Sculpting a better future for artists

Entering the creative industries can be challenging. You can have all the talent, all the training, but finding full time employment as an artist can be tough. Art/Work, a Nelson-based programme to support artists, is helping more creatives refine the art of business, as Judene Edgar finds out.

In 2001, Ali Boswijk, then CEO of Nelson Bays Arts Marketing, bid for Nelson to be part of the government’s PACE – Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment – programme. Ali recognised the need to support the creative industries as real work, and to support artists to create. PACE allowed artists to sign up at the WINZ office and state their career goal as artist without having to pretend to want to take on work in another field. They could get a benefit in return for proving they were producing and showing their work on a regular basis.

Alongside Dunedin and Auckland, Nelson supported hundreds of artists, including
a young filmmaker named Taika Waititi who later told the Social Development Ministry's magazine Rise, that the PACE programme had allowed him time and space to develop his filmmaking career.

“Artists create a wonderful environment for us to enjoy. Art elevates, creates conversations, and articulates what we can’t,” says Ali.

Unfortunately, the PACE programme fell victim to changing policies and priorities, but Ali, this time as CEO of the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce, was first cab off the rank once again when in 2021 the Ministry of Social Development and Ministry of Culture and Heritage partnered to create the Creative Careers Service.

Nelson was the only South Island pilot of the two-year scheme, which has since been extended, designed to help creative people develop the non-creative skills to be financially sustainable in their chosen field.

“A lot of artists have portfolio careers made up of a variety of jobs to provide extra income to supplement their art,” says Ali. “Running a business is a very different skillset, and this was an opportunity for the chamber to support artists and recognise that the creative industries contribute to our economic growth.”

The chamber launched Art/Work with the support of business projects advisor Stephen Broad-Paul. Having worked in the banking sector and business leadership for several decades, Stephen was looking for something different to do. While Stephen shyly admits to dabbling in abstract painting, he doesn’t consider himself an artist, but the role was the perfect blend of his love of the arts and culture, and his corporate background.

“A lot of what I do is build confidence and connections to deal with the business side,” says Stephen. “Having changed careers in my mid-50s, I know how hard it can be to stop, re-evaluate, and do something different.” As well as one-on-one mentoring, there is support with business and project planning, financial management and marketing.

“Sometimes it’s just about giving them someone to bounce ideas off and to connect them with the right people.” Stephen says he’s worked with a wide range of artists from 18 to 65 years of age, from writers to visual artists, musicians, technicians, tattoo artists, and 26 January 2024 arts therapists. In their third year now, they’ve had 212 people through the programme so far – a lot more than anticipated. Moutere artist Adi Tait joined Art/Work in 2022. Like so many others, Adi has had a portfolio career.

Originally trained as a graphic designer at Massey University, she taught for over 10 years as both a fine arts and graphics tutor at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology’s (NMIT). She also used her creative skills as one of the organisers of the Mask Parade and Carnivale, Buskers Festival and Lantern Festival for three years.

“I’ve had 30-odd years working as an artist, but never in a full-time professional capacity,” she says. “Artists work in isolation a lot, so for me the goal was to be able to get some business support and perspectives and to be able to connect with other
people in a similar situation.”

Despite now working as a multi-media artist, working with acrylic paint, oils and cyanotype printing (a method of photographic printing that uses the sun’s ultraviolet light to create images), she’s perhaps best known for co-designing the nine-metre-high stainless steel sculptures that adorn either side of the Ruby Coast gateway.

With intricate cut-outs of stylised seabirds and fish, they are a legacy project of which she’s immensely proud.

“It was a real community effort getting those done,” she says. “Darryl Frost and I designed them, and the Ruby Coast Initiative helped bring them to life, along with lots of supportive locals, businesses and funders.”

Public artworks can be very satisfying and, unlike paintings, are generally commissioned, but they’re not without controversy. Adi was commissioned by Nelson City Council to create the Welcome Cloak sculpture which, due to weather damage, ended up being moved from its original location over Saltwater Creek, reduced in size and relocated to Greenmeadows Centre - Putangitangi.

She’s now focusing her art career on paintings and cyanotypes and is thankful for the support that she’s received from the Art/Work programme. “Stephen gave me the confidence and encouragement to approach galleries and try different strategies.”

Working from her studio in Tasman Village, Adi is enjoying being part of a network of artists and participating in exhibitions, open weekends (the next Ruby Coast Arts open weekend is 24 – 25 February) and expanding into online sales through her website artworkarchive.com/profile/adi-tait. Fellow NMIT teacher Mark Baskett has been in Nelson for eight years, having shifted here from Switzerland to raise his family. Born in Dunedin, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the former Quay School of Arts in Whanganui and then a Master of Fine Arts from the Bauhaus-Universität in Weimar, Germany.

“When I first started studying I wanted to be a painter, but I was taken by sculpture so I studied that instead, eventually moving on to what’s often called art in public space,” he says. “Art in the public sphere is such a great way of telling local history and stories.”

Despite having exhibited in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the United States and New Zealand, Mark says that there are more skills than the art itself needed to work in the creative industries. “When you study the arts there’s often an assumption that somehow a career is going to happen,” but Mark says it’s not an easy road to take and heartbreak can come with the territory.

“While Covid was hard, the arts are always on fire,” he muses. “It’s frequently sidelined.”

“Earlier, when working exclusively as an artist, I worked incredible hours but ultimately earned less than the unemployment benefit,” he says. “Having part-time work or, more recently, being able to monetise my skills by teaching has taken the pressure off and has meant that I can focus more squarely on the content of my work.”

Mark's work combines printed images, objects and typography to investigate questions around the visual presentation of social histories. His current work is focussed on the development and display of largescale, long-term art projects.

Working with Stephen, he says he’s learning more about the potential economic value of his work and how to generate future workstreams. He’s also in the process of developing an online platform for his print output – mbasket.ch – and is working with Stephen to map out long-term objectives as well as weighing up potential pitfalls to avoid.

“Stephen is a remarkable listener, and really understands the issues we face as artists.”

Having worked as an artist for over 20 years, Mark says that balance is important but very tricky to maintain. Working together with Stephen has helped him to wrap a business structure and perspective around his art.

“No two clients are the same,” says Stephen. “It’s such a joy and privilege to work with them.”