Designing Your Art Practice with Intention

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Lucy: I literally told him what we do and he went right. You're gonna have to scrap that because it's not going to financially sustain itself. And I was like, what? Like I don't just scrap this whole thing anyway. Long story short. it's very hard to be self-sufficient with a printed publication.

[00:00:24] This is Art Is… a podcast for artists. Where we brainstormed the future of the art world and the creative industries. Today, I'm sharing a conversation I had with Lucy ALF's And CJ Newton from gatekeeper magazine. We delve into why, when and how the magazine was founded, exploring how the pandemic has impacted emerging artists and early career creatives. Lucy and CJ share their visions for the future of the art world. and explain how they're different opinions, voices, and perspectives are integral to gatekeepers. Mission.

[00:00:57] I was drawn to sharing gatekeeper with you because of our vision alignment. We are both exploring how to build a fairer more expansive, inclusive, and innovative art industry. I really appreciated how transparent Lucy is with the challenges gatekeepers had defining its business model.

[00:01:14] On that point, she shared some excellent tips and resources And also goes into the evolving team dynamics and structure at the magazine.

[00:01:23] CJ explains the design and layout of both issues. One and two. Sharing his inspirations and creative ideas.

[00:01:30] The conversation is expansive, informative, and enriching, and I hope you enjoy it and pick up your copy of gatekeeper mag through the link in the episode description, I highly recommend you add it to your end of summer reading list. if you feel like supporting the work I do here, you can check out the artist bookshop or donate directly to the podcast through the link in the episode description.

[00:01:53] Hi, I'm Lucy . I am the co-founder of gatekeeper magazine. I also. Quite chaotically run gatekeeper as well,

[00:02:02] CJ: Hi everyone. my name's CJ Newton and I'm the art director and graphic designer, a gatekeeper we're a biannual printed magazine. We're trying to also push out sort of digital presence a little bit more at the moment as well. So we focus on collating submissions around the commercial art world. So we talk to collectors, created organizations who frequently kind of opposed the current elitist wild and often alternative solution.

[00:02:28] Lucy: I found it gatekeeper along with Natasha in May, 2020, so not long ago. I studied fine art photography at Camberwell college of arts and Natasha studied journalism.

[00:02:40] Lucy: So it's actually quite a nice link. It was incredibly helpful to have someone like Natasha who is a lot more, academically focused. Let's say the me felt like I really wanted to create a publication at the end of my BA around the art market and targeting emerging artists because felt like my peers during uni had no idea what they were going to do or getting into post that degree, which was just very common, I think, across the board.

[00:03:11] Lucy: And I felt like, There was also not a publication that focused purely on the art market. That was also verified by my tutors because when I said this, And I was like, that's a gap in the market. You know what I mean? So yeah, I knew that I can do it with my eyes.

[00:03:26] Lucy: Natasha was very keen and we were like, let's do this together. that's kind of the founding story. I mean, there's a lot, probably more to it, which involved around being attached to trying to see the whole thing ourselves, not being graphic designers and then very, very panicked during like the point where we should have been like sending it off to the printers, literally having to.

[00:03:48] Lucy: All of the content ready to go the design all over the place. And that is how we met CJ.

[00:03:55] CJ: Which I guess leads to me. Yeah. so I went to the same university as Lucy, but my course was, London college of communication. And it was in design for our direction. so at the time I was, it feels like forever ago now. But I was recession into, global trade, as sort of like a overarching point to start off at the beginning of my sort of final project, graduating work and sort of very quickly delve into, The art market and free trade zones and all of the sort of logistics and costs and, you know, just financial mega art world that is sort of happening in the background of, you know, contemporary art is trying to make it and get out there and all all of that stuff.

[00:04:41] so yeah, my friend naturally was like, oh, Hey. would you be interested in this? It's like a magazine focused the art market and, and I was like, oh yeah, this is perfect. it's funny you say that because I've just been thinking about this today. I met Lucy, for the first time ever at a pub in elephant and castle.

[00:04:59] Isotta: And yeah, they basically was just like, we've got sort of this copy and I'm like, what can we do it? Like, how can we turn it into a magazine? and then I just sort of like jumped on and started sort of putting it together very, very quickly. one of the things that art is really focused on is. Really ambitious goal of brainstorming the future of the art world.

