LEAVING SOMETHING YOU’VE BUILT
It is exhausting to be in a profession that evaluates you simultaneously on newness and also on continuity. This is something I spoke to Katriona Beales and 12ø Collective’s eva duerden and Lou Macnamara about. On one hand you have, in Beales’ words, an art world that functions currently as, “…you’re only as good as what you've got next”[i]; and on the other the pressure, in Macnamara’s words, “…for things not just to be shiny, but to be like, ongoing. For there to be an endless feed of stuff.”[ii]
The success of a project, particularly one that involves public participation, requires stewardship and consistency, something Jessica Gaynelle Moss gave an example of when I spoke with her on 15 September 2021 about The Roll Up CLT, “… an artist residency program for Black contemporary artists practicing across disciplines.”[iii] Moss told me that,
… we had a resident Shan Wallace in 2019 from Baltimore, Maryland, and Shan set up every, um, the last Monday of every month at the public library to do free portraits. And in the beginning, you know, folks who are just in the library kind of benefited from the program.
And then the next month, you know, kind of doubled in, in scale. And then as the months continued, there were like lines of people waiting to get their photographs taken. And I think it was that consistency. Like we know the last Monday of every month, Shannon will be there, it'll be free program, The whole, the whole family can participate. It's at the library where you're probably already, you know? Um, and so we saw some success in that program.”[iv]
So, what happens when you burn out? Want to try something new? Have to leave? How do you leave something that you’ve built and had to steward to turn your attention to something new (new responsibilities and communities), something old (the core of your interest in your work now buried in administration), and/or yourself?
I interviewed a number of people in Season Two who left something they’ve built. Shannon Stratton co-founded ThreeWalls in 2003 and stepped down as Executive and Creative Director in 2015. jina valentine and Heather Hart began Black Lunch Table in 2005 and stepped away as co-Executive Directors in 2022. eva duerden co-founded 12ø Collective in 2015 with Chloe Miller, Jeff Ko, and Jacob Watmore; in 2016, Chloe and Jeff left, and Lou Macnamara joined; in 2019, Jacob left, and I joined; and in 2022 we broke up. Katriona Beales co-founded Artists’ Union England in 2014, and stepped away from the Executive Committee in 2015, returning in 2023.
I’m addition to these stepping aways, I’ve been told about other stepping aways from jobs to cities to certain ideas of success. When people step away from something they’ve built I wonder why. What happened?
Shannon Stratton told me that one reason why she stepped away from ThreeWalls was because,
I was more and more an administrator there, like after a certain amount of time. And, um, because it, you know, we had lots of input from our community, people on committees and like, you know, there was a lot of different ways that it wasn't just, like, whatever, my brainchild or something. Like it wasn't a vanity project. And so it was, I think when I left it's because I really wanted to have, like, some creative agency over it and just be like, “I’m curating a show.” Like, I, I didn't have to, it's not about, like, an open call or like a jury discussion or... and I still, like, believe in those, like, you know, types of ways of bringing people together. But I think I left cause I wanted to, like, try the other thing out.[v]
jina valentine also pointed towards administration playing a part in her and Heather Hart’s stepping down as co-Executive Directors of Black Lunch Table, saying,
Heather and I, in the past year, I think, realized that as much as we love this work, the administration is not the work that we love, and we're not the best people to do it. And I think it was really kind of heartbreaking for both of us. Cause we’re like, you know, we’re caretakers, we are artists, we are faculty, we are tired. [LAUGHS] But we're always like, we could make this work. We will do whatever we have to do, we will work all hours. And I think we just, we... it's impossible… But it's all good. I think Heather and I are excited to go and be just, you know, art makers, where, you know, we've got like a soft date for getting together and talking about other art that we could make that maybe doesn't require so much paperwork.[vi]
So much administration and paperwork factored into 12ø Collective’s breakup, with Lou Macnamara explaining,
… we weren't in sync in the same ways as we were like a couple of years ago. Of like, being on the same kind of wave of how we work. So, um, part of that is living in different places makes, like we can't all meet up in one place. But even when we meet up in one place, it's like we're no longer in the same kind of groove of like, it's like we're pulling in different directions, maybe? In terms of how we work and... um, and so we still want to achieve the same thing, but we just, our methods or like our style or schedule and stuff is different. So, like, scheduling between the three of us became, like, nigh on impossible. Like it's always hard to schedule with anybody, all the busy people, but like, it's definitely harder to schedule a 12ø meeting than it is anything else that I do. So, I guess we just have like really conflicting schedules and live in different places, and like maybe have different levels of engagement with, like, the visual arts and caring about artists as a priority.[vii]
In 12ø Collective’s breakup message we wrote, “We have decided that we will no longer work together as collective and just be friends, as our lives are taking different directions”[viii], and so I asked Macnamara and duerden about what those different directions were.
Macnamara spoke about how their,
…direction has taken a big shift from doing stuff with cameras and documentary and videography jobs on the side of working art galleries, to that becoming my main job and figuring out how to, um, how to make that my main job and main income, uh, through being a camera assistant on TV drama features, music videos, commercials. And um, through moving into that world, then like recognising how many barriers to entry there are and um, how un-diverse and un-inclusive it is in our department. So, um, one of the things that me and one of my colleagues, Samara Addai, who's really amazing, and had- or we've both been kind of trying to independently do our like small amount to change, uh, change that, where we had hiring power, or where we could support other people. Um, and we've just formalised that into, over this year, running workshops, and like a subsequent mentor scheme to get trainees who are from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the camera department into our department.[ix]
And duerden spoke about how, “…after 10 years of living in London, I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna move to Berlin and have to start all over again! And I think maybe that sort of, um, kind of gives a background to sort of maybe what path I'm onto, um, of just sort of maybe trying to create my own problems. Not because anyone should have any problems. But like, I guess just disturb my thinking, maybe. Or what I already know.”[x]
When I asked Katriona Beales about stepping away from Artists’ Union England, she also spoke about a major life change as the impetus, saying that,
…my hand was kind of forced in way because I got pregnant, and I wanted to have a kid. And, um, I kind of, um, had had a model of art sustaining my art practice, um, by, you know, delivering projects in gallery and education settings and then having time to have a studio practice alongside that. And, you know, lots of people still use that model and I think it's a very valid model, but it's one that only functions if you haven't got caring responsibilities. Because the moment you kind of throw in caring responsibilities in the mix, you don't really have free time.
