An Assistant's Dream

Update from the previous post...

Funnily enough, after I wrote that text I had a dream that I was back working for her. I dreamed that her studio was in a derelict warehouse and I lived there sharing a dirty old black sheetless mattress with another assistant. The other assistant and I were collecting glasses and doing the washing up from a wild party the night before. The artist was sat at the table drinking tea. The other assistant suggested I clean up the mouse skeleton under the sofa. I was annoyed that I was asked to do this as I would have been happy to do it on my own volition.

Not sure what this means, other than that it brings up phrases like “skeletons in the closet,” and, it’s about vermin. Which reminds me, she used to affectionately call us call us mice…

Not Spilling the Beans

An Assistant's Story from an anonymous ex-assistant gives a positive reassessment of assistants:

I worked for a famous artists a few years ago for a period of three years. During my employment I often dreamed of the time when I could “spill the beans” on all that went on in the studio, her home, social life, international trips and exhibitions. I looked forward to the day when I could have my say, an exposé and, perhaps, claim something for myself. However, as the years have passed this ambition now feels so cliché and really quite sophomoric. Perhaps, I am getting old and am less of a crackerjack, but, now, all I have is gratitude.

Okay, maybe a bitter taste does still linger, but the bitterness, I find, so embarrassing. To be an artist assistant is quite a normal thing for an artist to do at the beginning stages of a career. Regardless, to be an artist and work as an artist assistant can sometimes be a little painful on the ego.

Today, I looked back at my diary which included some journaling, press clippings, photographs, invites, notes, cards and random bits and bobs. The remnants that I sifted through today I am so fond of and so grateful for. It is so strange to see myself in the pictures – posing in some, working away in others + a few of me dancing on tables with my boss. In some, I see what a hardedge I had during those times. I worried that I had put myself in a vulnerable position - one that I could be taken advantage of or one where I might have my artist self sucked out of me. So, I maintained quite a “nobody is going to mess with me” attitude. I imagine now that this wasn’t very comfortable for my employer. Looking back I wished I’d been a bit more forthcoming. It was a fantastic opportunity and I am ever so grateful to have had it.

To be an artist you have to be so headstrong; you have to believe in yourself and your convictions. It is lonely and often you are working against all odds. Being an artist often feels like the hardest job in the world and, sometimes, we could do with a little help.

Lunchtime seating arrangements

An assistant's story from RP

i work in an art making studio in london. we don't solely work for artists, there's museums and theatre, but mainly artists.
Every year I have to sign a confidentiality form, so that way I cannot post any photographs of the work I’m doing and most of all, who I am working for.
Some artists are very particular in not wanting people to know they don’t make their own work. Some will actually thank the studio and all the people involved, in the exhibition catalogue.
These are big artists with big projects, I’m talking turbine hall and recent RA retrospective material.
But not all artists are the same.
Some you won’t see until the polishing is finished. We get instructions and plans from one of the studio directors that have previously met with the artist. There was actually one of these artists that would have his personal assistant come down to the studio and photograph everything we were doing because he would have anxiety attacks if he went there himself. Things look pretty rough in the making but come on!
Some other artists are actually interested in the making of their own work. They will go to the studio on a daily basis, talk to you and even work alongside. These are a very rare and appreciated kind.

Personally, I don't think artists should have to make their work, especially if it goes beyond their skills. I am not in any way offended by doing what I do, and I get paid, relatively well and regularly. This allows me to have my own studio and make my own art work, and even use the studio’s equipment to do it.

It is always fun to go and see the exhibition of “your” work and have invigilators saying things like, please don’t stand so close and don’t touch the artwork. Dude, last week I was having lunch sitting on it!

Grin and Bear it - An Assistant's Story

An Assistant's story from Christelle

Ever wondered why since October 2009 I haven’t really been where I wanted to be?
Here I am, sitting by the window of a little flat stuck in Brockley: it’s a sunny day, yet the thoughts in my head cloud my soul.