[00:05:22] Isotta: as I was reading issues one and two, and going over your mission statement and the goals that you have outlined for your work and for the magazine, I was wondering if you could. Philosophically speaking, introduce us to gatekeepers mission.

[00:05:40] Lucy: I think it's such an important discussion and important question. And I think for me that question is very interesting. Being asked, like gatekeeper as a team, because I think like, Yeah. Both me and CJ will have different answers to like gatekeepers mission is. And I genuinely do believe that it's very refreshing as we're always questioning each other's sort of point of view And I think to keep asking questions and creating that kind of conversation it means it's not just one. Passing dictating that view. Like this should be what we are about to do that Cause I think then we very much get into being complete hypocrites and ourselves becoming the gatekeepers.

[00:06:26] Lucy's maybe right in saying that, you know, how I think about gatekeeper is, is different. And I think that's. The whole magazine should be about, I mean, sort of where, you know, against gatekeeping in the art world, but, you know, gatekeeping and it's like a curation as a form of gatekeeping,able to always exist.

[00:06:42] CJ: So like, how do we, you know, as facilitators create a platform that had like an equal playing field or tries to balance out the perspectives and that sort of like. Well, you know, I'm, I'm quite interested in especially from a meta-model miss viewpoint as well.

[00:07:00] CJ: and I think sort of my, my aim this stands for gatekeeper as well as just like generally, I think my aim is to just continually push life, our integrity as researchers and designers and artists and, you know, bringing these new ideas and perspectives as well as old ideas and things that we, I agree with or disagree with.

[00:07:17] CJ: I think that's all really important and what we will sort of be continually pushing in the magazine.

[00:07:23] I just realized that we didn't actually say, well, either issue one or two was about, other than. Market market-based somehow. were you kind of like pick a word I mean, it was quite common around publications to pick a word. but we, we just thought, you know, it works, so we're not going to change it.

[00:07:40] Lucy: so issue one was around the word, transaction, very loosely based. so we looked at a lot of like initiatives that individuals who explored not just through the site, selling their work, although that's very interesting and important, but they might actually have the work around money.

[00:07:57] a bit like, CJ who explored like free ports and free trade zones amongst various other things, which if you don't know about free ports are very interesting. It's kind of, a way to Dodge tax and quickly store your artwork. we've actually got an article on that, you know, plug that, and then issue two, Very different.

[00:08:19] Lucy: It was kind of hard to decide. I think we chose the word and then sort of got the concept together. So we thought with the pandemic and everything, a word that stood out to us was indispensable. the idea of how important the answers and, you know, without it, You know, what would we do?

[00:08:36] Lucy: So that kind of came fast. And I, for me, I was like, it's way too broad. Like how can we, um, actually explore this without just feeling messy? Um, so. We then sort of refined it down and decided to, explore like different roles within the art market and how they're indispensable to the art market as a whole.

[00:09:00] Lucy: so that is broadly speaking where she too is about,

[00:09:03] the first sort of, um, magazine, I think the content really sort of crafted its identity more than the graphic design itself. I mean, I would Um, we had like a lot of full spreads, um, images, lot of illustrations, the first issue of just let the content like dictate the design more, Um, which has been in issue too.

[00:09:24] CJ: Um, cause we've had like more time to work on it and yeah. A lot more submissions, I think. Yeah. Cause this, this is a lot, lot thicker than the old one. So we've really, um, of tightening the, the graphic language of what gatekeeper Um, which is still like, um, still ongoing, you know, it's like a constantly unfolding thing. Next issue. It might change to something else. so we for issue two, um, we sort of decided to go for monochromatic sort of tone, sort of just based on the needs to organize and try and sort of make it easily digestible, these roles that we was covering.

[00:10:01] CJ: Uh, cause it's the content is although connected. Yeah. The abroad and the different areas and sort of, for me, one thing that I just love about our magazine is when, each sort of article and page and image or flows into each other. And that was quite quite important for me.

[00:10:17] in terms of who our audiences it's like that question you meant to answer in your business plan, isn't it? and I like to say it's as broad as it sounds, but emerging creatives and we're quite keen to not, Limit the age limit on that.

