It's Not A Fallow Period, It's Lack Of Time

I make art in small pockets of time on evenings and weekends. I like my ‘day jobs’, and am lucky to have them, but they are ‘low pay’ and I wouldn’t do them if I didn’t have to. I would be making art instead. And then some.

A few days ago a woman came into the gallery where I work. I liked her immediately. I wrongly assumed she was biding her time before hopefully showing her phone-art with the aim of securing an exhibition. This happens more frequently than I would like. I don’t have, or want, the power to dish-out exhibitions. I was wrong. She had studied Fine Art but now worked for a printing company, which she enjoyed. She said she was too poor to be an artist. When she left Art School she needed to get a job to pay the rent.

I get it.

For the past decade, or so, I have attempted to document the year by stitching newspaper faces to cloth. That’s the 2024 version, above. You can see the names of the ‘sitters’ here.

May begins today, and I haven’t started stitching this year yet. History tells me that if I don’t start in January, then I don’t start at all. There are worse things, I know, but I’m feeling incredibly sad about it. Attaching the ‘faces’, gradually throughout the year, provides my brain with enough delusion to convince it I’m making a lot of art. When in reality I’ve only completed one piece of work in the last three years, because like most working people I’m selling my time to pay the bills and have very little left for art making. This is NOT the same as having a ‘fallow period’. I am not having one of those.

I first started stitching paper faces on New Year’s Day 2015 (or 2014?) when a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on the door and gave me the Watchtower. From then on, every face that came through the letterbox was hand stitched to a large woollen blanket. At about 1,600 faces there was no space left, so I stopped. It took a couple of years, I think. I don’t have a studio, and had no place to store it, which resulted in its butchering. I cut it into sixteen pieces, you can see the top-left corner below.

Section 1 of Mostly Uninvited, c2015

I enjoyed the process and wanted to continue, but needed something more manageable, something smaller. So in 2019 (sitters list here), I started restricting myself to 365 faces, thereby documenting the year. I’d call it ‘The Audience’ and make one annually. So much for that.

The Audience 2019

Because of my exile, the 2020 faces weren’t stitched until 2021 (sitters list here). By now, I had an idea of how much space 365 heads needed and budgeted accordingly. Twelve months, spread over four napkins, each the perfect holding size. On account of there being a lack of newspapers for a huge chunk of the year, I replaced some faces with crosses from my parents’ prescription bags and little covid-thingies, both of which were in abundance. It was shortlisted for the Brixton Art Prize.

The Audience 2020

‘The Audience 2021’ didn’t happen. It’s a pile of dusty newspapers in the corner of my lounge. So is ‘The Audience 2023’ and ‘The Audience 2025’. However, ‘The Audience 2022’ was miraculously completed. Although, I’ve yet to document it so it’s not really finished.

The Audience 2022

An even bigger miracle is that I made two versions of ‘‘The Audience 2024’. One to sell, eventually. I hope. It just needs signing, dating and backing. I submitted it, unsuccessfully, for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

I’m hoping to show them all at the Barbican Library in August. Maybe I’ll see some of you there?

PS. There’s 15 tickets (from a possible 30) left for my art-talk-meal-thingy, and 48 prints (from a possible 50) left from my limited-edition-delaunay-do-da.

Art Matters

‘With war raging and children dying, and the slow waltz of extremism on our doorstep and within our cities and towns, art can seem ephemeral, unnecessary and the preserve of the lucky few. It may seem indulgent even, and for those of us in city centres and with fancy Wren churches (hashtag Piccadilly Priest), it may seem like a right more than a privilege. But those of us here today do not need to be told that art matters, that it shakes us from slumber, that it keeps us sensitised and sensitive and that it draws us back to question earth-bound mercy, the earth-pretence of who is pure in heart, the earth-renditions of the peacemakers. All of these things are turned upside down by Jesus and all of these things are turned upside down by art’.

This is very, very late ‘Thank You’ to the lovely Jane Chipp, who not only sent me much appreciated photos and kind words during Varnishing Day (I just couldn’t face going) at the Royal Academy of Arts earlier this year, but also posted the notes from the ‘Service For Artists’ (extract above) at St James’s Church on Piccadilly (an annual sermon for exhibitors), given to her its author, the equally lovey (as it turns out) Associate Priest, Mariama Ifode-Bleasein. She is a huge asset to the church, and no mistake.

