 CREDIT: Amanda Moore Working as a freelancer - especially with tiny human dependents - can offer a lot of flexibility but presents many challenges including; finding new work, programming workload, actually getting paid and earning a regular income. Here are some tips to keep you safe and sane:
Realise that your work is valuable and it takes very little to impress people. Just turn up on time and do what you said you’d do.
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 River Droplet Installation on Closing Night: CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography Public artwork is usually commissioned and exhibited in non-arts spaces; town centre spaces, estate gardens, hospitals, commercial buildings, new housing estates, etc. This differs from art exhibited in galleries which may already exist and it is meant to be site-specific. I have applied for many temporary public art commissions within the arts sector, commissions with briefs written by arts organisations. These commissions have often been designed to frame a piece of public space which will then be activated with other events such as temporary sculpture, performances and music. The ‘River Droplet’ commission I completed in September 2024 was in collaboration with Lorna Rees/Gobbledegook Theatre and was commissioned by Dorset National Landscape. There have been some interesting advantages in being commissioned by a landscape organisation rather than a body within the arts sector. ‘River Droplet’ was the pilot for Dorset National Landscape’s ‘Sitting Spaces’. The aim of ‘Sitting Spaces’ is to connect people to the local geology of a place and the landscape along with historic food production in that landscape and increase dwell time. We chose to focus on the River Frome which is a chalk stream running through Dorset and provides the perfect conditions for diverted water to be used to grow watercress. Dorset is one of the world’s largest producers of watercress. We suspended 600 bottles of water from the River Frome in a droplet formation from a temporary scaffold. The work was installed in Frampton, Dorset, on their Millenium Green and the structure became a room which hosted a range of events and music. The project was not dissimilar in form to ‘Art Vaults’ shown in Canute’s Palace, Southampton in 2018, commissioned by A Space Arts. This involved hanging 1,000 bottles of water from the Solent which related to the fact that the Old Town in Southampton is reclaimed land, once flooded by the sea. The space then hosted a month of events including live bands and temporary sculpture and performance, many related to water or seafaring.  ArtVaults 2018, rope installation and workshop under the exhibit. CREDIT: Amanda Moore The main comparison between the Dorset project and the Southampton project was the key outcomes. Dorset National Landscape were aiming to highlight ‘specialness’ of the area and to attract new visitors to the Food Trail, a cycle route which runs past the location. The project was not designed specifically for arts visitors, those who are already interested in the arts. It was installed in an unexpected location, not close to an arts organisation, and did not have an invitee mailing list from an arts organisation. Although this meant a smaller attendance, partly due to the rural location, the advantage here was that the project attracted an audience organically over the month, from local people within the village, to cycle trail riders and those hearing about it by word of mouth. The positive feedback about the project was hard-earned and developed over time, often coming from those who were initially sceptical about art. The audience later included those with a special interest in the history of the river including farmers and geologists. That's not to say that art organisations aren't aiming to attract a diverse audience. The installation itself was extremely site-specific as the water displayed above peoples’ heads was taken from the adjacent river which is sunken down in the site, thereby showcasing it. The chalky river sediment could be seen in the bottles. The events and music put together by Gobbledegook were also incredibly site-specific and stepped outside of the art world into the world of scientists and geologists. Songs were written which could be played via QR codes in the space. The first of these was a folk song about watercress production in the chalky stream. Later, additional versions were produced which sampled the voices of local watercress growers, local residents and recordings of the river. People smiled when they heard a recording of their voice worked into the tracks when they were played via mini-rig speakers. Lorna had recorded people talking about tasting watercress and had interviewed specialists including the director of a local watercress company.  People tasting watercress and being recorded inside 'River Droplet'. CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography Every Tuesday night we hosted ‘Glow-ming’ events which celebrated sunset and highlighted how much shorter the day became throughout the month. These events included a talk by geologist Dr Anjana Khatwa one evening, storyteller Martin Maudsley another and expert nutritionist Dr Sumanto Halder on another. The attendees all talked about a very specific aspect of the location which gave more variation to the project outside of the arts, but did rely on the visual spectacle of the chandelier of water droplets in the background to elevate the talks somewhat.  