Artist’s Statement Video – Charlotte Young

Artist’s Statement Video – Charlotte Young

Very enjoyable

"Artist's Statement"

Letter to the Bank #62

Dear BM,

I decided it was time to check in once more with you, representative of my nemesis—financial institutions everywhere, in all corners, on every block—good and bad (because even the good are never, ever above board). I’m checking in with you just as you all check out, cash out, before anything approximating a noble regulation kicks in and causes you to have to part with a single cent of your reserves, reserves that, it appears to me, you always can refill with new charges and fees that you all are able to make up...willy nilly. The urge to wring your necks and shake you up is ever present and not just in me. I cannot stand how you feel as if you have earned what you have. You never have and never will. You simply happen to be riding a cash cow. You are a farmer milking the teats of the general population who you have hooked up to those rather intimidating, nasty looking machines in the great factory farms you call hedge funds and banks.

Really just felt like a little vent.

That’s better.

As you were.

Sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

PS-Know that I appreciate you letting me bend your ear, your tolerating the gripes of one without the kind of earning power that would allow me to live beyond—way beyond—satisfying the basic needs of me and mine.

Evil Evil

Letter to the Bank #58

Dear Financial Engineer,

We do not expect this to make sense, or for you to understand as I—no fan of banks—do shower down upon you a hail of incomprehensible ponderings on the subjects of money and art, art and poverty, wealth and acquisition, greed and patronage of the arts. As one of your clients I do expect you to sit there squirming, suffering through my abstract tirades, my obscure assaults on your wrong headed approach to life, the Universe and everything. Clearly those whose lifetime pursuit of money finds them sitting pretty must feel  that their chosen path is somewhat justified. They have all the stuff of their dreams and can only hope to acquire the one last item on their list—intelligence, or something that approximates depth. Perhaps there is an outrageously expensive machine that can inject the sum of everything into the brain, a time saving educational device that in much the same way money saving devices like collateralised debt bundles need no further input once turned on to churn out profit, will provide infinite wisdom whilst requiring no book learning or essay writing, no work in fact.


You might detect a hint of frustration in my writing. As an artist I have no interest in trying to grasp the intricacies of your grasping ways and am determined to maintain my oblique tangent on life but I do resent the way once you have money you can with little thought churn out more and more of the stuff. My approach to trying to get through to you is patently absurd and that is the way I like it! I am baffled by what you do and hope you are equally baffled and shut out by the meager but honest meanderings of a creative mind such as my own. The frustration you detect is based on the fact that I would also like to have a money machine at my bedside that required no input from me as it churned out a living, enough at least to keep our family at some distance from fear of starvation.  I'm not interested in the pursuit of money. It bores me. You see I can think of a million things to do with my time. I'd make art. I'd  be ever fascinated by the effort to contribute to the big essay of life. I wouldn't find taking and taking and taking that satisfactory. I only want enough money to fend off constant worry. I understand that is a highly mutable amount but do believe if I were confident I could secure enough to support our basic needs we'd be inclined to send the extra toward the helping of others. My most basic need is peace of mind. If only we could secure peace of mind for everyone. So much human capitol is wasted on worry. Freed of anxiety humans would produce so much more effectively be it in the arts or indeed in industry where a happy employee would surely be happy to work if they were confident that they and theirs could rest secure in the belief they'd be provided for. That may be the kernel of this letter, the core of this thesis.


Your response to this: 
1.—Hmmmm! Perhaps we should spread the wealth? Perhaps having the wealth concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority is wrong!
2.—Hmmm! Clearly we are dealing with a liberal/populist/socialist/communist/atheist and anti-plutocrat! Ah! His address is on the envelope!


Yours sincerely,

Kristian Stillwitherkay

Letter to the Bank #56

Hello Bullrider,

Finally another letter!

Funniest thing is writing these letters is such hard work but I keep doing it anyway. Finding a moment to sit down, getting comfortable (so hard to do when your ceiling is leaking), finding a pen that works, finding a stamp for goodness sakes!

Fortunately I am a patient man and so I go to this effort for you, my bank manager.

Funnier still is the fact that you are, frankly, the last person I wish to write a letter to but here I am, pen in hand, doing just that.

Feel free to explain!

Foolish Harry here certainly has no idea what is going on.

Frankly though I keep writing in hopes an explanation will be forthcoming.

Felicitous greetings aside why do the rich feel so entitled?

