Katherine from Making Your Mark left a detailed comment on yesterday's blog post that I'm going to address here because she raises some important points.

[Katherine's words are in italics.]

First - I too would have been very annoyed at the tenor of the comments you quoted. (BTW your link for the politician is ‘dead’). It did seem rather generic and sterotyped to me.

Thanks for alerting me to the broken link, Katherine, I fixed it - see what happens when you write impassioned blog posts after midnight!

Second - the Arts Council has been criticised for its last round of grant-giving and there has been an investigation and a report into the chaos which ensued. The report was published at the end of July.

Katherine linked to the report, which is here if anyone wants to read it.

Now on to the meat of what Katherine has to say:

As somebody who, a very long time ago, used to sit on the other side of grant giving machinery (some of which involved the arts) I can tell you that if there wasn’t a fee to pay to process the grant, there would be a whole load more applications from people without serious intent. The net effect of that would be that they would still need to be processed and that would mean money intended for arts would need to be diverted into administration. Administrators, if faced with this sort of situation, then end up devising ways of quickly scuttling applications to whittle them down to a serious few.

Fees are a crude way of diverting those who aren’t serious - but they generally work.

When I was talking about fees, I was only referring to fees for applying for exhibitions, not application fees for grants. Art Council England does not currently ask applicants to pay application fees but it's possible that other funders might. This makes sense since Arts Council officers are already employed to do things like read applications. I can see a case for independent funders such as charities levying an application fee if they are in a situation where they'd otherwise be deluged by applications that they can't afford to process but since I rarely apply for funding, I've no idea if it's a common practice.

I have slightly more tolerance for paying an application fee for a grant application than I do for paying a curator to look at my work, which is what a non-refundable application fee to an exhibition amounts to. In the later case, I think that galleries are exploiting artists as a convenient funding stream. I think it's a lazy and cynical ploy but artists are often so desperate for exposure that they tolerate it. I don't mind shouldering some of the costs ONCE I'M SELECTED but I object strongly to subsidising galleries and other artists by paying a fee just to have my application looked at.

Incidentally, if any gallery owners or arts administrators feel they can justify this practice of charging artists non-refundable fees to apply for exhibitions, I'm happy to give you a platform on this blog to do so - drop me an email.

I understand and accept Katherine's argument that some funders may end up spending all their funding on administration instead of actual funding, although I'd suggest that they might want to address the structure of their own organisation before using fees as a form of screening. Whether I was personally prepared to pay a fee for a funding application would depend on many issues, including how large the fee was and what percentage of applicants were funded. However, from my limited experience in filling out funding applications, most funders seem to prefer to weed out applicants by making the forms long and tedious! Katherine addresses this issue next:

The forms might also be complex - but similarly they tend to test out whether people have really thought through their idea - or whether they just have a good idea which they really need to go away and work on some more.

I agree with Katherine here. Although I loathe filling in any sort of form and the Arts Council forms make me cry, I have found them useful in defining the project that I was seeking to have funded. It can be very illuminating to be forced to analyse what you're trying to do; who and where your audience is and how you're going to attract them; what benefits your project will have for the wider community and what your definitions for success are.

Sure, it's not fun but it can be worthwhile so I don't mind that. What I do strongly mind is the idea that it somehow isn't work. I feel there is a definite cultural bias towards anything artists do being regarded as Not Real Work simply because it's artists who are doing it. This attitude was quite clearly displayed in the comment I took issue with yesterday. Apparently the person in question believes that artists sit around looking pretty and people throw money at them. Hahahaha, if only!

If I design posters, business cards or spend hours on the computer writing up grant proposals why is this somehow miraculously Not Work? If I spend ages working on my website is it Not Work just because I'm an artist? If I spend hours beavering away at something in the studio is it Not Work just because I don't have an immediate buyer for what I've made?

