Art World- A word from me

I graduated nearly 5 years ago to the day, it’s such a sore subject every time it comes around. I feel no further to the ‘career’ I set up in my mind.
I say career I actually mean a foot in the door to some kind of hope. I could and still can’t decide if I want to be an artist or someone who works in an art gallery or an arts organisation.My experiences of these have been kind of unpleasant.

The artist in me has had several exhibitions and won competitions and got into two online magazines. Being an artist is offering a massive slice of your heart and hoping everyone will like it
. I feel this highly impersonal act of offering myself up on a platter is awkward and confusing.
The other experience of endless volunteering in between full time jobs, bending over backwards working 10 hour shifts with no breaks for jobs in the organisations to pass me by like speeding trains. Ive wondered if sometimes it’s bad luck or whether I really am that shit and no one is telling me the truth.

I look for creative jobs everyday but I dread the writing and the applications , I put them off so much I don’t end up completing them – the irony.
The one time I spent over 18months volunteering for an arts company (to the point the director knows me personally) I was overlooked for the part time position that came up ,overlooked as in I spent hours on my application ,even sent it to a friend who is amazing at applications and didn’t even get an interview.
I cried, I cried for hours trying to understand why I wasn’t even invited to an interview. Ive since taken typically British behaviour and just not spoken about it since. The people closest to me don’t have a chance to forget though ,as a natural over thinker they’ve heard my anger, over and over.

More and more I see arts organisations handing out internships ,a recent one for a measley £20 a month expenses and a list the size of the Hilton of tasks to complete for them. Yet again I’m angry!
I thought arts organisations were helping the artists not also exploiting them – clearly I’ve got this wrong.
I think anyone who’s ever spoken to me about my work can see how passionate I am about art and photography, 5 years and I’ve still not ‘given up’.
It basically is my life ,I never switch off from wanting to read about artists hear about new exhibitions, go to any creative events most importantly searching for new art to inspire me.
I’ve quit 3 jobs in the last 3 years simply because I felt it was impacting on my creativity (and they were trying to make me give up on my dreams and pursue motor claims) which was clearly not going to happen.
Im reaching a stage in my life where normal employers see me as unreliable ,which I am , I’ll do anything to drop a shift to go to an event that will benefit my art career. I am sore from the years of over looked volunteering opportunities ,I’ve even done the dreaded -I’ve looked into teaching. Prompted by the fact I want to inspire everyone , I’ve enrolled On a post graduate open day.
It’s not all to despair though as I have an exhibition around my birthday this month, at Fallout Factory in Liverpool with my group of 8 other photographers called Fabricate.
I’m going to be showing the work I am most proud of to date ,some work that the photographer Seba Kurtis ‘liked’ on Facebook (that was a good day).

The illustrious ‘artist’ career I want so badly is obviously no easy path and i am getting everything burnt along the way.
I’ve concluded that I cannot give up and do anything else now, I really don’t want to, like I keep being told I shouldn’t give up and should carry on regardless , I am wishing for some good luck as there’s a whole load of money required to make my projects!!

Thanks for reading , do it for Francesca.