Falling stocks, crumbling edifices, collapsing DOW and they keep partying?

Fold your newspaper under your arm and join me for a drink.

Face to Face perhaps we can figure this thing out together.

Ferocious cold aside I think you should touch base with your real clientelle—those like me with nothing to offer but the shirts off our backs because we’ve given everything else.

Sincerish regards,

Kristian Witherkay

PS-To keep things lively I might start a series of letters whereby every sentence begins with the same letter—a madcap creative exercise guaranteed to infuriate my BM (you!) and keep me on my toes and out of  oh I dunno—Debtors’ Prison. Oops! I forgot! I'm already in Debtors' Prison! My own home! I exagerate only a little. Fond of it though I am it is a ball and chain around the neck. 

I’ll work my way through the alphabet in no particular order starting today—it would appear—with F.

Why Struggling Homeowners are not being Heard

In my naivety I still imagine it reasonable to ask the banks to restructure the debt they helped create when they encouraged and made loans based on home values they knew were unsubstainable.

Letter to the Bank #49

Letter to the Bank 50


Dear Bullrider,

Art here. That is what I’m sticking with these days, Art.

Kristian, my first name, despite being spelt with a K, feels too burdensome, too high fallutin’, even a little dishonest. Though I do put you through the ringer on all that moral stuff like having scruples and actually using them I never pretended to be perfect myself. But I am just an artist. What I do effects nobody. I can be immoral because I can be ignored. You cannot. If I mess up my finances I now understand it is my problem and the ripples caused will barely register on your radar. What you do or don’t do has consequences for everybody and these days, don’t argue, you are causing pain. I’d call you a sadist except I’m still not sure you see it. I’m not convinced it is intentional. You’re just callous, blind. I’m Art. I see all so watch it. I’m everywhere but so elusive. Just when you think you have caught up with me I disappear around the corner. Go ahead. Foreclose on me. My home is in my heart. Trouble is that is also where you’ll find my family. That is where you get to me. You hurt the children. This is why I can’t let down my guard. I might lash out. This is why I must bone up on finance. I warned you about this in my last letter because I am never anything but upfront. I’ll read “Investing For Kids”,and Money For Dummies” and then I’ll come play with you! I can’t let up but I can be lighter. Light interests me so much more than the darkness of your turgid world, the darkness I refuse to let you pull out of me.

I may not write many more letters to you because I can safely say that the only letters I ever receive from the bank are the least poetic, least enjoyable correspondence I ever have the misfortune of receiving. I had hoped you might respond with real advice. I hoped you’d make human your institutions, accessible your world but honestly we are all shut out who do not spend a quarter of our life times joylessly balancing our check books. It is only because I feel I’d be in a position to act on your conscience if (having relentlessly chipped away at your cold granite facade) I eventually find something in you I can relate to. Then I can hold you to account. I write to you as a last act of defiance, defense and hope.

My time would be so much better spent writing to the people I admire in this world, the people who truly make this world a better place. Just the act of writing to them would be uplifting. This would surely be a better use of my time.

Yours sincerely,


Art (Witherkay)

Article by John Lanchester in the Financial Times

Even as a successful writer John Lanchester is familiar with the precariousness of the freelancing lifestyle

An artist responds to job loss...

An artist deals with personal financial crisis

Letter to the bank #37

Dear BM,

Who holds the Moral High Ground? What is that and how valuable is it? Isn’t this something worth examining? When countries sacrifice their moral high ground for lucrative armaments deals have they spent down an asset the value of which they have vastly underestimated? I’m thinking some of the clever chaps over at your fine institution might consider packaging these lots of moral high ground that have been so carelessly tossed aside by governments the world over and then sell them back to those very same governments. They might make a killing! You would of course have to articulate the value of these assets in ways they can understand. Don’t say I have not given you some valuable advice. Of course my biggest problem is I am not capable of taking advantage of the situation because, absurdly, I cling to notions of doing the right thing and doing right by one’s fellow human beings and so cannot separate business from ethics as easily as you guys can*. Also I am numerically dyslexic but that is a whole other issue. You could say holding the moral high ground runs counter to the act of making money but I surely do not want to believe it is so. Then I'd have to think, god forbid, of Capitalism as fundamentally flawed. So if you can figure out how to proceed with the above transaction successfully all the more credit to you.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian W.