Talk with Dr Sumanto Halder. CREDIT: Amanda Moore  Bookmark hand-outs I created relating to different aspects of the installation during the month, commemorating the different talks. The closing event included new songs developed through the month being performed and also a fire juggling act which lit up the droplets of water with a golden glow. The performer even sourced a white outfit to represent the chalk. Throughout the events, Lorna had produced costumes including overalls for us to wear with elements about the work and local geology embroidered onto them and a chalk head piece for her to wear one evening. People became more and more engaged and were encouraged to sing or to light candles in the space. The project aimed more and more to deepen people's understanding of the location rather than become of showcase of artist's work.  Fire juggling on closing night. CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography Another interesting aspect of all of this was that the installation became a project which evolved over the course of the month. More and more audio recordings taken were worked into the songs written for the installation. Artworks were made in the space including photographs of it lit in different ways. Events had been partly programmed at the start but also developed and changed in response to what had worked well. Even times shifted for Glow-mings due to changing sunsets and a celebration of the Harvest Moon was included with costumes and props when we realised that it was occurring whilst the installation was open. The legacy of the project is that more Sitting Spaces may be commissioned and ‘River Droplet’ is well documented and will be included in the village archives. Deeper legacy includes greater appreciation of the local landscape by residents and visitors and memories of the spectacles seen and songs played. We jotted down reactions and comments by visitors throughout the month which form part of the documentation of the project. Working on a commission with a landscape organisation over an arts organisation meant attracting a wider audience than an arts audience and improving perceptions about the worth of art and what it is for. The project also included collaborators outside of the art world who in turn brought their own wider audience. The project also had the freedom to develop over time and respond changes in the site and audience feedback, it treated the audience as participants over an audience being performed to.  Dorset National Landscape attended all events as hosts, providing a welcome to visitors and tying the project back to its purpose. CREDIT: Jayne Jackson Photography
As an Adobe Creative Cloud user I’ve been very impressed with the new Generative Fill tool within Photoshop. The tool allows you to select an area of your image and remove items with a patched background generated. It also allows you to add items to images and looks to put them in in the correct scale and perspective. I guess that this is an AI tool and AI as a topic seems to have blown up over the last couple of months. As an architect and artist constantly trying to put together photomontages of buildings and artworks in their context, this tool seems incredibly useful. Gone could be the days of removing left over construction items from photos of finished buildings, adding people to mockups of concept designs of buildings or artworks. Even shade seems to be matched in and you can type in quite detailed descriptions of what you are looking for such as ‘people having a summer picnic’. Here is a base image of Herzog and De Meuron’s ‘Stone House’…  … and then with ‘people having a summer picnic’ added to one side and then the other. Oddly there are different choices of people with the same search term but different parts of the outdoor space selected, the left and then the right. The faces of the people are also blurred a bit and I have a floating leg on one.   About the tool, Adobe say: "Generative Fill—part of the revolutionary and magical new suite of Firefly-powered, generative AI capabilities—is grounded in your innate creativity, enabling you to add, expand, or remove content from your images non-destructively using simple text prompts in over 100 languages. Use this feature to automatically match the perspective, lighting, and style of your image, make previously tedious tasks fun, and achieve realistic results that will surprise, delight, and astound you in seconds. The new content is created in a Generative layer, enabling you to exhaust a myriad of creative possibilities and to reverse the effects when you want, without impacting your original image. Then, you can use the power and precision of Photoshop to take your image to the next level, surpassing even your own expectations." Thankfully, this tool is designed to help image editors rather that replace the creator. But I thought I’d see whether the Generate Fill tool would design an extension for me. I got these three variations for ‘house extension’, selecting the right side of the outside space.    I then got something lightweight when asking for ‘glassy house extension’.    I then selected the whole right hand side off the building space beyond and got a few other variations for extensions...     There are some pretty interesting and impressive results. Some slightly odd things happen with the perspective of elements in you look at the colonnade parts. But there are some interesting design 'thoughts' from the AI tool such as windows aligning with the external wall above.
