Giving up the day job - Nick Reading
Giving up the day job.
I first tried to write this late at night in my room at the Southampton Novotel during an unexpected and unwelcome three day stay on work-related business. This attempt to wrestle 40 minutes of worthwhile creative activity away from the delirious fatigue induced by the previous 14 hours of drudgery proved to be misguided and futile, and unable to focus I drank a beer and went to bed instead. The second occasion I tried to write it was at home, again after a long day at work. This time around I was distracted by a half-finished painting taunting me from the other side of my room, and again unable to focus on the task in hand I instead transferred my attentions to the less demanding activity of completing the canvas, telling myself “I’ll write the thing tomorrow”. But I didn’t. Because the next day I had to do my shopping, and then the day after that there was an exhibition proposal to write and a big pile of washing up to deal with. The day after that I was applying to new jobs and then with the weekend came more painting and some musical activities, combined with the usual endeavour to have a social life. Suddenly it was Sunday evening again and I still hadn’t written a word.
Juggling a work/creativity balance is something that everyone has to deal with, and amongst young artists and designers it can be particularly flummoxing when the paid work they are doing is entirely divorced from the creative industries to which they had hoped to bring their talents upon leaving art school. Maintaining an artistic practice in the evenings whilst working a day job as, say, a gallery assistant is one thing because you are at least immersed in an artistic environment, alongside other people whose minds lean the same way. But being able to switch to the right frame of mind to draw or write after spending your day waitressing or stacking shelves at Tesco (and knowing you are going back there in a matter of hours) is a different story. Dispiriting statistics published last week show that in the final three months of last year, 35.9% of graduates who completed their degrees since 2006 were in low-skilled jobs, which include working “in hospitality, operating machines, postal work and cleaning”. Some graduates I know have been lucky and found a foothold on that elusive first rung, bringing with it immersion in the industry and the contacts and further opportunities this provides. For others, the dire state of the jobs market is exacerbating the existing fact that projected career paths for artists are perhaps less clear-cut and easy to extrapolate than in other fields. In this regard fine artists in particular have always had to do work they’d rather not in order to make ends meet during their formative years, however now skilled design and fashion graduates with good degrees are also having to join the throngs scanning barcodes or pulling pints, which makes enthusiasm somewhat difficult to maintain.
For many, the lack of time goes hand-in-hand with a lack of space. Say, for example you are a sculptor who makes large scale work and you are trying to put together a portfolio for postgraduate applications at the London colleges. You are doing bar work in the evenings and trying to save money for the course so renting a studio is out of the question. Are you really going to be able to make work that best displays your talents and maximises your chances of getting onto the course you want if you’re doing it in a pokey rented bedroom with a carpet you can’t afford to replace if it gets ruined? Probably not. One friend of mine who shall remain nameless was actually reduced to tears in this respect. Another who was able to afford a studio gave it up because he “just didn’t have the time to use it”. Most in my peer group have for now turned their attentions away from finding that ideal job and are instead pragmatically re-assessing, attempting to fit their artistic practice around a 38 hour week outside of their specialism. They remain creatively active in the evenings and at weekends, whether it be to build that postgraduate portfolio, improve their CV or simply for personal satisfaction whilst they figure out what they want to do. They are, on the whole, having a tough time but as the next batch of undergraduates complete their final year and prepare to offer themselves up at the alter of the jobs market there does, in my view at least, seem to be some grounds for optimism.
Two weekends ago I attended the private view of a show organised by an old friend in Bristol. Such events are, after almost two years since our own graduation and subsequent entanglement with the real world, still comparatively infrequent, but incidences are thankfully becoming more common and provide welcome relief from the weekly 9 to 5 cycle. The one good thing that crap jobs can do for creative types is give them the impetus to go out and make things happen for themselves. Can’t get an exhibition? Put one on yourself! I myself co-organised and curated a London show a couple of months ago, which was incredibly rewarding in spite of (and perhaps even partly because of) the punishing schedule of train journeys and lack of sleep that was required to make it all work around my grinding day job. Ambling around the Bristol exhibition with the standard plastic cup of supermarket wine in hand brought the opportunity to talk to some old faces about their current situations (some might call this “networking”), and it seemed bizarre to hear how widely dispersed we have become since the summer of 2010, finding ourselves by design, luck or accident in unfamiliar cities across the country, working everywhere from hotel kitchens to car factories, technical studio roles to office temping, internships, JSA, starter salaries and the rest. The common denominator is that whatever people are doing with themselves, whether it be McDonalds or the Tate they have had to find ways to balance what they love doing with the necessity of earning a living, and everyone has said that despite facing a raft of home truths in the bewildering intervening period since leaving the protective bubble of art school, things are, slowly, improving. Indeed, figuring out a way to get to where you want to be in the face of adversity is surely all part of being a creative person! The class of 2012 are in for a rough time before they reach this same stage. They will need to learn that the relentless plugging of job applications pays off in the end, studios will be affordable eventually, economic downturns don’t last forever, and the best thing they can do is be pro-active. This will all come in time, even if it looks very far away when viewed from the window of a drab hotel room on a Southampton industrial estate.
Posted by Nick Reading, an artist and musician currently based in Oxford. He is a regular contributor to and exhibitor with CATSHOP, a loose conglomerate of former students from Winchester School of Art.
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Original Article
Plog Magazine
