Photographer David Newby for The Guardian
Not too long ago I was interviewed by a magazine for a real life story to inspire its readers. You know the kind, it carries write ups about how one defeats all odds to achieve whatever, true love, true fulfilment, you name it. The kind of mag I would personally classify as a little trashy. For this kind of mag, stories have to be emotional and there has to be plenty of anecdotes, unlike broadsheets, in which the writer needs to unpack hidden messages and show some depth.
The way it works is that you tell your story to a professional journalist and s/he pitches it to the mag. There is a little money involved, not a huge amount, but still enough to feel like a proper fee. You give details and the writer organises your thoughts/statements and produces some copy which is then sold to the magazine.
What struck me at the time was the insistence on knowing details which to me were quite irrelevant. What do you do for a living, was the question - the piece was about modelling and diversity. Why, I model. No, what is your real job?
I fully well understand what they meant. They wanted to know whether I had another job - or someone - that paid my bills. Because modelling cannot be a real job.
I am not very happy about the label 'real'. I agree that modelling, like many other creative jobs, may not allow you to earn enough money to live on, with some exceptions. I started off as a dancer and believe me, I soon realised there's plenty of dancers, actors and musicians that have day jobs as waiters and bar staff till they finally manage to make a living out of their artistic vocation. But it's that label real that bugs me. It is used as a synonym for ordinary but real does not mean ordinary. It is such a loaded word, it presupposes an interesting classification: some jobs are real, some are not. Why so?
Surely modelling is work. So is acting, making music, painting. No. These are not, cannot be real jobs. They only become real if they allow you to earn enough money to pay off your rent. So real is synonymous with money making.
But then why, oh why, do we have university degrees in art, music, dance, photography etc etc if they do not lead to real jobs? Are we expecting young people to starve? Are we deluding them into making them believe that their creativity can support them?
You tell me.
(All photos modelled by Alex B)
I have been a silversmith most of my adult life, only stepping away from 'the bench' some twenty years ago when I'd had enough of the life. It was a time to move on. From a traditional craft term-served apprenticeship in London overseen by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, a City of London Livery Company, until ending the work I had gone from young teenager to master craftsman and business owner, including eighteen years part time lecturer at what was first called Polytechnics and which became Universities, one particular renown one in London.
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt in my mind why these new virgin, redbrick establishments offered such weak art/craft courses. For the benefit of the staff saleries, frivolent dreams and hypocracy. The students believed that they were learning skills and experiences to blossom as craftspeople - how they were to be proved wrong. They simply became limited-skilled craft designers, hundreds of them. The industry (craft) could not employ them because they were unemployable - no craft skills, judgement or manufacturing attitude. I had the onerous task of dealing with these huge groups of graduates while for eight years running the trade apprenticeship scheme in (collusion) with Goldsmith's Hall as National Education and Training Manager for the British Jeweller's Association, so I appreciate all the politics, adverse effect upon graduates in higher education before and after graduation.
While teaching within my alloted timetable at the 'Cass' I was constantly approached by disillusioned BA students who just wished to be taught craft skills. I've lost count of the extra hours (unpaid) I devoted to enhance student's manipulative manufacturing awareness. Actions I learnt and mastered through my five years apprenticeship were needing to be accomplished by undergaduates in just fifteen months - it never was going to work...
Yes. Universities offer the world, but only deliver the listed index of an elementary textbook, especially in craft degrees. Tch... What no one yet acknowledges is that craftwork (whatever the dicipline) was never a fine art, simply a craft to provide useful and workable objects. Some mindless academic idiot say, back in the 1970's thought it could be a laugh to see just how far an unsustainable idea could be taken. Who's laughing now!
Today in my sixty eighth year I am not amazed at the number of university graduates who cannot find employment. What goes round, comes round... I foresee a time when Grammar Schools provide the higher education's intake while a grand network of Technical schools/colleges provide the future car makers and call centre staff et cetera. Eldorado? Of course not, this is the United Kingdom.
Martin Billings
Photographer, bon vivant.
"A guitar is fine John but you'll never earn your living by it." - John Lennon's Aunt Mimi
ReplyDeleteFor forty years I made my living at photography. I loved my work. I still do, even though now I'm retired and mainly shoot for fun. But for all those years I often got treated as if I didn't have a "real" job. Maybe it's because most folks do things they don't like just to make money. Does liking what you do - or being passionate about your career - somehow make it less real? My work was physically and emotionally demanding. It wreaked havoc on my personal life. I worked irregular schedules and probably made less money than many skilled trades. These days I spend a lot of time playing guitar and saxophone in clubs in New Orleans and yes, I even get paid. Crazy. Of course I spend hours on end practicing, but again, it's not a "real" job. Reality, what a concept.
Thank you so much, Martin and Joe for your comments. Joe I totally agree, reality seems to be a rather warped concept! I am glad to hear you are thriving and enjoying yourself. Martin, the job market in the UK is a joke, especially for young graduates. Unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI blame the Industrial Revolution and the big companies for redefining the concept of "real" work. The old days may have seen lots of injustice, banditry and sicknesses, but farmers farmed, craftsmen worked their crafts, minstrels roamed the land singing and playing, and even kings and queens understood *noblesse oblige*. But the age of factories brought about people "going in to work" instead of working from home or home shops and passing on traditions to willing sons and daughters...
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