The tool will continue to improve, I don't believe/hope that AI cannot be used to generate design and take into account all of the information we use such as sun paths, internal room sizes, adjacent views and properties, etc, etc. However, it is certainly a powerful image-making tool and could be worth using to create inspiration images and references for designers.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore I’ve been working freelance as a creative for almost 3 years now and some obvious pros and cons have become apparent:
Pro: Making your own Decisions You can decide which projects to work on, when to programme them in and set up your own terms. You might have to take on projects you don’t want to in the beginning but then as you get a bigger client base you can start to choose. For example, if you’re an architect you might not want to design houses, or you might only want to design houses. You can also choose to work with nicer people, and people who pay on time. Con: Finding work You have to find your own work and schedule it in so that you have an even workload. Clients will sometimes hold on projects because of funding when you were banking on that project to pay your bills. You might be too busy at times if too much comes in at the same time. It might be best to start working a consistent number of days for your previous employer on a freelance basis, adding in the one-off projects on top. As an artist you may have to apply for 10 times the number of competitions you want to win and you have to remember if not selected that your work isn’t bad, they were just looking for something different. Pro: Making your own Routine No 9-5 may be the main reason people want to work freelance. You can take your kid out on a Monday and work on a Sunday, you can eat your lunch when you want, you can fit your hobbies in, and chores. You can work where you want, if your kid is sick you can have them at home with you. Con: Having no Routine You need discipline and a calendar to get your tasks done which is hard. You will need to impose a routine. I like to start with an hour of my hobby first thing before my kid is up so that each day starts with some kind of routine. Meetings can be all over the place, and people will think that you are sitting in an office all day and cancel a meeting about to start online when you’ve geared your whole day around it and you could have done something else. Pro: Becoming Entrepreneurial You will be more self-sufficient because you will have multiple clients and hence income streams. You will look out for opportunities but you have to stay in contact with people to hear about them. Con: Loneliness No work friends, no work friends, no work friends. I used to hate being in an open plan office, (25 people asking you every Monday whether you had a nice weekend), but no contact can be depressing, even during COVID times there were a lot of online meetings. You could do some work in a work hub with others in similar fields to have some contact, or work for a client in their office once a week for contact. Listening to podcasts while working or having a lunch break out can help if you work at home. Pro: No cap to your earnings If you work harder you make more money, in theory, rather than working harder hoping someone will give you more of the money they are making. Con: No guaranteed earnings - or benefits. You will need a reasonable emergency fund, ie, an amount of money you can live off until you can find a job if needed which may be 3-6 months. You will need to pay your tax, national insurance, set up a pension or long-term savings. You will need to take care of your own sick pay, holiday pay, software costs, training and a decent chair to sit in. Don’t use a wonky IKEA stool. Calculate a day rate of your previous gross PAYE salary x 30% to cover other benefits like pension, then divide by 220 days.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore I spend a lot of time mocking up artist impressions of projects I’m working on. I’m no good at photorealistic images and so a filter which makes them look more like hand sketches saves me the time creating a hand sketch and also doesn’t look like an early 2000s computer game still. The most useful Adobe Photoshop filter I’ve found is the ‘find edges’ one which creates a version of an image which looks like a pencil sketch. When desaturated and overlaid onto the original image, it creates a kind of watercolour effect. Here is an example of an image I did for a commission during the Covid lockdown era for People United. I designed a floor mural which could demarcate social distancing in lockdown times, and in non-lockdown times it would make a public space more interactive. You can see the difference before and after using the filter:   CREDIT: Amanda Moore I created the image using a photo of the place and adding in people and the design. I then saved a copy of the layered Photoshop file and flattened the layers. I went to Filter > Find Edges to create the line drawing. I then used Mode > Grayscale to remove the colour, although you could also use the Hue/Saturation settings to just reduce the colouring.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore I then copied and pasted this layer onto the original file as the top layer and played with the transparency levels. You may need to cut out bits in places using the wand selection tool if the white background is too much.