[00:10:37] Lucy: Like, you can be an emerging creative at any age, and you can be an art student at any age. So I think, although maybe some about like social media content might appear to be targeted at just students. It's, it's really, you know, it's, we're trying to keep it as broad as we can. in terms of like, To the magazine.

[00:10:59] I think that we, again, are wanting to target imagine creatives, creating something that's accessible is quite difficult in terms of like monetary limitations, because, you know, we do work really hard to create sort of intangible and physical. We have to cover costs. so we can't like give this out for free.

[00:11:21] Lucy: We. Do you quite like a reduce price, digital edition of the magazine. And then we worked on the issue. One, I could free audio read for it through where we provide like image descriptions and like tablet. Was he read through the whole mag and sort of, also, just to talk through of it.

[00:11:44] Lucy: Which we found was quite nice to do, and we're going to be recording issues too, but yeah, it's free to listen to on Spotify and SoundCloud. so again, yeah. In terms of accessibility, it's, you know, something we are frequently thinking about and questioning ourselves on,

[00:12:02] I would love to hear your thoughts on navigating that process. of creating a business plan. yeah, of course, like, a lot of my artwork and practices around, money, not necessarily, Like making money. I did a lot of my work around like being as transparent as possible about how much it costs me to make. for example, making a print and drawing the exact cash it would cost to buy, um, and things like that.

[00:12:33] Lucy: Um, so. I think that during my course, I also took on, like a couple of like performance pieces where I became a business woman and made my own candle making business. And I sort of self-taught a lot of things is helped me with the gatekeeper. Cause the through that journey, I was just like, I'm going to graduate.

[00:12:55] Lucy: And I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. Like electorally. I know that's a question that probably. Most our students will probably ask themselves. I remember like conversation with my cheater ups nearing the end of my degree. And I said, I've got this idea and he just said do it.

[00:13:11] Lucy: And I was like, I don't know. Um, and then I did it and I'm still doing it. I don't know what I'm doing if I'm completely honest, I don't know how to run a business, but I'm learning every day and it would have been great to have been taught that during art school, it would have been amazing.

[00:13:30] but at the end of the day, I'm definitely learning skills. Um, correct. Resources would be, your local council, or if you're in London, your borrower, uh, go on their website. They have amazing business resources. gatekeeper have had a free business advisor for the last few months, and that has taught me so much, like, Just in terms of developing your ideas, you go direction, along with like technical things and, you know, things like, oh, you need to get someone to like, hear your accounts.

[00:14:04] Lucy: And you're like, okay.

[00:14:06] Lucy: the first meeting we had with him, I literally told him what we do and he went right. You're gonna have to scrap that because it's not going to financially sustain itself. And I was like, what? Like I don't just scrap this whole thing anyway. Long story short. it's very hard to be self-sufficient with a printed publication. and it takes years to really. Yourself to be able to sell art spaces for ridiculous amounts of money and actually, so yeah something we're looking into is more partnerships like paid partnerships, because I think what we're finding is bigger arts organizations want to, relate to.

[00:14:46] Lucy: This emerging audience, because otherwise it's just not progressive. And you know, they have to keep up with what's going on. So it's definitely something we're looking into doing is working with bigger arts organizations and sort of helping them to connect with emerging creatives. we did a series with sat grads where we explored a lot of those things. a great account. we did like one around top, which again, I didn't know a lot about, but just through research, you found out that if you earn it.

[00:15:18] CJ: As a self-employed or freelancer, if you earn either like a thousand pounds, you need to have your tax all done in forms, regardless of whether you need to pay tax, you just need to submit these forms, which I had no idea about. So, definitely go and check out the last series we did that sent a little highlight on, on Instagram no I feel really positive about partnerships. I mean, we, you know, we told them about all these things in the microphone then, you know, in theory and not applying them in practice. what's the point. So for me, I think the, sort of that side of gatekeeper, which is literally as we speak, it's still in development, is really going to like, post and facilitate and support exactly what we're talking about.