I have a Ba/Hons in my right pocket, and dreams in my left pocket, but then again I wonder: why have I not found a bloody really good job or PAID internship?
Oh, well I AM doing an internship actually, but it’s not paid, oh no never; it’s what’s en vogue, UNPAID LABOUR…It’s as if employers are taking the piss with this recession time and all, there is a masquerade in place I tell you ( but never mind, not now).

So I do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of everything, and because I am a perfectionist I do it the best I can , saying to myself: “ Go on Christelle, you know it’s for a brighter future. Get the experience you need, and move on. It doesn’t matter if you get paid or not, your dream is to have your own art gallery, so do your best”; that’s what keeps me going.

The internship is part-time, and I also volunteer on an ad-hoc basis for another organisation; I am investing my time and moral health into two art galleries at the moment. Six odd months ago, I graduated…Six odd months down the line, I see the work I do going into the hands of someone who doesn’t even participate in “travel expenses”; it’s not very fair, is it? Six odd months down the line, I feel the urge to roar and to grunt like a bear. Sitting by the window, is a brown-eyed bear wondering when the salmon will come her way.

I am a writer, amateur photograph, project assistant, events assistant, marketing assistant, gallery assistant and a bear: I am an intern.

An Assistant's Admission

An assistant's admission, submitted by R.

"When the artist I work for walks into the studio my knees actually shake with nerves".

thanks for that R!

By Accident or Design

An 'assistant' story submitted by Lucy

Several years ago I worked at the *** in London as a design intern. It was around the time that they were re-designing their famous acronym to create a new brand for the institute. The process was very nearly complete and the new brand had been rolled out across almost everything.

One morning the marketing director ask me to do a 'quick, little design job'. I was in my first year at LCC, studying design. I knew very little, especially about the dangers of stealing parts from a new re-design to create a piece of work, and doing it without the approval of the agency who had done the job! Regardless.. I designed the small A8 'sign-up' card using various different elements of the new re-design; stealing bits from other InDesign documents, etc. A week later, I was very excited when the front desk called me to say that the cards had arrived from the printers. "My first print job... and for ***!" I thought, happily skipping down the stairs. Later, with the box of cards in my arms, I opened it up to have a look at one of them and proudly smiled.

As I jumped into the lift to go back upstairs (which at the *** is literally the width of two average-sized people) a man stepped into the lift with me. He took one look at the small yellow card in my hand, and his faced turned to thunder. It turns out he was the creative director of the agency that had *just* finished the re-design, coming in for a meeting to discuss the handover. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Who... did... that?" He was furious... which, now with my own studio, I would have been too. We live and learn...

The Rat Race – An Assistant's Story

Submited by 'Rrose'

At one time I worked as an assistant for a particularly eccentric artist who for reasons best known for herself used to keep a pet rat, known affectionately as Micky, in the studio with her whilst she worked. She would often go away from the studio to meetings or on business and I became accustomed, along with looking after the studio, to looking after the rat, I didn't really mind it and actually became quite fond of the thing. It was nice to have some company during those long days alone in the studio, albeit from a rat, and at least this rodent was in a cage, unlike the multiple mice that seemed to make the studio their playground everytime my back was turned. When by boss was away I would look after Micky, making sure he had enough food and water and if she went away for a particularly long period, changing his bedding material and cleaning out his cage.

