Dasi- A community artist I know set up The Making Project and works with the homeless and prisons
When I was at art school I planned to go into illustrating colouring books and young children's learning books as I thought it looked fun and like a good bread-and-butter job, however on graduation from my illustration degree I secured a six month post in an arts centre set within a residential neighbourhood in Nottingham called the New Art Exchange part of the art centres remit was to be accessible to the local community and so my role involved looking after their 'community artist' Pops
I never knew such a job existed, through helping him hang exhibitions I got to know him a bit and his enthusiasm infected me. I also noticed how joyful the participants were when they came for their class, like they'd really been looking forward to it and how non judgemental and encouraging the atmosphere in the class was
I came back to Coventry and discussed with my friends, one of whom was running a project educating refugee women about how to access the NHS in pregnancy, she had the idea that I could use art to engage them in discussion, so we'd ask them their experiences (many would have language barriers or not understand English red tape, say) and I'd illustrate it on paper to make it more juicy, then we'd offer them alternative ways and illustrate those in very basic ways, this way it superseded language to some degree and was memorable
I put out some feelers, and met with a careers advisor who introduced me to the existing community artist here in Coventry and we got acquainted, a couple of years later she left Coventry to build a home somewhere else which left a vacuum
I decided to do a Masters in an unrelated subject and as part of this I interviewed some young people at a young person's homeless hostel then I started volunteering there doing art sessions which led to the activities co-ordinator introducing me to education providers who employed me, the most recent Crisis requested I obtained a PTTLs certificate which I did at night school
My working week encompasses 2 or 3 sessions each day Monday - Wednesday then paperwork and funding applications on Thursdays and Fridays
Re attributes, I am a yes person and I very rarely turn down work even if at face value it isn't worth it (ie 2 hours in a prison setting is a long journey and earns you £50 in total but sometimes these things lead to bigger opportunities - so if someone offers an in and I'm inspired then I'm there) I volunteer a lot too (luckily I have quite low overheads so I have flexibility in that way)
I would say networking and relationship building skills have been key, they say in this job people hire you as a person not necessarily what you can do, they become loyal to you and forgive you your weaknesses, in my case my timekeeping and planning skills leave a lot to be desired, I get bored easily and it shows, but I will go the extra mile for people and when I get excited about a project I'm fun to be around
The hardest thing I'd say is lugging around lots of stuff, if I drove I'd have the fanciest storage solutions permanently in the boot of my car and it'd serve as an art cupboard! The best thing for me is seeing people years later and they still have what they made and it's precious to them
If community art is something you'd like to get into -
Establish where you'd like to be based and the types of people you'd be interested in working with, the ladies that lunch market is huge as are after school clubs and holiday activities - ask yourself how you're going to pay the bills, a little job on the side could work for you, would you like to be an employee or would you prefer to run your own project re the former charities like Bernardos or Crisis may have jobs or the local council sometimes have arts officer posts - to build your own project takes time, but the freedom is great
If you'd like to gain any experience and can get to Coventry do let me know and I can rope you in, or if you plan to stay in Leeds my Mum lives there and we may know some people to introduce you to
I hope some of that's been helpful, please be in touch if any other questions
All the Best
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