Tuesday 9 January '07

Garen Trauma pt 11

My own personal hell this last 4 months has been building the vegetable garden, trying to wrestle something out of the rock and water of the site. On one hand I have Karen (my partner) who thinks it’s going to look like Kew Gardens - an immaculate vegetable idyll - and on the other the reality of working with a lot of mud and rock and my own ineptitude. So finally the basic structure is in place.

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 09/01/07 at 15:25 0 Comments

Wednesday 13 December '06

Way To Go

Following on from the initial selection proccess done as a live webcast at the Greenland Street space in Liverpool we have had further meetings of the panel and finally shortlisted 15 of the applications.

The process seems crazy, so much work from all sides, each year we dissapoint/annoy 100 artists, and in fact probably 80% of those applicants would be good to work with, but somehow we have to find only 6. This year was a better than ever selection, hence the endless deliberation. It's a depressing process, by the end of it I want to find a new job, the equation is absurd, so little money, so little to compete for, so much material and ambition, so many ideas and creative thought. This week we have been responding to those who did nt get selected, trying to give some useful feedback, I'll post some of the correspondance in the near future. Still we've made choices and will announce shortly.

Grizedale is currently at that time of year when we need to make applictions for money to exist for another year. Both our local funders (councils) have cut (one has one is about to) funding completely and although this is a relatively small amount of money (£17,500 - actually not so small) it doesn't make life any easier. The Arts Council are telling us to expect the worst and that they are moving away from giving revenue funded organisations project grants. This is pretty bad news, the whole Arts Council thing is so hand to mouth, last year we were told to use the project grants to fund our activity. It is frustrating to see the process, a wandering around aimlessly sort of thing constantly restructureing. The Arts Council tend to reward the hopeless. The organisations that get money and particularly revenue money are those that have screwed, are massively in debt and dont do much, it is a strategy some organisations take. But it makes for a weird upside down world – it’s called the advancement programme!

Posted by Adam Sutherland on 13/12/06 at 18:51 0 Comments