[00:16:00] CJ: And, you know, if we can sort of partner with an organization and, you know, introduce new ideas to them and introduce to our, all the people we've met and collaborated with, you know, artists and all of those things, then they've now been incredible for us and for the people who we work with and discover.

[00:16:17] You know, I think we, very sort of adamant I'm being quite picky with the partnerships. I'm not necessarily picking partners that will agree with gatekeeper because, you know, we need to like go for the ones that don't agree. but sort of really push, and actually, you know, build, I love what we're talking about and try and create a fair art market and all of those.

[00:16:37] Lucy: I didn't mention as for the dreaded pandemic I was just going to say that definitely fast-forwarded what we were doing because we were like, it's now or never sort of thing we need to make this. Now it's so important, you know, we'll graduate into pandemics, things like that.

[00:16:54] Lucy: And obviously the arts really have taken a blow. So I just want to say another reason why it kind of got pushed into interaction. But in terms of introducing the rest of the team so I've seen Natasha also does a lot of the journal and editing and things like that. Then about six, seven months ago, we realized, well that we didn't have a lot of time for social media. And it's so important, especially during the pandemic when. So much of our, like putting ourselves out there as on social media and digitally.

[00:17:27] Lucy: So we put out sort of piece saying we need help. And then we found an amazing cat. T's good. Catarina, allelic She basically just creates.

[00:17:39] Lucy: Amazing posts and she worked super hard on the marketing side of things. We're producing a newsletter at the moment. She's doing great building all that. And then we've got Emma island who helps with community outreach on Instagram and engagement. and then Emily Wignall, who helps with copy, copy editing as a team dynamic, I think something I've thought about recently is defining, roles within gatekeeper a little bit more. I dunno, like strict, like a stricter role, job role that is, just for kids. I feel like it's great how much. overlap and flow and bounce off each other.

[00:18:24] Lucy: That also means that almost one person focused on one thing might be more constructive. However, you might absolutely. Hold me to that in a couple of weeks when I'm I've scrapped the Ida, I quite like coming up with new ideas to make things work better and then just ignoring them we're very much just trying to navigate, like, I don't, I have no training or education in publication.

[00:18:49] Lucy: I probably have more of an idea of what I'm doing now, but at the beginning I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. and I think that that's why it's quite nice in a way to be so fluid in the avenue. people we've had in the magazine.

[00:19:01] Lucy: Have been super, super generous and weirdly enough, I think I do have the pandemic to thank for that. I honestly don't think the pandemic for much at all. but the idea of like lockdowns and having to be isolating and like more time for yourself. Um, I know a lot of artists and creators struggle to make in that period of time.

[00:19:20] Lucy: So, having something like. I didn't have you, or this collaboration, gatekeeper has meant that probably people willing would, we wouldn't have gotten the them previously. Like if we did this pre pandemic, People have just been so generous and I think really keen for new initiatives to get going and such like a tough period of time so that I would like to thank everyone for the show.

[00:19:51] we can be found at gatekeeper Dezeen, um, they keep a magazine was taken. So, uh, that was a bit of a sad moment, but yeah, at gatekeeper Xen and our website is gatekeeper magazine.com. very exciting.

[00:20:07] Lucy: We have a distributor, so gatekeepers are in shops around the UK. Um, and so. European and international shops. I cannot remember every one off the top of my head. So it is on our Instagram and socials as well. And you can find me again, Lucy out S a L V E S on the school on Instagram. And also, the audio book read through, which will be coming out hopefully soon. Uh, and that's free. So yeah, it's sort of, if you want to pay, you can, if you want to just send it for free, you can.

[00:20:39] CJ: So yeah. There's something for like for everyone.

[00:20:41] you can find me. My username is pat CJ Newton, spelled C J a Y E a. And then yeah. Uh, on Instagram, uh, that's all already use.

[00:20:51] Thank you for listening to season two, episode 12 of Art Is… a podcast for artists this week. I'd like to thank our lovely guests, Lucy and CJ. Along with the entire gatekeeper team and all of the contributing artists and authors. The magazine is so creative, unique and inspirational. And I can't wait for issue three to come out. Remember to check out the episode description for resources and more on this episode and the rest of season one and two.

[00:21:18] Thanks so much and see you next Wednesday.