Now the particular studio in which we were based at that time was below ground level and very close to the river. As a result of this it had been known in years gone by to be particularly prone to flooding. One especially wet August my boss happened to be away, out of the country on business, I was looking after the studio, and as usual looking after Micky. All had been going fine for about a week and then one extremely rainy night I got a call from the janitor of the building in which the studio was based saying that the basement area was flooding and that I should get down there as quickly as possible in order to save the work and equipment. I drove down as fast as I could and was relieved to find that the water was only a few inches deep at that stage and most of the things were undamaged. I was also relieved to discover that Micky was safe and sound, sat in his cage on tp of the table. With a little help from the janitor I managed to move most of the stuff upstairs into a dryer and safer area between some of the offices, it was not ideal and thinking that I couldn't really leave Micky up there in someone else's office like that, I decided to take him home with me and look after him there for a while. So sticking his cage on the passengers seat I drove home and eventually arrived back, very late that night, at my flat. However, unbeknown to me, my boyfriend at the time had been nurturing a covert phobia of rodents and seeing me arrive back bringing with me a live rat into our small, one-bed apartment sent him totally up the wall. He inisted that first thing in the morning I got rid of 'that thing' and took poor Micky back to where he came from. Reluctantly I agreed and so the next day, whilst I couldn't sort out the mess in the studio being as it was still (by now) about a foot deep in water, I nevertheless took Micky back to the building. Initially I took him up to the office where our stuff was being stored but the ladies up there likewise freaked out at the sight of this apparently disproportionately alarming small mammal. After hearing their protests the long suffering janitor informed me that the building had a no pets policy and despairing of where to store the poor little fellow I was forced to sneak him back down to the studio, despite its flooded state. I made sure I gave him enough food to last him a little while, and if I'm honest, as something by way of consolation for his unfortunate plight. I left him, sat in his cage on top of the table, high out of reach, or so I thought, of the water.

That night it rained heavily once again and the next day I thought I'd better go back and check on the studio and on Micky. When I arrived I was worried to see that the water had risen considerably and it was then that the sad truth presented itself to me. Bouyed up by the rising waters, the table upon which Micky's cage had been resting had floated up and overturned sending the poor, unfortunate rodent sliding down and plunging to a watery grave. Trapped in his cage he had been unable to swim and had sadly drowned in the rising flood waters. I panicked, how was I going to break it to my boss that her beloved pet had met such an unfortunate end under my care? I spent the rest of the week worrying, deciding not to tell her over the phone, I awaited her return with anxious anticipation. When she arrived back she was obviously concerned to see the state of the studio and examine what had happened to all of her stuff, when I eventually nervously plucked up the courage to tell her about Micky she was naturally upset but didn't say really say too much about it. She said that she didn't blame me for what happened but after that I always suspected that she might be holding it against me, things never quite seemed the same after that and I left my position a few months later. I do feel a little responsible for what happened to poor, old Micky, to this day I still imagine him trying to swim free but being trapped in the sinking cage. I don't think however, that leaving that job overly affected my artistic career, at least I like to think not. It would be a strange thing not to make it as a successful artist over the sad fate of a drowned rat.

The Colour of Money – An Assistant's Story

An Assistant's Story – Submitted by Monty

I once worked for a fairly well known artist in London whose works were entirely produced by a series of assistants in the form of a production line, the only hand that he laid upon them was to add a signature at the end of the process. Upon my leaving his employment he decided to present me with one of the paintings by way of a thank you for my work there over the last couple of years. In fact the painting that he chose to present me with was one that ironically had actually been largely produced, that is to say painted, by me. When I drew this to his attention he commented that I always was the best one at producing his paintings, that I produced them more neatly and effectively than any of the other assistants, in fact even than him, he joked. Thanking him for his gift I asked him if he might sign the painting, as he did all of the others that left the production line and hence actually imbue his seemingly generous gift with some monetary value. He laughed, he couldn't do that he was afraid. So it was that I left with what could have been a potentially valuable 'original' of this famous artist, that could have been worth multiple thousands of pounds, in fact painted by me and no different from those many others that did sell for big money, aside from the simple fact that it didn't bear his signature and hence was worthless. It was then that the true ridiculousness of this scenario really dawned on me, not necessarily the mass production of art works per se, rather the extraordinary sums that the work of a few big-name artist 'brands' can command when quite literally the same work without the name cannot. It seems like there are two art worlds at work here, those that work for the love of it and those that work for the love of money.

