Framing

Recently, I had to embark on a great traumatic artistic life-choice. The stress was so great I swooned. It even brought on one of my heads. Oh, woe is me, whatever I shall I do? If I don’t make the best selection, people could actually die. The life of an artist is fraught with life-wrenching decisions. That’s right: I had to choose a frame.

My decision seemed to shock the framer: I didn’t want my sampler covered in glass, just a simple, rustic dark wood casing. Initially they looked at me as if I’d asked for colonic irrigation to be simultaneously administered, but nonetheless, once I explained my reasons, they did their best.

Once I had a summer job as a frame-maker, polishing glass for mass-produced prints. Nobody cared about the frame, not me, the manufacturer or the shop that sold them. All that mattered was the glass: it should shine like crystal in the sun. Frames were cheap, tawdry and plastic.

Hours of work goes into something as simple as a picture-frame. I never believed how much it would matter. Prints and paintings seemed to arrive complete and ready-made as if by magic and frames were simply what you stuck a hook on to hang your print on the wall.

My photomontage was due to appear in an exhibition. The colour is predominantly silver and yellow, and I asked for a simple metal frame. The framer was again shocked. The ruined the effect somewhat by presenting it creased, and then looked at me as I was asking for them to clip my toenails with their teeth when I asked for it to be repaired, saying that people want their work creased. Yeah. Sure. I’m new around here, but come on.

At my first exhibition opening, and conscious of that damn crease (and my long toenails – they refused clip them) I viewed my work, simply thrilled to be there. It was placed at exactly the right height, and hung expertly and precisely straight: I was amazed when I first saw perfectly aligned pictures measured out with tape measures and spirit levels.

There was just one problem. My piece was next to the best frame in the world. It had a mirrored edge: a vintage frame, chanced upon, and snapped up at a flea market/antiques fair, I’d imagine at flea market and snapped up. It fitted the work perfectly, and enhanced the drawing - my first experience of frame envy. I stood gazing not at that frame. The work was excellent (as you can see) but my thoughts were solely on that frame. Bring it to me!

Over the months, I’ve learned a lot. You need a relationship with a good framer. They must be consulted, as they know what’s right. And yes, when I showed my painfully honest friend my tiny one-sentence sampler, roughly framed in thick dark wood (my attempt at authenticity) she announced that it was clumsy, and damn her - she’s right.

That’s when it finally hit home: framing matters. Now I want double mounting set in antique silver for my next photomontage. Another new obsession, and more expensive shiny toys to buy.

Pushy

Artists are as shy as woodland creatures. They hide, and only emerge at twilight when tempted by a trail of warm white wine in paper cups. After establishing trust by telling them you love their work they might even drink out of your hand.

I am not like that. I don’t believe there is some kind of fairy art-mother who will correct my use of colour, improve my brush strokes, and announce: “You shall be selected for the next Saatchi New Sensations show!” before my slot on The Culture Show (but then I screw up by leaving after midnight and all my work turns into Vettriano looky-likeys, and I am forced to paint a portrait of the queen, or am I alone in waking up screaming after that particular nightmare?)

But I don’t have an agent, a gallery, or any representation at all. My exhibitions so far were down to my own efforts, or a gallerist coincidentally stumbling upon my work online.

And so I am being pushy.

I want a show and to sell some work, but I have no idea how to go about this. So I updated my artist CV, polished the bollocks-speak in my artist statement, and emailed galleries, asking simply if they have space or time to show my work. Aw bless my naïve little soul.

And of course, I’m still waiting. Even the gallery that asked to show my work was incommunicado, and was amazed when I tracked her down via the clever people at BT and was crafty enough to phone. She seemed confused, but I twisted her arm, and she has agreed to show work...eventually. (I know: a gallery owner being flaky and disorganised. Astonishing.)

And there are so many galleries in every city. There are public galleries, boutique private galleries which choose work on the whim of the owner, strange galleries where they sell only chocolate-box landscapes and cat portraits. I am grateful that this campaign is possible using email, as postage would bankrupt me. I am also certain that those emails are instantly deleted.

Perhaps I should use the old-fashioned postal system, and send carefully printed examples of work, my cleverly designed business card enlcosed, but there is something contrived about that.

When an emerging artist is adopted by a name gallery, you wonder how this came to be. Perhaps it’s word of mouth, or who they know, or maybe those artists are pushier than I am. Possibly, there’s a knack, a trick to sending emails or invites. Is it the timing, or the title. Is it down to the image and personality of the artist: must they be authentically wizened and crazy, child-like, amazed and trendy, or stoically professional and business-like?

I know I am unlikely to be selected for a retrospective at The Tate, but a well-chosen piece exhibited in a regional gallery: is that too much to ask?

I need advice. Seriously – is anyone out there? How do I this, because being innocent isn’t going to help with this part of my project.

Media Frenzy

I spent some time recently at the centre of media whirlwind, being hounded by paparazzi, waiting, always waiting in soulless green hospitality rooms before my many TV appearances, with flunkys fending off interview requests around the world.

Oh, okay. I was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

Who’s the best artist in the land? Damien Hirst? Tracey Emin? Wrong. Of course, it’s down to taste, but in reality, they are the UK’s most famous (and maybe richest) artists. I mention this because fame and the media play an enormous part in creative life these days. My own appearance was related to my work in The Text Festival in Bury, where I was showing two samplers called Hard To Say Goodbye Parts 1 and 2. I appeared with Sarah Greaves, who embroiders hard surfaces, like sinks and toasters. We have both contacted the show about our work and exhibitions: if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Whist still a student at The Institute I Decline To Name, I organised a seminar for emerging artists on press contacts called: ‘When Will I Be Famous.’ I think the fact that famous and popular artists work hard to attract media attention came as a shock to many students: they needed to learn how to write succinct press releases as opposed to flowery, obfuscating artist statements (NB – my battle to create such an item will follow soon.)

Back on Radio 4, the segment introduction mentions Tracy bleedin’ Emin. I am not a huge fan of her collages (that’s what they are, not embroidery, and I’m not sure if she makes them herself.) I admire Grayson Perry, and Dadaist stitchers like Sophie Tauber and Jean Arp, or even the narrative power of the Bayeux Tapestry (FYI – it’s an embroidery, not a tapestry) and the subversive sign-writing of Bob and Roberta Smith. I don’t have a chance to explain this which is just a blip.

Certain of my samplers lift accounts written by women on the walls of public toilets. Do I spend much time hanging around in the ladies, I am asked. I have done: I record graffiti in writing as toilets are too dark for my cheap camera. I am asked tactfully about how my sight problems affect my work, and about my piece called: ‘Tower of Babble’ which orders buzzwords on poverty and avarice in the shape of a tower block. I’ve done enough interviews in my life as a writer (at the time of writing, the designation ‘journalist’ is as popular as strangling old people for money) and am aware of how to get some of my point across. Jenni Murray is, as ever, erudite and tactful. I am lucky to be here.

I don’t have free-rein to say everything I want – for example, to clarify that I also make hand-tinted photomontages. But I am lucky to have had this precious opportunity, and tellingly, soon afterwards the website where I show my work attracts many more hits. Now, however the whole world wants a piece of me. I have become public property. When will it end? *the tortured artist flounces off*