The other thing which you could add to de-realise the image further is a watercolour layer. You can find a watercolour image online and copy and paste it into your image file. Desaturate it and then reduce the transparency to around 10% or below and this adds a mottled texture. This filter has allowed me to produce many last-minute artist impressions.  CREDIT: Richard Chivers. Gosport Mural, Amanda Moore 2022 Over the last two years I’ve been creating more public artwork using vinyl printing rather than hand paint or applying art traditionally. The process goes like this…design an artwork which is site-specific for the client, (usually local authority), approach a vinyl printing company to survey the site accurately and quote for the work, have them print and install the final work like outdoor wallpaper. I’ve used adhesive wraps for three types of installation:
The advantage of using a vinyl printing subcontractor is speed. I tend to mock up artwork using Adobe Illustrator mostly using vector-based lines and shapes which cuts out concerns over image resolution. I then approach a subcontractor I’ve worked with previously and ask them to measure on site and quote for the work, plus provide a method statement detailing how they will install safely and any product warranties. I’ll often have a sample installed on the site so that we can see how the material will stretch over textures such as brickwork and how easily it is removed.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore. Testing vinyl wrap. The project I worked on in collaboration with Studio BAD in Gosport in 2022 involved designing a wrap for a snooker hall building as part of a trail of new art within the town centre. I designed a mural which picked up on Goport’s naval heritage by taking dazzle boat painting patterns and combined this with colours and motifs seen on heritage buildings around the town. All of this was drawn in Adobe Illustrator and sent to Mac Signs based in Southampton who installed the work using a scaffold tower within a week, although this week of labour was spread out around poor weather.  CREDIT: Amanda Moore. Eastleigh translucent vinyls In Eastleigh I designed a large set of translucent vinyls which were based on Art Deco patterns seen on an early twentieth century building in the town. These were installed to glazed colonnades and create reflections onto the ground. The prints were cut around the unevenly spaced mullions on site rather than needing to measure each piece of glass. The works were installed to the underside around the town, bird poop not landing on top.  CREDIT: Richard Chivers. Southampton Guildhall urban rug. For Southampton’s Guildhall Square an urban rug was formed using coloured squares made from recyclable aluminium. These squares were arranged as pixels forming architectural motifs on the Guildhall building. The texture for floor art is important in terms of guaranteed slip resistance in public areas. These didn’t quite hold up as well with the local skateboarders and they tore at the edges but it worked well as a temporary installation.
 CREDIT: Alamy Stock Photo, Office Space 1999 Whilst working in the construction industry as an architect, I always had an additional side-income as a freelance artist. This meant that I had the comfort of a full-time income whilst gaining experience in applying for freelance commissions, winning them, carrying out the work independently and doing my own billing and accounts. My freelance work meant that there was no cap on my overall salary as I could earn extra income freelancing.
But how do you know whether it is a good idea to quite the 9-to-5 and go fully freelance? My main reasons were:
But when do you know that you are ready to go freelance full-time? For me it was when:
And some of the steps I took were:
Since working freelance the benefits have outweighed any negatives. For many people, (those inputting information into a computer whether it be words, numbers or 3D information), work can be done flexibly and from home or a small office/studio. I’ve experienced a range of lifestyle changes since working from home:
Overall I would say that if you want more flexibility in life or other improved conditions, you may want to chat to your employer first. However, if there is no movement or compromise, you may want to try freelance work - as long as you’ve built up a safety net. I never want to go back...  CREDIT: Collage: Amanda Moore, Serpentine Pavilion 2013, Sou Fujimoto Buildings are permanent right? A naive friend once asked me whether architects would always have work because ‘they must have built all the buildings by now’. I studied architecture after studying fine arts in order to be involved in physical projects which would be more permanent than fine art, in terms of their longevity and relevance. Surely they would therefore also be more important and impactful? Art seemed to be more transient based on trends and what was popular for collectors and galleries. But is architecture and building design permanent? Should it be? Most clients expect at least 150 years of useful life from a building which is costing them several millions to construct. We raise floor levels above flood levels, with allowances for climate change, and carry out copious coordination exercises with materials and system providers. Maybe buildings can last at least this long and this length of time can be considered ‘permanent’. Victorian residential properties are popular in the UK and are well looked after by each generation of custodian. But should many non-residential buildings, such as commercial buildings, public buildings and temporary accommodation, be permanent? A commercial building designed with enough solidity, and embodied carbon, to last hundreds of years may not be wanted after forty. If building uses often change, perhaps the structural frame should always be designed to be flexible and reusable. This might be easier to achieve with traditional building technologies such as steel or concrete frame, but not for more sustainable technologies such as cross-laminated timber which may not allow flexibility in glazing or internal wall positions. There has been an obvious trend for temporary architecture in recent years including pop-up retail, outdoor event spaces and urban parklets. This feels to have grown during 2020 with a need to utilise more outdoor spaces due to reduced permitted indoor occupancy during the pandemic. Temporary architecture allows the proposed use of a place to be introduced and tested by communities before more expensive built interventions, and accepts flexibility and community input. It can also be free to be of its time, trendy in colour or form. It doesn’t have to be timeless. Maybe the design life of 'temporary architecture' can be extended from the length of a single event to the length of a tenure.  