Stay At Home Artist Residency

I am a sound-artist, musician and musical instrument designer. This has been my full-time occupation for six years now and I have been lucky enough to work on some great projects with some wonderful people.

I have completed a number of artist residencies during this time; from a year-long stint as artist-in-residence at the Town Hall Symphony Hall Birmingham to week-long residencies, such as that as part of last year’s Supernormal Festival. Based on this experience and my (possibly misguided) analysis of the likely state of UK arts funding in future, I have come up with an idea for an artist residency programme.

The Stay At Home Artist Residency

As the name suggests, this idea centres around commissioning me to carry out an artist residency here, at home, with all my toys and tools to hand.


Recording studio / rehearsal space

What’s in it for you?

You get to commission me to create work for your event/venue. This could take the form of a sound art piece, a musical performance or composition, a piece of research, a presentation, or just a documented process for others to draw inspiration from. But crucially, you won’t have to think about the infrastructure, the travel/living arrangements, energy costs, health and safety etc.

It’s also super-flexible. A Stay At Home Artist Residency can be as short as a single day (in fact, I’d consider shorter!), or left to run until a suitable outcome is reached. No time is spent getting settled, setting stuff up or familiarising myself with a new environment. It’s flexible in terms of geolocation too. Nice as it is to travel, with a Stay At Home Residency I no longer need to come to your gallery in Japan for two weeks. I just post the outcomes (online or by courier) when the residency period is complete.

Cheap too. A one day residency will cost you £200. A full five-day week, £800. We can discuss rates for anything longer than that but part of the aim is to keep it cost-effective. For example, I have a lot of resources and materials here. As much as possible, my aim is to use what I already have to build stuff. If I need anything specific for a given idea, we can discuss this but an aim of these residencies is to keep the cost down by reducing the material costs in this way.


Woodworking workshop

What’s in it for me?

First and foremost…focus. I generally remain really productive in-between commissions but I have a tendency to flit between ideas. This can be great for learning and research purposes but it has also led to a plethora of half-finished items that are never likely to see the light of day. Many of my experiments get posted to Twitter (see below) in the hope that they will inspire others but there is a significant difference between the types of outcomes that arise from this self-imposed research and those arising from commissioned work.

The Stay At Home Residency also removes one of my primary frustrations with residencies: that of being removed from the tools and materials of my art. I find it quite stressful to leave stuff I might need behind and doubly so if I start to create something which is crying out to be made on a machine in my workshop, or using parts in my materials store. These restrictions can of course be liberating too but when you have to compromise a design due to a few missing bits of metal or the absence of a drill press I tend to find this a little frustrating.

It also presents an opportunity for my work to be experienced by others at your event/venue, which is always something I relish. And it’s a different way of commissioning me to do work. Another way to get paid. That’s important to my survival as an artist.

Yeah, but…

Yes, I realise that one of the strengths of an artist residency can be to remove the artist from their normal environment; to provide fresh stimuli. That’s still something I hope to do through other residencies but I believe what the Stay At Home Artist Residency lacks in terms of interaction with other artists and new surroundings it gains in terms of familiarity, focus, flexibility and having the tools and materials of my craft to hand.

Crucially, I am not the sort of artist that has a Proper Job and therefore gains the freedom to explore their art by going to do a residency. In many ways, I have the opposite problem: too much time and too many options. I relish the structure a Stay At Home Artist Residency would provide me with and hopefully it can lead to some exciting work for your festival/event/venue.

And yes, you could just commission me to make something for your event/venue but that’s different. With most of the residencies I have attended the emphasis is not on finished pieces of work but the process. A Stay At Home Artist Residency is different from a straightforward commission in that it won’t seek to the fully define the deliverables upfront. This is reflected in the residency fee and the lack of any cost for materials etc.

I’m interested

Great! Let’s discuss it further. Send me an email and we can take it from there. Hopefully, it will lead to some great work we can both be proud of.


