Print Crew get stuck in

Last night the newly coined Print Crew, workers from HBOS Call Centre met with their colleague Ben Robinson, Nine Trades of Dundee artist, for their first session at DCA Print Unit. Ben had asked them to bring in doodles they made at work whilst on the phone, to use as their starting point. One worker, Carol, repeatedly likes drawing around anything circular. Horse-loving Lisa had drawn a recent tumble from a horse. The arrows, she later realised, are what she draws when customers ask for money to be transferred. Ben's Apprentice Fiona, a 3rd year student from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design was on hand and the lovely Claire from DCA had all cleaning their screens like seasoned pros by the end of the evening.

Fraser MacDonald and Friarton Waste Management Depot

We visited the impressive Friarton Waste Management depot in Perth to view the proposed location for Fraser Macdonald’s Garbologists HQ hut. Above the main depot is the Friarton Recycling Centre and the rather excellent Web Walk which is an educational route for schools to see the history of recycling from Stonehenge to present day. 

It looks likely that the hut can be sited on a gravel area in front of the Web Walk and to the left of the red Ford Fiesta springing out of the hillside in a style reminiscent of the Berlin-based artists, Elmgreen & Dragset and their 2003 work ‘Short Cut’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Short_Cut.jpg

The Perth depot is next to a river and has apple trees growing next to the Web Walk. 

 

Thank You to The Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee

We have just received a donation from The Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee, the historic association that we took our inspiration from and are looking forward to having many more links to over the course of the project. Here is a link to their website http://www.standrewschurch.btinternet.co.uk/Nine_Iincorporated_Trades.htm   and here is a video of Innes Duffus introducing us to the Dundee City Archives ( including the amazing lockit books) where a lot of the artefacts are kept.

Michelle Allard Website

This is a link to the website of a Canadian artist, Michelle Allard, who got in touch with us after seeing our opportunity listed. This artist makes interesting sculptures, often repurposing common manufactured and household materials such as polystyrene, plastics, carpeting, cardboard and office paper. Michelle’s trade work is gardening and landscaping.

www.michelleallard.com 

www.dundee.com 'One City, Many Discoveries'

If you want to know a bit more about Dundee – you might want to take a look at the new city website : http://www.dundee.com/ 

Dundee has the new by-line ‘One City, Many Discoveries’ and this website illuminates  the city’s many faces from arts to gaming to life sciences.

Critical Network

Many thanks to Critical Network for posting up our Nine Trades of Dundee Call for Artists. They have got lots of other interesting information there too.

http://www.criticalnetwork.co.uk/home.php

 

Sunday Express comments of art!

A good example of a widely held misconception about the majority of artists’ wages is the Sunday Express’ reaction to Anthony Gormley’s bid to create a living monument ‘The Fourth Plinth’, in particular focusing on the artist Jo Roberts ( www.joroberts.net ) who was one of the participants

THE FINE ART OF WASTING £1.1BN

LAUGHABLE: One of the living statues in the much‑derided Trafalgar Square project.”

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/114834/The-fine-art-of-wasting-1-1bn

“The Sunday Express findings prompted Shadow Arts Minister Ed Vaizey to signal last night that there would be a major shift in attitude to arts spending if the Conservatives came to power.”

Jo’s own account is at http://oneandother.co.uk/participants/JoRoberts

The Artist Placement Group - started in 1966

The Artist Placement Group (1966 onwards, becoming ‘Organisation and Imagination (O+I)’ in 1989) 

http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/artistsinfocus/apg/overview.htm

“The idea of Artist Placement stemmed from a group of UK artists, and was guided by John Latham and initiated by Barbara Steveni, who were experimenting with radical new forms of art. Directed by Steveni, the APG pioneered the concept of art in the social context. From the outset their notion of ‘placement’ acknowledged the marginalised position of the artist and sought to improve the situation. By enabling artists to engage actively in non-art environments, the APG shifted the function of art towards ‘decision-making’.

Acting outside the conventional art gallery system, the APG attempted, through negotiation and agreement, to place artists within industry and government departments. The artist would become involved in the day-to-day work of the organisation and be paid a salary equal to that of other employees by the host organization, while being given the new role of maintaining sufficient autonomy to acting on an open brief. These placements resulted in a variety of artists’ reports, films, photographs, interviews, poetry and art installations. Artists of international repute, such as Keith Arnatt, Ian Breakwell, Stuart Brisley, George Levantis and David Hall, had important placements or early associations with the APG.”

-Tate Learn Online

Plan 9 - Bristol

Plan 9, based in Bristol is an contemporary art initiative run by artists, curators and writers. Plan 9 has a gallery space, project space and studio's. The programme is run by Plan 9 members, who either organise/curate exhibitions and events themselves or invite other artists and curators to use the space. 

They have a lot of interesting writing about being an artist and worker at:

http://plan9tradeunion.blogspot.com/ 

Check out their publications like ‘ Industry and Idleness’

http://www.plan9.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110:industry-a-idleness-introduction&catid=6:critical&Itemid=8 

http://www.plan9.org.uk/

‘Factory Direct’ - artists into manufacturing

‘Factory Direct’ (2001-2) organised by The Arts Centre of the Capital Region in Troy, New York State was a two year project bringing 16 contemporary visual artists into the manufacturing environment in order to make work that was inspired by processes, products and the histories of the factories.It was curated by Paul Miyamoto, Michael Oatman and Rebecca Shepard. Michael Oatman took up residency at a company that makes coin-operated binoculars for sightseers, accompanied employees on their 5 a.m. repair runs to tourist sites. Mark Dion & J Morgan Puett worked with ex-employees of the closed down Marvin-Neitzel, a manufacturers of nurses uniforms. Their work “Nurse Grimm, Night Nurse” was the last uniform designed and made by the corporation after 155 years of industry. Kathleen Brandt worked with Maximum Security Direct utilising their products made primarily for prisons in an installation that commented on this closed world.

There is not too much on the Internet about this project but thanks to Caz McIntee we have the catalogue so come and borrow it if you promise to return it!

Crafts South - linking practitioners with tradespeople

Crafts South based in Adelaide, Australia is one of the first international organisations that we became aware of in relation to artists and trade skills. Trades (2007-8) was a project linking contemporary craft, design and visual art practitioners with tradespeople. Eight artists were selected to undergo a period of cross-industry skills immersion with trades practitioners, whereby new work was developed and produced in response to this process. 

http://www.craftsouth.org.au/projects/trades.html