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28 very public people interviewed by 16 artists
Very Public People
Rachel Parsons
Contributors Shona Bland / Alice Pettit / Denise Startin
Rachel Parsons In conversation with Denise Startin, artist – both recent graduates of art courses
R.S: I am a mum of two, 35, I finished university last June doing fine art. I left an OK job to go to Uni to get a job in a creative field and since I left Uni I really struggled to even get an interview. It is like hitting a brick wall. There is a problem with jobs anyway, in this area particularly.
education, the amount of debt we are in, the time I didn’t give to my children. And now when I weigh it up I do not think it was real value for money and I am not sure I would do it again. Now the only door that seems open to me is education, schools and I do not feel that I am going to go to education through default.
D.S: Left your job, went to Uni and you are in exactly the same position?
D.S. You want to be able to choose, right? I relate to that and think there is not enough support. Even to classify as an emerging artist you have to be 5 to 10 years in and I do not know how to translate what I did at university into the real world – in terms of practice or jobs or whatever.
R.S: I think I am in a worse position. I was shocked in the past if I didn’t get an interview but in the creative world a BA is very little. My family suffered hardship because of my
R.S. Once you cross over into retail, commerce, education your language has to change, so linguistically it is a massive jump! And if your work is visual this is already a problem. You are measured on your visual practice in words. When I was at school, here in Sandwell, I was always good at art, it was my passion and only real achievement. And when I went to the careers adviser, and said I want to do art, I was told that if I wanted to get a job and own my own flat then I would have to move on from art as this would not get me very far. So I ended up getting a job. And after 15 years of working,
at nearly thirty, the passion for art emerged again. And Uni seemed like a good way to go, to be able to call myself an artist. D.S. I think people underestimate your skills as an artist. They are also suspicious of art. They either think you are taking the mickey or trying to make them look stupid. And this is not what it is about! R.S. I felt that at Uni I wasn’t allowed to raise my hand and say I do not understand. You were expected to be at a certain level. But I always liked using plain English. It was seen as bad. Now the whole system puts me off. For example art
Rachel Parsons Continued from previous page...
competitions seem odd to me. To me competition means setting off from the same starting point, but in art this is not possible. To me this is a problem. Competitiveness in a race that really shouldn’t be run. But at my uni I met young people who wanted to be celebrities after the course, this was their post degree aspiration. They wanted to achieve it through art.
D.S. Well, I think going through an art course made me to some degree unemployable. I have not worked consistently for 7 years now, and I am up against all these younger people. Life experience seems not to count any more.
Black Weekend Both Alice and Shona had bad luck. The people who they were going to interview never showed up. Please find below a short selection of the questions they wanted to ask.
When did you last leave West Bromwich? Where did you go? Do you mind travelling by bus? Is it raining? How did you get here? What is your favourite place in West Bromwich? Do you like fish and chips? Would you recommend West Bromwich as a holiday destination? Why?
“Why?�
Very Public People
Design Alice Ralph www.aliceralph.com