It's not enough for me to work "In the Arts" Let me explain...

There seems to be this pervasive attitude that creative practitioners should be satisfied with “working in the arts” because you get holidays/sick leave/stability, you get to be part of the team that makes creative things happen but mostly because “there’s simply not enough places for everyone to make a living as a creative practitioner”. After 10 years of working in an arts adjacent job (in my case, music education*) I can say with 100% certainty that it has been a poor substitute for a career as a full time creative practitioner.

*It’s important to note that my employment within music education does not come with holidays/sick leave/stability.

You may be wondering how arts work differs from working as an artist*. The simple explanation is all artists are arts workers, but not all arts workers are artists. Arts workers may have been trained in the arts, or feel very passionate about creating opportunities/allowing artists to work to their fullest potential, but at the end of the day, the art would still find a way to exist without them. There’s also a huge difference in pay/stability expectations. Arts workers often handle the “unfun jobs” which have to be paid fairly otherwise no one would do them.

*I’m using the word artist here to describe any discipline that produces creative output i.e music, dance, acting, film, visual arts etc.

Don’t get me wrong, arts workers are incredibly important. A good arts team will give the creative practitioner/s they’re looking after time and space to concentrate on art making (my personal experience of being management and artist for the emerald ruby left me only doing paperwork, and 0 time to actually create!). Orchestra’s, Theatre’s, Production Companies, Galleries, Festivals etc could not exist without the teams of people working behind the scenes to make them run smoothly and remain profitable. These arts adjacent jobs keep the show on the road, however at the end of the day, it’s not art making.

I grew up as a creative practitioner in an arts sector that see’s arts work (and as an extension arts education) as a viable career compromise. I believed in this compromise for a while, probably because it was the only viable way to keep myself fed and housed. I committed to the double life of educator/practitioner, two vastly different careers with incompatible schedules. Not going to lie, it’s taken a toll on my health, and I’ve reached a point where I can no longer work and maintain my creative practice.

That crossroads right there leads me to the point of this post. If arts work was enough for me deciding between my arts work and my work as an artist wouldn’t be so difficult.
I’d also like to add that if you’re a creative practitioner who’s found arts work fulfilling, I am so very happy for you! My life would be a lot easier if I found arts work as fulfilling as my own artistic practice.

About the look: This skirt is officially the first piece I’ve ever pattern matched. I couldn’t resist it, the landscape pattern is so rich and illustrative, to do anything else would have been a right shame. I love the way this shirt matches the autumn leaves in the skirt, and of course, with the colour blocking, I had to use my tried and true “colour sandwich” styling method ;). The belt I’m sporting here is a number I thrifted many moons ago.

If you didn’t already know, I’ve recently released an EP! You can watch me play one of the pieces live in the bush down below! If you really like it, you can purchase the Sheet Music, buy the tracks on Bandcamp or even listen to it on Spotify! Central Coast peeps can come see the EP live at the Rhythm Hut with Ren Stone on the 17th of April. TICKETS HERE

Witchy Poo

Goodness I have been away for some time... This was a completely unplanned break, and I feel better for it, but man have I missed this blog. I find the routine of constructing a blog post, then doing all the social media stuff that goes with it to be quite relaxing in a constructive sort of way. Anyway, I'm back! 

You're probably (not) wondering what lead to this month and a half long hiatus. The TLDR version is I had a bunch of little life stuff build up to create a conglomerate of no posting.

The life stuff started with the impending conclusion of Term 1 flute teaching. I had a bunch of makeup lessons to organise because either schools had stuff on, or I had to take time off for performances. This left me too exhausted and busy to do much of anything. During this, I got sucked into Pretty Little Liars (which is a huge time commitment). I did manage to shoot one outfit during this time (but I lost the SD card on tour/before I could back up the images) 

The next bit of life stuff involved my laptop dying suddenly. My laptop had been having a hard time for over 6 months (The fan was making the most awful racket, and not creating proper airflow, so my laptop was noisy and hot), but needing it for honours (and the wait period at my local computer shop being 2 weeks) prevented me from booking it in when stuff first started going wrong.  I discovered my laptop dying at the worst possible time. I use it to mark my rolls for the school band I take, and when I went to mark said rolls, it wouldn't switch on (The fan made this pathetic noise, and then stop). The fix was quite simple (and cheap, thank goodness). I needed a new fan, and the ram had come loose, but from the time it died to the time I got it back I'd been without a laptop for 2 weeks. 

