Intros I
My favorite podcast these days is Maintenance Phase, and their introductions change episode by episode so they’re relevant to the research they’ll present. I figured this might be a good way to start my podcast, and would help me to avoid distilling this project into one sentence, “This project is about…” I have written in a variety of places that I’ve been interviewing people in the arts since 2017 about their livelihoods. Recently I was asked to give a workshop to a group of artists collected by Castlefield Gallery in Manchester and the Centre for Visual Arts in Aarhus for SUSTAIN, “a two-year programme of professional development and artist exchange focused on low carbon artmaking.”[i]
To clarify what I meant by “sustainable livelihoods” I looked up its definition and found, “A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from the stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future without undermining the natural resource base (Chambers & Conway)”[ii].
I wrapped up my presentation for the workshop with a quote from Brad Feltham, the CEO of the Artists General Benevolent Institution (AGBI), an organization, “founded in 1814 by members of the Royal Academy of Arts”[iii] currently supporting, “professional artists in need and their dependents living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who cannot work or earn due to accident, illness or older age.”[iv] Brad said,
It's interesting because artists don't have a Union, so to speak of in this country. They have their societies and their academies and their groups, although that's not a financial safety net. I find artists endlessly fascinating. They're uniquely individual, so one case is never the same as the next one. I think there is a certain amount of uniqueness to artists in [the U.K.], they're all self-employed. They don't have an employer looking after them, and it is really tough. And if things start to go wrong, it gets even tougher. It’s like a conveyor belt protecting your career and your work and your reputation. If something awful comes along, an artist's life/career can just all [fall apart] unless you're really successful. Then you can take these bumps and you can take these knocks. But I know a lot of artists aren't [able to].[v]
And I thought, yes, while perhaps I borrowed the language of sustainable livelihoods from my undergraduate days studying environmental justice and food security, I believe that is exactly what I mean.
So, is this podcast about how artists build sustainable livelihoods? No, I don’t think it is. Perhaps it is. I think that is the starting point, and maybe some way to bring together the wide variety of things I speak to my interviewees about, and so taking the lead from Maintenance Phase felt right to let the words of the interviewees introduce this project.
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about how I can figure out a way not to become a, ‘cold, hard person’.”[vi] Borrowed from Dominique White’s description of what London made her into, this was the first introduction and I think I might have chosen this to introduce this as a personal project as well. When I began interviewing people in 2017, I didn’t know what shape it would take or how I would go about doing it, but I knew that I needed to do this project to fight of the despair and bitterness that was creeping in. Multiple friends have commented on how, in these conversations, you can hear two people trying to support one another. At the time I started this project, I needed that support (and I still do) and I thought perhaps I had the capacity to support others (and I still do).
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about, ‘one on one conversations with different people… [because] we need to have more of [them], we need to have a group or something, we need to be able to, you know, support each other or, like, air some grievances or something like that. Like, you know, there needs to be a safer space.’”[vii] I think that in addition to this podcast featuring one on one conversations with different people, it is also about conversations and their ability to facilitate moments when we can support one another and air our grievances. These kinds of conversations are the ones I would have with Gregory Bae, and that I know he had and helped to facilitate for others through his friendship, art, teaching, and activism. Because Greg died, the words that I say about him and our conversations seem evaluative, rather than what we meant them to be, just another couple of things to connect to what was said before, and to precede what would be said after.
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about, ‘the life of being an artist… [and] all the things that do or don’t go into supporting the ability to make art.”’[viii] The introduction to Gordon Hall’s episode came from Gordon’s response to the last question I ask everyone (the only question I ask everyone), “Did we talk about what you thought we would talk about? Or do you have anything you would like to ask me? Or anything that you would like to say?” Interviewees’ responses to this question help me to better understand how it went for them. Gordon positioned our conversation in contrast to interviews they’ve had which were focused on the content of their work. Thankfully they said that they, “actually find these kind of conversations sort of around, like, all of the things that do or don’t go into supporting the ability to do that work. I find that to be equally, if not more interesting. Because it’s really about, like, the life of being an artist or creative person, which is… I mean, it transforms your entire life.”[ix] Not only was that great to hear that they found the conversation interesting (phew), but also their articulation of the focus of the conversation helped me to clarify what I think my focus is.
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about something that’s, ‘time based, it's months, it's months of work, it's months of reading, it's, it's a mixture of reading groups of, you know, cleaning the fridge and finding something dead at the back, it's, you know, is it's going to the fabric shop is you know, it’s chatting to your Granny, it's all these things that come together, over a longer space of time…’”[x] This one makes me smile. It came from the part of Nicole Morris and I’s conversation where we were speaking about the reduction that occurs when you put on an exhibition, and how even though you want to use this moment to share everything, you can’t. It will make it inaccessible, and besides, like Nicole says, how could you possibly translate that whole multifaceted process? Although you can’t translate it, this set of examples is a good approximation.