Assisting Art Through the Crisis – An Assistant Story

Submitted by Luther

A few years back I undertook some work for someone who is now quite a well known painter, back then he was getting pretty well known but not quite at the level that he is now. It was always clear that he was going somewhere though, he had that gift of the gab, a certain confidence or social skills that put people at their ease when he was taking to them. In fact I often wonder if he talked his way to success, he certainly didn't paint his way there, that was my job! To be fair, the ideas were his, he would knock them up on the computer in an a fairly slick, almost industrial process that was more like a graphic design or advertising studio than most people's conception of the artist's studio. It would be my role to scale these up and paint them up to a stage of near completion with my steadiest hand. At which point he would usually dash off a few finishing touches and sign the piece and then I would ship it off to his dealer. The industrial nature and professionalism of what I did surprises a lot of people that I talk to about my time there, but I guess that artists have always employed assistants or workshops, right back through history so I'm not sure why people are so shocked. Its essentially a branding thing I guess, do top fashion designers actually make their own clothes? Sometimes, but more often than not it's their assistants that undertake the majority of the leg work, and why not? If you don't buy into the whole touch of genius thing then things that can practicably be carried out by skill labourers can be without really affecting the end result in any obvious way. I know to some people that's kind of incomparable with the prices that people pay for these things, I mean if you are buying an original so-and-so, you expect them to have at least toiled a bit to get it to you right? But I don't think that you necessarily should, its the brand that a lot of these collectors are buying into, a commodity like aluminium or timber or something, its an asset in a portfolio that just happens to be one that they can stick on the wall and enjoy too. In that respect its also a status symbol, like a Ferrari or something, but those are still produced in a factory right?

I think that a lot of people thought the recession, the financial crisis and the art price crash was going to be bad news for artists assistants but I reckon that it might have actually done them favour. The artists needed to churn out smaller, more saleable works, more quickly and on a more mass-produced scale and hence they needed their assistants more than ever. I reckon its a combinations of artists assistants and unpaid interns in a lot of galleries and cultural institutions that have got a lot of the art world through this crisis. I don't know if they'll get to reap much of the rewards when it all comes out the other side but maybe a few who work out how to play the game and talk the talk and charm their way up the ladder will. I don't know, I was always a bit too reserved and retiring for that, whenever I used to get taken to these art events (which wasn't that often, although to be fair I did get to make a few) I used to hover in the corner, I didn't want to take any limelight. In hindsight perhaps I should have put myself forward more assertively, it was a great opportunity I guess but although I still make work and exhibit widely I don't think that it was the big break that many people who do it hope it will be. For me I was just grateful to be doing the thing I loved, all be it for someone else. I just wish that I could have maybe got a bigger share of some of the financial rewards that my work produced maybe that's all! I guess things could always be better but on the whole it was definitely a good experience.

Revenge is a dish best served full cream? - An Intern's Anecdote

(Courtesy of Guardian Media Monkey)

Outrage at Grazia magazine after an intern who was sent out regularly to buy skinny lattes for the beauty desk announced at the end of her stint on the mag that she had in fact been buying them all full-fat ones. Cue much spluttering from the staff and a mass rush to the nearest set of weighing scales. Actually Monkey just made that last bit up, but feels after pulling a stunt like that, the intern’s future in the industry is assured.

Hidden Messages - An Assistant's Admission

Submitted by Ned

When I used to work as an artists assistant, for someone who I'm not going to name for reasons that will become apparent, I gradually got fed up with the temper tantrums and being a general skivy so after a while I started to paint various rude words an phrases onto the canvasses, before painting over them again later. I always used to worry that it would show through when dry, one day later on but it never did. It was a small consolation that despite my under appreciated efforts, that there were a lot of rich buyers with disparaging and insulting remarks about themselves hanging up in pride of place on their walls, while they sat under them smug and oblivious. I later found out that there were once rumours going around that the late Alexander Mcqueen, during his time as a tailor's assistant used to sew derogatory comments into the lining of the suits of royalty, I don't know if that was true but I like to think so. My messages are probably still out there somewhere, I often wonder if they might turn up in a restoration years down the line. Whenever I feel irritated I like to think that the messages are still out there, hiding inside people's pictures, hanging over them unawares. Who know's, if you own a piece of art from this artist, there might be one in your piece!

