"As a practising artist/craftrsperson with an interest in education, teaching and learning, the potential of studio based training greatly appealed to me."
"If you are real lucky you got CDEP or your are making it selling your art and then you got a good art centre too, maybe. If you are real lucky just when you turn up with a couple of week's art production, maybe yours, maybe the families, the centre's got cash, no one's a bastard, everyone's happy, the store has even got some decent food, even new bikes, toy guns, tape decks and a few tins of Log Cabin. Shit, life's good - sometimes anyway." A personal view of art making in indigenous communities.
A recurring feature of recent initiatives is to be self-funded or to operate with a minimum level of government funding and frequently to begin with a limited time frame in mind. The social side of such organisations cannot be underestimated and is probably as important as any art that eventuates.
Artists are particularly vulnerable to economic downturn for two main reasons...the business cycle and the role of other jobs in a tight employment market.
Operating both as an industry training ground and as a space for creative experimentation, low budget film and video production must be thought of as an economic and a cultural investment.
Written with Lee Salomone exploring the utilisation of prominent billboards on the tram track in Adelaide for the term of one year at no cost for them to be used as public art spaces.
A brief guide to Melbourne's artist run galleries: Ether Ohnetitel, The Women's Gallery, Gallery Gecko, The COOP, A For Art Space, Making Sense Contemporary Art Space, The Basement Project, Argyle Street Studios, West Space, Arts Post, RedPlanet, Another Planet Posters, Red Letter Community Workshop, A.R.T. (artaroundtown), First Floor, Store 5, Room 4, ROAR Studio, Temple 29 and 41 Gold Street.