Outdoor microphone


Outdoor tuba

Why I have stopped making art, in order to raise money for charity

I am lucky. By most standards very lucky. I am a full-time musician and artist and as such am living the dream. Yes, it’s often poorly paid and involves far more sales and admin type tasks than anyone likes to admit but I know I lead a charmed life. To some extent I do so because I am scratching an itch. I live through doing this stuff and I find not doing so for a prolonged period causes me to get like a stop-valve needs releasing.

For a long time now there has been certain background tension though, which stems from a sense that I am not giving enough back. Art is good. It enriches lives. It is often also radical and challenging. But with the broad political trajectory of the past few years and in particular very recent events that just didn’t seem like enough any more. So, for a while I have stopped making art to run this campaign: www.dancehowyoulike.co.uk

antonio

If I am honest, I didn’t plan to stop making art entirely while this 21 day campaign is running but it has proved far more all-consuming than I had envisaged. So far, it’s also failing pretty miserably. At the time of writing this the campaign has sold a total of 23 t-shirts. I paid £120 to have 20 t-shirts printed for the promotional activities, including the video below. At present, the charity donation will be around £100. MEH! Must try harder. It could only take one celebrity endorsement or some good press and away we go…but I have also decided that this first iteration of this project and that Dance How You Like will continue beyond this first 21 day campaign. I’ve learnt a lot, including that charity work is fraught with challenges and that you have to work your ass off because people just aren’t going to get to hear about it otherwise.

I will never run a vanity project, so I will quit this if/when the time is right to do so…or if I decide upon other ways to help make a difference. Dance How You Like exists to raise awareness of tolerance and integration issues in the UK – as well as money for Citizens UK. That’s it.

If any of this is making you think you could help an inexperienced soul in this world of fundraising, or maybe you just want to let people know about it, here is information on how you can support the project / get in touch: dancehowyoulike.co.uk/support.html

Oh and here’s that video I mentioned earlier…ENJOY!

I wrote this blog post in part to give myself permission to continue with the project and still avoid making any art for a bit. This may last the full 21 days of the initial campaign but I do have a couple of time-critical projects I will probably do some work on in that time. We’ll see. That itch is certainly getting itchier by the day!

The spice of life

I have a few gigs and events coming up and as usual they are pretty varied. I can hold opposing views as to whether more focus or less focus is best. At the moment, I am just enjoying the stuff I have coming up – including:
 

The Eternal Drone

This Friday, in Worcester I will create an hour-long drone in St Martin’s Quarter. This will be an improvised piece composed of electronic, acoustic and environmental sounds. As part of the Clik Clik Collective Victorian Fair programming.
 

Funeral March

On Saturday, I will be joining Collective43 and Clik Clik Collective in Worcester for a funeral march. Something along these lines:

I feel very lucky to have found the likes of Collective43 and Clik Clik so close to where I live. That’s not always the case when you live out in the farther flung parts of our fair land. We are on the same page and definitely hope to do more together!
 

If Wet #20

On Sunday it’s the last of our If Wet events for 2014, in Callow End Village Hall. We have the wonderful Rosanne Robertson presenting her work and we will have a bit of a celebration of our second season too…before heading to the pub afterwards.

Rosanne Robertson

Here is a preview of the event.
 

DunningWebsterUnderwood début at Vortex Jazz

I am playing at Vortex Jazz for the first time on Tuesday the 2nd of December. I’ll be playing tuba in a new trio formed of myself, Graham Dunning (turntables and effects) and Colin Webster (bari sax). We have an album out next year, called Bleed and have some further recording planned for next Monday evening. Here is a taster:


 

Glatze at Capsule Xmas Cocktail

Lastly, I am looking forward to another Glatze gig this year at the Capsule Xmas Cocktail party on Saturday the 13th of December! I am delighted to be on such a great bill and I look forward to some fun-at-all-costs live music making!

Glatze