I think this is partly ignorance - most people have no real idea of what artists do all day and many of them would be hocked if they saw the level of detail involved in an Arts Council England funding form or had to wade through the huge tomes of alternate funders with their myriad of different requirements. Anyone who has managed to get funding has invariably jumped through umpteen hoops to secure that money.

Part of the problem is that much of what artists do is speculative and the financial benefits are not immediately apparent or forthcoming. You apply for an exhibition that you might not get into; you apply for a grant because even if you don't get it, it gets your name in front of the funders and that could pay off in the future; you edit your photos because some day you'll need them for applications or magazine articles; you make work that you hope you'll be able to find a venue for... and so on and so forth. So it's not a simple 'effort in = money out' equation and a lot of people don't understand our motivations to keep slogging away at something that we don't get paid for. Like I said yesterday, some days I don't understand it myself! But that's just how it is. Unless you're working solely to commission, most artists follow some version of this 'just get on and make the work and hope the money follows' system at some point in their careers.

You’d be really surprised how many people want to be given money without putting any sort of real effort into making a good case. Seriously.

Sigh, unfortunately I probably wouldn't be surprised at all. When I was curating, I received some absolutely dire applications where it was clear that the person either couldn't be bothered or didn't have a clue what was required. And I was only asking for slides, a CV and an artists statement, which is nowhere near as complicated as a funding form.

I think that anyone who expects to snap their fingers and get public or private funding for any project, art-related or not, is staggeringly naive but a couple of rounds of filling in forms and writing endless begging letters ought to be enough to open their eyes. I remember talking with one of my tutors at art college and he said that a lot of initially promising projects that he was involved with floundered at the funding stage. Hearing that from someone who was relatively well established made it a lot easier when I got my first rejection letters from potential funders.

Finally, I don’t know any business which doesn’t incur marketing costs to get business and generate income. I’ve always seen time spent on grant applications and fees as exactly that - part of the normal cost of doing business. I don’t know why artists should expect to be let off ‘normal costs’ just because they’re artists.

I don't believe that artists should be let off costs simply because they are artists and I also regard applying for opportunities as a necessary part of the costs of being an artist. However, the economy of the arts are undeniably weird. In what other business do so many people work for free so much of the time?

Hell, most of us spend money just being artists. I remember reading years ago that the average annual baseline costs for operating as an artist (studio fees, business expenses, materials etc) was about £5,000 - I imagine it's gone up considerably since then. I have a studio at home partly so that I can afford to be an artist without a part time job yet my costs (art materials, printer ink, web hosting, exhibition costs and travelling expenses to shows etc) still average a couple of thousand pounds most years. And I'm not using a lot of expensive materials...

This would be fine if the arts were well paid and sheer hard work was enough to ensure success but I'm guessing we all know how that one goes!

So - bottom line. I agree with you - lots of artists exercise a whole load of skills other than their talent to try and make art work for them. On the other hand, any artist or organisation which factors in the costs of being business-like into the total equation is far more likely to succeed.

I totally agree and I think that anyone who goes into the arts expecting fame, fortune and everyone to fall at their feet is in for a very rude awakening. As artists we all need educate ourselves about the various financial options available to us. It's vitally important to work out where you fit and what you're comfortable with doing to fund your practice. But that's a discussion for another day because it's probably at least half a dozen blog posts!

The Canadian author and well known knitter, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has just written a searingly polite but vicious post about the recent obnoxious comments about the arts made by Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

The comments on Stephanie's blog were mostly supportive of the arts but one comment really got my goat because it betrayed such a profound lack of understanding about the realities of working in the arts.

Tonja wrote (cut to show the relevant parts, spelling in context):

"I, also being a relative "average" citizen as yourself, find it extremely irritating when artists of all sorts feel that it is their "right" to be a snob about their art. What I mean is this: I am using my God-given talents to the best of my ability, and while they are not astronomically brilliant, I have to work to provide a living for myself. I am using my TALENTS to provide for my LIVING. Operative word: work - and I work hard. I find it resentful when artists feel that thier talent should entail them to life's finer side of life simply because their painting (which sometimes I feel I could replicate easily) or their violin playing (which I could possibly mimic by whistling) is "talent". Pure talent is not an entitlement - and this is what I felt that Mr. Harper was saying - that there are those of us "average" citizens who work hard and labor for our livings while there are people - "artists" - who feel that they don't have to work simply because of their "talent". Having a subsidy is not work, it is a privilege that they receive as a recognition for their talents, therefore those artists that receive such subsidies should be grateful."