An Assistant's Tale of Woe

Gallery Girl (an anonymously submitted tale, courtesy of Interns Anonymous)

I graduated in July 2009 having already done a substantial amount of work experience in between university engagements. I went straight into an internship as a gallery assistant at a contemporary art gallery in East London. I was paid expenses up to £10 a day. However I worked with them for two months (July & August) and did not receive my August expenses payment until December. I have to say I learnt a great deal in this time; in my final week I was actually the manager of the gallery (the manager of the gallery was at this time still an unpaid intern herself, but with the promise of paid work when her 6 month internship was complete).

In September I began a six-month internship at a major national museum, working on exhibitions with six other interns. I am the youngest (I’m 21) and least educated (I only have a BA). I am also the only one still living with my family. As I am only required to work four days per week, I began another internship (in the absence of a job and with the need to do something else other than this first internship), at a small local authorities gallery. This second internship has been incredibly rewarding; I have been able to co-curate an exhibition which has been a fantastic opportunity to complete, and this organisation has always been very grateful and supportive of the work I have done for them.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for my primary internship at this major London museum. My job role from the outset has been Personal Assistant to the Head of Exhibitions in the department, which is different to the other interns who are each allocated to individual exhibitions. I believed that undertaking this role would give me a greater insight to the running of the museum, but my manager has mainly ‘kept me in the office’ unlike the other interns who are much more involved with communicating with various companies, collaborators, and departments of the museum, as well as attending relevant meetings. My manager sees me as quite literally her Personal Assistant. My main jobs are checking her emails, scheduling appointments and completing her vast amount of petty cash claims (for which I am required to make up the circumstances as they are almost always for personal or internal meetings). Other inane tasks she has required for me to do include buying her opera & theatre tickets, booking her car valet service and completing her daughter’s visa waiver forms for a family holiday to the US. In a similar vein, the interns were on one occasion required to work as waitresses for a department-organised event (which was particularly painful for me as this is what I do at weekends to earn money).

From the outset I have resented these tasks. I always felt that doing this internship was just about ‘getting a reference’, and that was it. I have never enjoyed it, and it is severely unlikely that I would accept a job offer in the department, let alone in the job I am doing now. I have nonetheless worked hard and have had very few absences.

On Friday morning (my only day off from them) I received a phone call from my manager that can only be described as a tirade of insults about the work I have done for her. Amongst other claims, she said I was uncommitted, came and went as I pleased and was always ‘last in first out’. I can’t express how untrue these claims are; the only ‘leave’ I have taken was an odd few days to work on my exhibition at my other internship (which I don’t believe she ever supported). I believe the trigger for this outburst may have been when I reminded her I was taking one day off to do some paid waitressing unusually in midweek (she is also completely unsympathetic to any financial woes that this internship creates). She said she regretted offering me the internship and at this stage she couldn’t write me a reference.

I am now facing my final four weeks at the internship. I feel utterly singled out, and to confirm the ‘bad feeling’ I had about my manager from the beginning, I now know she is working completely against me, not with me. I wish so much that I had walked away from the internship when I first felt this. If I walk away now I will have wasted a great deal of time and money, and will forgo any chance of getting a reference. If I stay, I fear that she will refuse to write me a reference anyway. I feel completely in a ‘catch-22′ situation – there is no-one I can complain to about this, within the museum or otherwise; any action will result in me losing my reference.

I have never received any expenses payment for this internship, and estimate my expenditure on travel during this time to be over £1000. To add insult to injury, I am frequently being asked to contribute £5-£10 to the tea kitty.

I am sure you must receive more messages like this than you can handle, but let me say it really has been a relief just to write this down and tell someone.