So, the idea that I would be able to be apart from a child who, I would have to pay someone else to look after, you know, and I, you know, my partner and I, at that point, he was also self-employed, and, um, you know, we did juggle childcare between us. But whenever we weren't doing childcare, we needed to be earning money.
And it just, the space in my life for voluntary work collapsed. And so, then it just, it, you know, in a way, I, I kind of didn't wanna leave the A.U.E. Exec when I did because we were just beginning. Um, but I had to step down. And, um, and it forced my hand in lots of ways. In some ways it was incredibly healthy and in other ways it was really, really hard.[xi]
Looking back at why I asked Stratton, valentine, Macnamara, duerden, and Beales why they stepped away, I also wonder why I needed an answer. I think it goes back to what Macnamara said, because of this pressure for something that is good to be ongoing. dueren spoke about this pressure when discussing 12ø Collective’s impending breakup with a friend who said,
“What? You can't stop 12ø.” And I was like, “Why not? Like, why not?” And he was like, “You're just throwing your toys out the pram, and you're throwing away something that you spent eight years doing.”… I was sort of like, this is, this is really interesting that it's like, it's not valuable anymore if it stops. You can't be, like you say, it can't be like, yeah, it was good for the time. That doesn't mean we should keep doing it. Like, there's loads of things that were good at the time; doesn't mean we keep doing it, because it sort of kills it somehow. It kills it more than ending it and being like, it's done.[xii]
I also spoke about pressure with Jesse Malmed when I interviewed him on 14 September 2022. A different but related pressure. He recalled,
…when you and I were in our individual grad schools, grads school in Chicago, back in the, uh, early teens of the century, that was like a, people wanted to talk about a lot, I think, was sort of like interdisciplinarity and like artist-run spaces, artist/curator, things like that.
And so, so that seeped into my mind, even though it was already happening, but it sort of like felt more formalized. But I remember they're also being like, I don't know, like the, the thing, the thing that's weird about it is that like, it's, it can lead to people feeling the pressure to do these things. It can lead people who like have an apartment gallery but what they really want is to just like have a medium scale job at a regular institution and just like be in art, you know? Um, as opposed to the sort of like borderline problem of some of the people that I find I cherish most deeply of like the, the, the immensity of the immersity of the immersiveness of being inside of that, you know?[xiii]
The pressure to have certain kind of art practice or certain kinds of curatorial projects. The pressure to continue with something when it would be better to just kill it off. The pressure to always have something next. The pressure to take care of the things you’ve built even when you want or need to go in a different direction.
What if you leave something you’ve built but you don’t know what you left it for, or in what direction you’re going in next? I’m in an odd moment where I’m trying to vacate my life so I can attend to certain things and perhaps end them to make room for new desires and habits … and perhaps for nothing at all. End my PhD, end this project perhaps, end this feeling like I have to beg, borrow, and steal to piece my life together, end my current circumstances limiting my ability to imagine what is possible, but mostly end my incessant need for achievement which has been the most generative and the most destructive force in my life.
I share a birthday with jina valentine who told me about the astrologer Alice Sparkly Kat whose April 2023 horoscope began with, “WHAT IF WE RUN OUT OF SOME THINGS? … What if it’s okay to run out of some things? What if, when we run out of some things, it is perfectly acceptable to not rush to replenish them?”[xiv]
Kelly Lloyd
[i] 12ø Collective (eva duerden, Kelly Lloyd, Lou Macnamara), interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 1 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/12o-collective.
[ii] Katriona Beales, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 14 December 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/katriona-beales.
[iii] “The Roll Up CLT”, Jesse Plane, Accessed 29 April 2023, https://www.jesseplane.com/the-roll-up-clt.
[iv] Jessica Gaynelle Moss, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 15 September 2021, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/jessica-gaynelle-moss.
[v] Shannon Stratton, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 4 August 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/shannon-stratton.
[vi] jina valentine, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 2 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/jina-valentine.
[vii] 12ø Collective (eva duerden, Kelly Lloyd, Lou Macnamara), interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 1 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/12o-collective.
[viii] “Breakup Message”, 12ø Collective, 25 October 2022, https://www.12øcollective.com.
[ix] 12ø Collective (eva duerden, Kelly Lloyd, Lou Macnamara), interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 1 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/12o-collective.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Katriona Beales, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 14 December 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/katriona-beales.
[xii] 12ø Collective (eva duerden, Kelly Lloyd, Lou Macnamara), interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 1 November 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/12o-collective.
[xiii] Jesse Malmed, interview by Kelly Lloyd, This Thing We Call Art, 14 September 2022, https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/jesse-malmed.
[xiv] Alice Sparkly Kat, “APRIL 2023 HOROSCOPES”, Alice Sparkly Kat, 2 April 2023, https://www.alicesparklykat.com/articles/415/April_2023_Horoscopes.