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about, ‘being in a space and sharing that with an object, a person, an animal… something that is helping you [to] define time and, and [something that] you measure yourself in proportion to’”[xi]. I wanted to highlight this thing that Leah Capaldi said in relation to presence because if I had to define what art is, it would be this. I believe that this thing we call art is very product focused, and a lot of what Leah and I spoke about was what you learn about your own work from being in the studio, from being in a community, and from being out in the world, and, like Leah said, “knowing how the world is made. And, and feeling so empowered because you are part of that, you know?”[xii]
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about ‘what if [we] said, okay, four times a year we’re going to meet, and we’re going to look at how things have been going, and what’s working, and what’s not working, and how we can do it differently, or what we’re going to put in place. So that [we] don’t repeat this whole year, next year, you know? I’m sure there are some things we can’t change, but what can we change? What can we think about differently?’[xiii] A friend of mine texted me after this episode aired writing that she had the same idea a while back. I’m so thankful to have gotten these conversations on the record because there are so many similar conversations people are having that relate but are unrecorded. While it is important that some conversations are unrecorded and that the person who said these words initially to me remain Anonymous, we have to have some words down somewhere spoken by someone to realize we’re all saying the same thing… so maybe we should do something about it, together.
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about how, ‘these chances to reflect slightly are quite rare when you’re just in production phases. So, it’s good to stand back a bit… and see how things interconnect.’”[xiv] See, this is what I’m talking about. Hilary Powell, Anonymous, my friend and I should get together in a year and check in, and stand back, and reflect, and see how things interconnect, and see what needs to be changed, and think about what we can change. It has been a joy to see the interconnections between all of these conversations I’ve had with people over the years and I’m hoping these essays might be a beginning to using some of these connections as research vectors.
“You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast about the, ‘issues and inequalities surrounding artistic labour.’”[xv] This statement I borrowed from Whitechapel Gallery’s event copy for my conversation with Zarina Muhammad and Morgan Quaintance. I think the event copy is good, and this was a good sentence to frame our conversation… but I still wonder about “surrounding”. The “issues and inequalities surrounding artistic labour.” I tend to get stuck on prepositions more than anything else. Does it mean the same thing to say, issues and inequalities [in] artistic labour? Or perhaps issues and inequalities [around] artistic labour? Of course not, they mean completely different things, so why choose one over the other? I think this is why I avoided giving an elevator sentence about what this project is about. It gives each word too much importance and raises the question, why not use a different word?
And finally, Bella Milroy’s “You’re listening to This Thing We Call Art, a podcast offering, ‘you these moments… those daydreaming moments that we're all having when we're, like, ‘not doing anything’. And it just asks you to just, like, pinch it, and just take it down for a moment and just, like look at it and like, pose it… It's like, how do we pose these moments? How do we make them public? Just for a little bit, just for a moment? How do we do that and not lose that kind of sincerity to them, you know? Not lose that kind of, like, earthiness, that comes from those, like, just thoughts and random, little spinnings out of things. It’s that kind of posing that offers you the kind of perspective on it that otherwise you might not have.’”[xvi] This came from a part of our conversation that was not included in the podcast or archive excerpt where Bella speaks about 12ø (a collective I am in with Eva Duerden and Lou Macnamara)’s annual project 30works30days which, “is a month-long project where participants are required to submit a new piece of work, every day for the month of April.”[xvii] I met Bella through 12ø, and after Bella told me this during our interview, whenever I think about 30/30 I think about what Bella said. Actually, I think about what Bella said quite a lot, and so I wanted to include it somehow.
I like thinking about these intros as setting up titular moments in the podcasts. I love titular moments and often wait for them to happen. When they do happen, it feels like the writer or the director just placed a cursor over that moment saying, “Here. Look here!” Or perhaps it was just a particularly poignant turn of phrase that doesn’t indicate anything about the whole whatsoever but was so well written it could hold something or promise something.
Kelly Lloyd
[i] “SUSTAIN Call Out Artist Digital Exchange” Castlefield Gallery, https://www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SUSTAIN-Call-Out-Artist-Digital-Exchange.pdf (Accessed March 19, 2022).
[ii] “Unit 1 What is rural development” SOAS, https://www.soas.ac.uk/cedep-demos/000_P530_RD_K3736-Demo/unit1/page_23.htm#:~:text=A%20livelihood%20is%20sustainable%20when,undermining%20the%20natural%20resource%20base (Accessed March 19, 2022).
[iii] “ABOUT US” Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, https://www.agbi.org.uk/ (Accessed March 19, 2022).
[iv] Ibid.
[v] “Interview with Brad Feltham” Kelly Lloyd. May 3, 2019. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/archive/brad-feltham
[vi] “Interview with Dominique White” Kelly Lloyd. February 1, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/dominique-white
[vii] “Interview with Gregory Bae” Kelly Lloyd. February 9, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/gregory-bae
[viii] “Interview with Gordon Hall” Kelly Lloyd. February 15, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/gordon-hall
[ix] Ibid.
[x] “Interview with Nicole Morris” Kelly Lloyd. February 25, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/nicole-morris
[xi] “Interview with Leah Capaldi” Kelly Lloyd. March 3, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/leah-capaldi
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] “Interview with Anonymous” Kelly Lloyd. March 22, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/anonymous
[xiv] “Interview with Hilary Powell” Kelly Lloyd. April 23, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/hilary-powell
[xv] “This Thing We Call Art” Whitechapel Gallery Events. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/this-thing-we-call-art/ (Accessed March 19, 2022).
[xvi] “Interview with Bella Milroy” Kelly Lloyd. May 8, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/bella-milroy
[xvii] “30/30 2022” 12ø Collective, https://www.12ocollective.com/3030-2022 (Accessed March 19, 2022).