An anonymously submitted story to the Interns Anonymous website

Shock Treatment – An Assistant's Hair Raising Tale

Submitted by Emmett

During my time as an artist's assistant and gallery intern (mostly unpaid) I have been called upon to put my body on the line on a number of occasions in the name of duty. All too often have I been put in a situation that I knew wasn't really right or safe and yet I felt obligated to do it, thinking that I would be judged harshly if I refused. Many's the time a blatant lack of health and safety consideration from my bosses, who of course wouldn't dream of undertaking the work themselves, has almost come back to haunt me. A situation that no doubt may at any time have ended up in me coming back to haunt my employer in a more worryingly literal sense!

If I wasn't handling dodgy chemicals I'd be trying to work up the top of a rickety ladder or else grappling with some gruesome looking power tool that was constantly threatening to lop off a limb if my attention wavered for a second. Then there was the time that I nearly got electrocuted, trying to hang a light in a leaky old warehouse, again at the top of a ladder that to put it politely was probably somewhat in need of replacement, or to put it more accurately, looked as though it had been used to scale the city walls during the seige of Troy. 'If...I...can...just reach the wire...BANG!' and a flash of fire and a cascade of sparks that gave November 5th a run for its money. Cue me flying backwards away from a blazing stump of wire and just managing to hang onto the ladder, with the help of a convenient roof beam, dangling there in a pall of smoke like some crazy bat out of hell, clinging to the rafters and checking I still had all of my extremities. That wasn't the only time I had a run in with 240 volts, there was the shock from the watery expulsions of a dodgy boiler that was leaking into a lightswitch, then there was that incident that involved a viscious strike from a particularly aggressive toaster, sending me richocetting across the kitchen like a marble in a washing machine.

Let us not forget the occassion on which I was required to rewire the lights of an entire gallery in an ancient warehouse that was more crypt than business premises and had fittings coated in more rust than your average bayonet unearthed from the soils of Ypres after the best part of a century. Bear in mind I was effectively rewiring the entire building here, something that firstly didn't seem to have even been checked let alone done for about 30 years and secondly was not especially easy given my extensive electrician training (5 minutes on how to wire a plug in science class at school...which I have long since forgotten...'was it the blue wire or the yellowy greeny one I was meant to stick here?'). Just imagine my joy when I discovered that having struggled for multiple hours to rend a rusted up fitting from the ceiling (again precariously perched on some furniture item or other), resorting ultimately to stabbing at it repeatedly with a screwdriver, that the electrician that installed it was obviously about as accomplished as me in the field and that he obviously hadn't thought it important to ensure that any of the lights were earthed. After moving and rewiring the lights I made sure I earthed them with a piece of paper clip that I found lying around, hopefully that's what I did anyway, if I got my colours mixed up again I probably just wired the steel light-fitting directly into the live current. Oh and there was the time that I was drilling some holes in the gallery wall and thought it perhaps prudent to casually ask my boss if there might be any wires or pipes on the otherside of the wall. No, no she assured me, of course not, and so foolishly trusting her word I happily drilled away, sticking about 9 holes through the wall. It was only later on when I unlocked the cupboard that backed on to that very wall that in fact there were wires running behind it and that actually I'd missed them by about approximately half an inch.

So far I've managed to escape the art world relatively unscathed, touch wood, with only slight nerve damage in one hand, but I think that these working conditions, conditions that rival a Victorian factory in their interesting approach to workers safety need to be drawn to people's attention. At lot of time and words are expended on the problem of low (no) paid workers in the arts being exploited (I say a lot, in reality a small amount), what rarely gets mentioned however is the sometimes shockingly bad conditions that these people are required to work in (for their low or no pay). It's time that the arts took some responsibility and instead of preaching all that stuff about radical politics from the gallery wall whilst chuckling with the patron over a glass of bubbly actually started looking a bit closer to home and took out a book from their local library about a worker's right not to go home of an evening in the back of a hearse.