I get a mention in said service (sort of), ‘For some of you, this will be your first attempt at submitting your work for the Summer Exhibition, for others it will be your thirty-second’.

I’m not a big fan of religions, but Jesus has always seemed like an incorruptible bloke who would make a good job of running the country.

Read the full sermon, ‘The world as it is, is not as the world should be’, below…

Smash Thatcher

Christopher Madden is a County Durham born artist who lives in London. We were born in the same hospital. I was unaware of his existence until a few weeks ago.

In 1979, Chris drew a cartoon of Thatcher which was then used by the Socialist Workers Party for placards and posters. Other people copied the image for their own personal banners. In 1980, one such person drew the image, wrote ‘SMASH THATCHER’ underneath, and carried it to protest against the closure of Consett Steelworks (image above, full credits below). The Steelworks closed in 1980, with a loss of 3000 jobs. One of many closures, as Thatcher continued her axe-wielding across the North. The protest was photographed and printed in the Northern Echo, which is where I found the image. In 2022, I stitched it to ‘Shifting to the Moon’, a piece about greed and short-sightedness, the ridiculousness of the monarchy, how history keeps repeating itself, and how the posh lads are always in charge.

I grew up in Spennymoor which is 10 miles from Consett, and very similar. Nobody in my hometown liked Thatcher. Understandably. I’d never knowingly met a tory until I moved South.

In 2024, I submitted ‘Shifting To The Moon’ for consideration for the Royal Academy Summer Show. It was accepted. Alice Fisher, from the Observer, wrote an article about it, on account of me unsuccessfully trying to get work into the Summer Show for 30 years.

Chris read the article, recognised his cartoon, and got in touch via Instagram. Turns out he has a history of Summer Show rejections, too.

Credits:

Image 1- Consett Steel Workers’ protests, 1980. Northern Echo. Photographer uncredited.

Image 4 - Me with my work at the RA. Photo by Cassie Candle.

Image 5 - Chris’s original cartoon. A screenshot from his Instagram feed.

Don't Feel Bad, Joe

I have been applying to be part of the Royal Academy Summer Show, on and off, for 30 years. I have never been accepted, and this year was no different.

Last year, I was on a telly programme, presented by Joe Lycett, which documented the highs and lows of a group of artists who were hoping to be chosen. Joe referred to me as Queen of the Rejected, in a nice way. I had entered RA Bastard Shites, a piece about being rejected from said exhibition. I was asked to cover the title.

The process starts in February, when you pay the fee (now £38), fill in the online application form and upload your photos. The first round results arrive by email towards the end of March. If you are successful the RA judges give your work ‘careful consideration’ upon its delivery to the Academy at the beginning of May. Results of the second round are announced later that month, at which point you will either collect your work or leave it for the exhibition. There’s still a chance you could rejected, they always take more than they need.

Today is Varnishing Day. So called because the likes of Turner would varnish work after it was on the wall. It’s full of pomp and ritual. The artists go to a church service at St. James’s, then stop traffic on Piccadilly as they march to the RA, where they finally see their work on display. Some complain that it is too high or low. BFF* Joe had his sculpture, Chris, accepted one year. It was displayed on the floor, in the corner, butted up against the skirting board.

Joe got accepted, for a second time, this year. Although he is prolific on social media, he just announced it a few hours ago. He has known for a while.

This is what I’m thinking. Joe is a nice person. He feels a bit bad that he got accepted on account of all the people who got rejected. I don’t want anyone to feel bad on my account. I see it in other artists, too. They get accepted, but don’t like to say so, for fear of making the rejectees sad. It makes me feel way sadder than getting rejected ever could.**

Artists, please share your good news. The majority of us are happy for you. Screw the others. They need to work on themselves.

And on that note, I have two RA rejected artworks available as limited edition prints. This year’s rejection Exile Textile 3, and last year’s rejection RA Bastard Shites.

Alison

*To whom it may concern - I know Joe Lycett isn’t really my friend, but thanks for telling me repeatedly.

**Of course I could be over-thinking the whole thing and JL gave it no thought at all.

Photo by Phil Shelly for Klein Imaging.