performance at the age of thirty expressed concerns of how to build a career for herself as an artist when because of her age she didn't fit into the category for those seeing emerging work. A participant who was a producer spoke of how her role was completely related to whether she was able to fundraise, so had a direct relation to value of her work. She also said she didn't understand why performers self produce, as not having a producer puts considerable strain on the production creatively, and also affects how and if funds are raised or successfully applied for. It is another role for a reason. another participant who is part of an established company, spoke of how a turning point for her company had been when they found a producer for their work. this was after a year of being a company. The company then was new and had no track record although the director and writer were established in their careers independently. She had found their producer via an ad in arts jobs, specifying that their fee would depend on funding for the project. She then built a successful and long term relationship with the producer. She advised emerging practitioners and companies to do the same. Either through arts council arts jobs and/or stage one. She said you did not need to find a producer with a track record necessarily as even an arts graduate or performer with an interest in producing could be a great support that one could mentor through taking on producer tasks, and build skills to be more supportive. I expressed concern that having self produced and with previous experience of producing in film, that someone with no experience may not be so helpful and perhaps create more work. The participant then made the case that like any mentoring, initially someone may need more guidance but with time would need less and less and be more of a support. The participant who is studying mentioned how building this kind of relationship with a mentor could foster loyalty for a long term working relationship. The participant who is a producer said that if you had experience producing and were not ready to fully hand over the reigns to someone else, it was very important when you advertise to say you are seeking an associate or co-producer and credit as such. This was to make it clear how the role would be shared. One participant was visiting from the Netherlands, she is a theatre maker and drama teacher. She said when she graduated from drama school she did a lot of work for free, because she was new to the field and needed to get experience. She soon stopped this realising it was unsustainable. We compared the process of applying for funding in the U.k. to applying for funding in the netherlands. She raised an interesting point that often as practitioners we are too focused on local and national funding, forgetting about EU funding, and international programming at theatres and festivals across europe (for example the Netherlands) She wrote a list which I will add later. Several people joined at this point. One participant who had been an actor and now works in theatre, alongside facilitating and work for equity. We started to unpick the idea of “value” related to making a living. This also led to an idea of “value” being related to validation. He raised a great question “How much is it about the money I get, and about which body is giving the money?” This was a new thought I had not considered. He said for example you might not feel great about getting funding for BP even if it was a sizable ammount. This raised the point that it was more about the stamp of approval from a body deemed relevant. Another participant then went further into the subject of this stamp of approval. The arts council logo on a flyer would not mean much to a producer, programmer or audience member. The thing industry would pay attention to is what venue was programming the show, while an audience member would maybe be more interested in if they had heard about the company or perfomer through television or radio, or if an art going crowd, also because of a relationship to a venue. this then led to a conversation about how our sense of value as artists relates to being programmed by a venue we are interested in. One participant said that she used to take it personally when certain venues would not program her work, but has gotten over that and recognizes it as a question of programmers taste. she advised other artist to do the same. one producer spoke of a venue that had a good relationship with a company who had scratched a piece in the venue. The producer had thought the venue would put some money into the final production. the venue programmed the piece but did not offer any financial support. The producer admitted that she felt slighted by this. that if the venue believed so much in the work and the company, why would they not even give a small sum of money? I then spoke of in-kind funding being potentially of a higher value in london as rehearsal space for example was so expensive.. i questioned if this was a similar issue in the regions and an artist in newcastle said that rehearsal space was also expensive. maybe everywhere in the uk it is the same. ( anyone reading this want to comment?) however she said her company spent the first years doing a lot of fund raising and match funding alongside in kind support. There was then a conversation of who gets funding and why, and how some felt that there were many companies, practiioners, and works that were not thought to be of great artistic merit, but got funding because either the applicants were good at application writing or because they ticked the right boxes. this led some to feel that having funding was no real sign of artistic merit of the artist or project. One participant ran an annual festival that regularly receives funding for ticking diversity boxes, however he stressed that though they do continue to get funding, there is a cap on how much they can apply for and they are told as much. this means the festival cannot expand how it programs work. There was then talk about the role of equity and how many felt it was a powerless entity in that it could not enforce or regulate what people in the field are paid. as the conversation came to a close we spoke about the notion of what you do for a living becoming more and more connected to your sense of identity. That what you do is who you are. However we saw this as tricky with our field, and in this time for two reasons: The artistic act also being a compulsion (and undervalued as a craft) there will always be people who work for little or no money, there will always be venues/producers who expect artists to work for little or no money. the current economic landscape means that people across all sectors are having a hard time finding work. it is not simply the case that you study your passion, work hard and get a job in it any more, in every industry. this was likened by one as the failure of capitalism. unfortunately there was also a sense that getting paid for what you do was a way to prove to our parents or other doubters of creative practice that what we do was a profession and not a hobby. on the positive side one participant said, that if you are struggling to survive as an artist/receive funding, monetise your craft, the thing to do is identify why you are not successful in applications, what boxes you are not ticking, where in your skillset (logistics, production rather than creative) are you lacking and how can you improve or even better, WHO can you get to support you in those areas. I will end the report with one statement by a participant that really resonated “I don't want to get famous. I just want to make a living. I want to be brave enough to have a family. I don't want to live off the state” many people came through the session. here' s the ones i managed to get names from Rob Calvatos David Cottis Olivia A Frances Ritkin Tags: art, Money, value, fees, Fundin, #Illshowyoumine, #illshowyoumine, Fees, Value, money, ART, Art, ART, economics, Economics