Girl Shit

There’s another in the occasional series of 13 Questions interviews on Cultivate’s sister-website Organ, fresh from taking part in our #43Artists show, the fine artist known at Girl Shit is the latest to be subjected to Organ’s Thirteen Question interrogation Read the Girl Shit interview here, you can also explore thirteeen question interviews with artists such as John Gathercole, Sal Jones, Sofia Martins Gray, yulia Robinson, Carne Griffiths, Aida Wilde, Kim Leutwyler and more, the index to them all is here.  .

Kim Leutwyler – Start the Riot Oil on Canvas 60″ x 40″ 2015.

Meanwhile the door to the open call element of (Far from the) Turmoil is now firmly closed, it closed, locked, bolted and although I see people who missed the deadline are still sending submissions in, sorry people there has to be a cut off point and we’ve spent the whole day going through the submissions that did get here on time, we spent most of yesterday going through them as well, we did put the call up weeks and weeks ago, you had plenty of time, we’ve been going through hundreds of submissions for the last few weeks, sorry, there’s a reason why we have deadlines, you missed the deadline.

When we do have open calls the policy here is to try an answer everyone properly, especially if the response is a no.  We do feel it right to give some kind of feedback, as far as I’m concerned, as an artist first and a curator a very distant second, is that there’s nothing more annoying than a rejection with no word explanation other than a bland standard issue no, well besides when you get no communication whatsoever when you’ve taken the time to submit something (which is so often the case when you do submit something to an open call). So we try to politely answer everyone in a hopefully constructive way, most of the time people say thanks and although rejection is never enjoyable, people seem to appreciate the time taken to reply.  Now and again though it can result in a some very rude responses and today, in a couple of cases, alongside the thank you responses, abuse, but hey, let me tell you, sometimes I really have to bite my tongue and not tell some people what I really do think, sometimes I really want to yell at people for wasting our time, but I don’t.  I try to politely explain the thought process and give people a constructive bit of hopefully helpful feedback.

We get submissions from people who tell us nothing about what their submitting., we get people failing to give us links, we get photographers and digital artists when we’ve clearly said we don’t want either, we have people making submissions in foreign languages so we have to try and work out what the language is and them make a translation, some people are very rude, as if they’re entitled, in the last few weeks we’ve has a lot off very rudely abrupt (rather annoying) submissions from one particular country, and today we have a Royal Collage of Art MA student, you know the type, likes to wear her MA on her arm like some kind of badge of superiority, complaining about “your company didn’t answer me properly”. Company? Are we a f&*^%I company now?! Are we like the bank or maybe the post office, is that how art school makes you think these days?  Now we all know art schools these days are really just expensive finishing schools for those who’s folks can afford to pay for them to go and art students aren’t on the whole worth bothering with until they’ve been out in the real world, or at least out in the real art world away from your art school safety net, when you’ve been out and surviving as committed working artists for at least four or five years –  “You can reject my submission with some respect and manner” say bratty art student with her I’m doing an MA badge on her sleeve, I’m almost tempted to post an images of the art she submitted here on this page so you can see for yourself – is that really what they do at the Royal College of Art these days? Surely it was a piss take, a wind up?  Someone having a giraffe?  “You can dislike my works personally, but I reckon sending rejection messages to applications is a different thing. It is very rude”, says very rude woman in the middle of her diatribe. Now if I really had told her what I think about her dreadful felt-tip drawings then she would have had cause to complain about us. There is always one, sometimes two, it usually is the art students at the expensive finishing schools, she’ll probably get a damn arts council grant for her felt-tip drawings, the Arts Council like to keep it all in-house., I expect they don’t actually get any constructive critical feedback at the finishing schools these days, I guess she thinks making a complaint to an artist-run gallery is rather like complaining about the head butler at the Ritz or about the disrespectful service In first class when she flies off on one of her many holidays with mummy and daddy.

So yes, the door to the open call has now firmly closed, we’ll be getting back to everyone in the next couple of days, we’ll be doing some more direct inviting in the next couple of days and yes, we will take the time to explain to artists why we’ve responded in the way we have, why we’ve said yes or no. And let me add a footnote here, we’ve often “rejected” an artist for a particular show and then made a point of going back to the same artist when we have a show or an event where we think they might fit, we don’t tend to go back to artists who have hit us with some bad attitude or not shown Cultivate the respect we think Cultivate deserves or simply just not got what we do and what Cultivate is all about.  Art is a serious business, we’re not here to mess about, we’re here, far from the turmoil, doing it ourselves…

We still have no idea when we can get back to physical gallery shows, these virus drenched days may well have done for Cultivate for good, what with the outstanding bills and such. but we are dtil hopeful, we are still making plans, we hoping to be beac kand we are putting you artists, the commited ones, to be ready to go, I would like ot thingk Nothing is Square Part Three isa realistic prospect, be warned, get those 20x20cm canvas pieces flowing…. or maybe a show called “What is the Arts Council for?”

Oh, hang on, rich kid art student just got back to tell us how artists really work, hilarious, apparently I’ve personally insulted her, I didn’t, I really wanted to, her work really was an isulting waste of my polite time… oh she;s back again, the “garbage exhibition doesn’t deserve t ohave her work in it”, lots of personal insults directed at me and my work, this is what happens when you take the time to try and explain to people rather than just sending them an annoying standard issue cut and paste “sorry your work won’t be incuded” message. I have to agree with her though, the exhibition really doesn’t deserve to have her work in it” I am still hear at 1am answer people who have made the effort to make submssions, why do I bother?.  (sw)