The final instalment of "reasons my blog has a ghost town" involves Vanishing Shapes (The experiment folk band I'm in). We just released an EP and went on tour to release it all over the place. (We're technically still touring as we have two ep launch shows left to play, but they're local shows, so we get to sleep in our own beds/be at home with a stable internet connection.) 

The tour has been great (even though we were down a shape). We've played so many brilliant shows at so many brilliant places, and with a bunch of brilliant people (I'll be sure to do a full rundown of the other artists we played with at a later date. They were all SO GOOD YO!) Pretty much every venue fed us as well (which, if you've ever been on tour, is a godsend)  

On of the stops we made on tour was Lismore. Now, as well as having a great community, and an awesome rooftop come venue, Lismore is also home to the Treasure Trade . The last time I was in Lismore I bought two fabulous pieces from here. I made some time to go in and have a sneaky peek, and walked out with the dress that you've been staring at in this blog post. It's a tie dye crushed velvet maxi dress. It's super comfy, and makes me feel like some kind of mystic witch. I also made a flower belt to go with it because thats what I do. 

I managed to do a shoot with Niki (the owner of the treasure trade) while I was in Lismore and will be posting that in the next few days. See you soon <3 

Daisy Chains

If you're friends with me on facebook, you would have seen me sharing quite a bit of stuff about why the Sydney Lockout Laws are pretty darn terrible for the city. On the outside the laws say "We're making a safe space for the community" but the reality of the situation is much more complex. 

 If you don't already know, the laws stop bars/clubs/venues from letting people in after 1:30am, and stop bars/clubs/venues serving spirits after 12am and alcohol after 3am in the Sydney CBD area in an aim to curb "alcohol fueled violence". The laws were hastily thrown together after the 2012 murder of Thomas Kelly and the 2013 murder of Daniel Christie. These deaths were avoidable and tragic, but happened well before "Lockout" in their prospective years. 

Now, I would be lying if I said that the Lockout Laws haven't achieved their goal. Violence is down by about 40 percent in the CBD. But at what cost? Foot traffic is down 80 percent  (Now, I'm pretty terrible at math and can't do the equation, but that means proportionally violence has increased) Countless Bars, Pubs and Clubs are shutting down (Not even Kabab shops are safe), taking with it hundreds of jobs for both bar staff and musicians. More than this, the violence that was in the CBD has now spread to other areas in Sydney. As well as "getting rid of the violence" the lockout laws are killing the city. 

I personally am not really sure about the argument that Australians have a uniquely violent relationship with alcohol. I've read some very compelling well sourced articles either way, but lets say we do have a problem. There are other ways to fix rather than saying "no you've been bad, now nobody can have it". For instance, increased public transport with more police and more/better education at a high school level (I remember my classes about alcohol were "it's bad for you, so don't drink. Think the alcoholic equivalent of abstinence only education). The installation of a night mayor (like Amsterdam and Paris) to be responsible for making the nightlife vibrant AND safe. 

"Why are people complaining about not being able to get drunk at 4 in the morning when there are more important issues" you may ask. The answer to this very valid question is that it's not actually about getting drunk and partying. The lockout laws signalled the last straw between Gen x/y and the Baby Boomer generation. 

This article says it best, but here's a summary: the Baby Boomers who are in power have locked younger generations out of great educations, home ownership, pensions, fair welfare, and stability, but now on top of this, they have made it abundantly clear that we are not "mature" "responsible" and "moral" enough for recreation. The protests about lockout are more a reaction to our rights to being adults and using public space being chipped away until we're left with a conservative totalitarian government that rule every aspect of our lives in the name of "morality" and "safety". When we were growing up, they talked about us being "cotton wool kids". Now that we're adults, the generation is insisting of keeping this same "cotton wool attitude" for "our own good".  

As well as keeping us safe "for our own good" these laws are laced with political agenda. Did you know that in the whole "lockout area" there's a rather large space exempt from the laws. This space is in the location, and shape of the Star City Casino  as shown in that handy dandy map to your right. Other venues that have exemptions from lockout are only allowed to stay open as long as they stop selling alcohol and the only form of entertainment are poker machines. (I don't know about you, but this seems more than a little fishy, especially considering the Star City Casino has a reputation as one of the mostly violent venues) 

I'll finish by saying this: The politics behind lockout are extraordinarily complicated, and there's a lot of information and miss information to be had. Make sure you question your views and do your research, because the reality, and what the government wants you to think is reality are two very different kettles of fish. 

EDIT: If you want to join in the action to keep sydney from becoming the suburbs you can do so Here (Reclaim The Streets) and Here (Keep Sydney Open)