PS*—As an Atlantean I fall between two worlds that each can, or certainly do, claim to have held that very moral high ground of which we speak, even if they no longer do: England and the US of A. This would also explain my ambidextrous use of words like “chaps” and “guys”. Hope it isn’t all too confusing for you as you struggle to squish language into the necessary documents so that selling moral high ground can become a reality and not just a pipe dream.

Financial Crisis-a definition

Financial Crisis-
1. Being monetarily in a bind.
2. Being in a state of fiscal paralysis.
3. Something most people suffer through for the bulk of their lives.
4. Something banks encounter (and only suffer-ever so briefly) once in a blue moon. Latest example: Sept 2008-June 2009.

Financial Advice From a Numerically Dyslexic Artist-1

Don't buy anything but necessities.
Barter when possible.
To satisfy those consumerist urges attend yard sales, car boot sales. stoop sales and Estate Sales. Make sure you buy at least one thing pertaining to your passionate interests...then pass it on.

Secular Confessional

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2007, Todd Julie and Jesse Ewles, Secular Confession Booth, 2007
Photo courtesy City of Toronto

Feeling the Pinch?

We sure are! With declines in private and public sources of contributed support, arts groups around New Jersey (and around the nation) are feeling it in one way or another, and probably in more than one way!
There are two things you can do right now to make yourself feel better--at least temporarily.
One--It is imperative that we track and document what is being lost as a result of funding cutbacks. Send us a quick email or give us a phone call and vent. Please don't yell at us, just vent! This information will be extremely helpful as the ongoing advocacy strategy evolves. email is artpride@artpridenj.com
Two--The collaboration of arts service groups that brought last fall's NJ Arts at a Crossroads conference is thinking about how to best help arts organizations--their staff, trustees and artists, too. We have a quick online survey that lists a variety of topics to cover and we'd like to know what is most important to you. Please click on this link to take the survey by August 7. cli.gs/G8QsgV
Thanks in advance for your input--hang in there and be sure to keep in touch!
ArtPride NJ

Hello ArtPride, New Jersey!
Yes I am feeling the pinch and always have the feeling that my family is one job loss away from foreclosure. That said can I complain? Though we carry heavy debt I work a part time job with decent health benefits. This gives us some security and me some time to work on the artwork, which I do when I am not repairing a house that, as it falls in value, also falls apart about us. My wife works in the field of art moving, specifically the moving and rigging of monumental sculpture. She sees cutbacks in her industry as art handlers in the galleries are laid off, galleries close, fewer galleries set up booths in the big art fairs etc etc. She sees the containers piling up in Newark.

In our township we have an annual studio tour. This year the number of participants nearly doubled and consequently the number of visitors did to though they didn't seem to be spending as much. I feel fortunate to be in a community that supports the arts but even that support is eroding. Our local gallery, the Pierro Gallery of South Orange, almost lost its director, Judy Wukitsch, as a result of village cost cutting. Only the relentless work of some local art warriors stood in the way of her job being cut completely.

On a personal level I have been confronting the financial crisis we are all dealing with by making art about it. I have created a blog called the Bouncy Banker (http://thebouncybanker.blogspot.com) in which artists take on the financial meltdown, with humor, ire and whining all in equal measure. At the blog's heart lie a series of Letters To The Bouncy Banker, fictional satirical letters from a beleagered artist to his local bank manager. In March I shared a show with Rick Parker, The Depression Show, at the 1978 Maplewood Arts Center (The Depression Show), which featured a cardboard Self Portrait as Bad Asset, a framed letter FROM the Bank, along with Hobo Art, Shrunken Studios, an online comic, and a post financial apocalyptic narrative.

I couldn't stand financial anxiety causing creative paralysis so this was how I responded: by rolling it into my artwork.

All the best in your researches.


Russell Christian

http:thebouncybanker.blogspot.com (Letters to The Bouncy Banker)

http://bruxist.blogspot.com (Art and Writing)

http://thebrooderbox.blogspot.com (Illustration)

http://bruxist-stonegarden.blogspot.com (Stonework)

http://thefieryheart.blogspot.com (Kristian’s Pilgrimage)

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Comment is free |
The Guardian

Artists in Beijing Respond to the Financial Crisis

The financial meltdown has stimulated a serious reconsideration of artistic practices and resulted in a re-evaluation of Beijing’s hyper-commercial art scene, a not entirely negative development. In fact, many are enjoying a more pensive art world that seems focused on the return of creativity and independent artistic ideas to contemporary Chinese art.
Read more...
artists in Beijing