Here is the response I posted on Stephanie's blog:

Ah, clearly spoken by one who has never gone through the hell of filling out an arts council grant form!

Tonja, who are all these artists you know who sit around twiddling their thumbs and expecting to be funded? Because I work in the arts and everyone I know is a) skint, b) working far more hours a week than most people and c) doesn't get holidays, sick leave or any benefits. Most of them DON'T get grant funding and those who are lucky enough to get funding spend weeks or months putting together highly detailed funding applications and scrabbling around for every single penny.

Most of the artists, writers, musicians and theatre people I know need to work two jobs - their art job and then the job they have to do to pay the rent. I believe that the majority of the artists in the US have no health insurance and I know for certain that the majority of artists in the UK have no pension, not because we're too lazy to work and sit around expecting our talent to somehow miraculously translate into money but because the arts are appallingly badly paid. Often the artist is the one person in the equation who gets nothing. Are you regularly expected to work for no pay? As a fine artist, I am! People expect me to put in written proposals for free, I am expected to pay my own way when I enter shows, hell sometimes I'm expected to pay an application fee for the privilege of even applying for a show! In the last six years as an emerging artist I've never been paid and I've have had travelling expenses ONCE.

Talent means NOTHING without a great deal of hard work and there are damn few folk in any area of the arts who haven't 'paid their dues' by spending YEARS working very hard for very little financial reward before 'suddenly' becoming famous.

..................

Are there pretentious idiots in the arts? Hell yes! Undoubtedly there are those in the arts who don't do the rest of us any favours but every industry has its stereotypes (Lawyer jokes, anyone? And what about those arrogant doctors?) and I'm sure there are people in every industry that make their peers cringe.

I know that many people don't 'get' what we do and sometimes we don't explain it very well. Heck, some days I don't get why I do it either! But I am incredibly fed up of people assuming that artists don't work, that artists expect to be funded and moan when we aren't.

Oh OK, so artists do moan about funding but come on, everyone moans about the 'upper management' in their jobs, don't they? Artists moaning about the Arts Council (or local equivalent) is mostly just our version of standing around the water cooler bitching about those idiots in Accounts!

I've certainly never expected to get funding from anyone and I know very few people in the arts who do: as a rule, we're all extremely aware just how fragile, random and incomprehensible the funding system is. I've never applied for an individual grant from the Arts Council England but I have been involved in two groups who got tiny sums for a couple of projects and believe me when I say that those couple of hundred pounds were very hard won - I could probably have earned much more in far less time if I'd gone and stood on a street corner!

Right now there are a lot of very hard-working, unpretentious and worthwhile arts organisations in Britain who are hurting because the Olympics have resulted in widespread funding cuts to the arts (despite our government saying that 'no, no, of course money wouldn't be taken from the arts to pay for the Olympics). In the last year I've noticed the number of opportunities advertised in [AN] Magazine has absolutely plummeted although whether this is related to the credit crunch or funding cuts, I'm not sure.

It's not just the visual arts either, I know several writers and they're freaking out about the state of the publishing industry. There are currently lots of changes happening in the way that the arts are organised, distributed and paid for and many of us at the bottom of the arts hierarchy - i.e. those of us who actually make the art - aren't doing at all well.

So no, we're not sitting around waiting for taxpayers to fund us and expecting that our 'talent' will see us through. Most of us are out there working a second job and/or choosing to survive on very little so that we have more time for our art (I have to do my taxes next month - yet another year where I won't even have made enough to pay tax) and wondering if we'll ever get out of debt...