CREDIT: Photo: Dinesh Mehta, Kumbh Mehla Festival set up with temporary walls and floors Can humans expect any of our interventions to be permanent?Is this wishful thinking as a kind of immortal legacy? When I worked for a large practice in London, the partners were always excited by projects which involved masterplanning where a developer had procured several plots of land as new street networks and proposed uses could be developed which they felt would likely have greater longevity than the individual buildings. Aside from building use, building standards often change and old buildings may not be able to be upgraded to ‘current’ standards. Questionable quality is another issue which can counteract the designed mass and solidity of buildings. There are unfortunately many instances where architect-designed buildings are not weathered well and it’s a (short) matter of time before they decay when all the mastic fails. This often seems to come down to confusion between the role of the architect and the contractor and who will take responsibility for the final detailing. And so is architecture more or less permanent than art?Artworks may be protected for millennia if they constitute an important financial or cultural commodity. Public art could also potentially have a longer life span than a building. A public art project I was fortunate to work on, Black Down Stone Circle, Dorset, was installed in 2016. It consists of five totems produced from local Forest Marble stone. The totems align with true north and the summer and winter solstice sunrise and sunset positions specific to the site. Sunlight passes through openings in the totems and hits a central Portland standing stone. The project was built by a skilled stone mason called Tom Trouton and the alignment was advised by specialist Simon Banton. It is now used as a ceremonial site by spiritual groups on the solstices.  CREDIT: Photo: Simon Banton, Black Down Stone Circle Contrary to my expectations at the beginning of my architectural studies, a built project like this may prove to have more permanence than most architectural projects I've worked on in terms of physically being there and being relevant. The sculpture is robust and well-built by a craftsperson rather than relying on the integrity of foil tapes and membranes. The artistic idea does not age or need to be updated in line with any style or technical standards.
These days it seems more appropriate to me that art can have permanence but architecture should be more temporary.  CREDIT: Photo taken at Bedford Place, Southampton, of artist decorated road closure blockades, but what now happens behind?: Amanda Moore Since the pandemic started early this year, people have been forced to become more ‘local’. Working from home, (which I’ve now been doing for 9 months), no distant holidays, less inessential travel. Strangely, there have been some potential upsides to this new way of living which could point the path to a more permanent way of simplifying our lives and making us more rooted in our local environment, for the better. For myself, being housebound has made me more appreciative of my home and garden space and forced me to look at ways of optimising small areas of space. I’ve created a reading nook in the hallway and densified storage, as a posed to thinking about extending or buying a bigger home. I’ve gotten to know my neighbours better, we’ve set up benches in our driveways and had lunchtime coffees. I’ve cycled around during the one hour of government-approved daily exercise to scope out parks and woodland cycle routes I didn’t know about and people seemed to make more eye contact and smile more that usual during the summer, enjoying any level of human contact. Within town centres, some roads were closed in order to allow shops and cafes the opportunity to spread out into the streets due to restrictions on internal occupancy. In my own town, the two main Victorian streets have been closed since July which has not only removed the traffic, but also the linear barricades formed from parked cars which prevented people moving from one side of the street to the other in a more organic way. Both streets are served by back alleyways in any case and there is nearby accessible parking. The last few months of reduced car access has likely had little effect on trade, more the ‘inessential trade’ restrictions or general increase in online shopping pre-COVID. However, the streets have had an eerie silence where the white and yellow road markings remain and people are still not used to waking down the middle of the streets. This is an opportunity though, to rethink whether cars should be allowed into every street of our small town centres, making way for people to have a slower and more friendly retail experience, meandering down streets rather than driving to a shop and leaving, or driving out of town to bigger malls and hyper markets. Using the streets between shops as pop-up markets, weaving a garden through the town, having additional seating or events spaces sits in line with a retail ‘experience’ which has more physical interaction and connection with our local towns, and ties in with encouraging less car use and carbon reduction.  CREDIT: Photo, Romsey Parklet: Mill Road Summer Architects, designers and planners should be starting with the smaller traditions and rituals of each community such as yearly events, or seeking out local makers and performers who could benefit from having a public platform. Asking people what they want and making temporary and flexible interventions in line with those potential users, introducing a new use for road and parking spaces so that people can see the benefits and feed in ideas. A bottom-up approach rather than a top-down one which usually involves building large permanent interventions without ensuring that people are actually going to use them.
I currently have the opportunity of working with teams on a couple of these town centre projects, walking the streets and talking to local traders and groups about how to make the space around their business or studio more of a transitionary zone, ie; a parklet in front of a restaurant, a selling space in front of a workshop, a market stall for traders who sell in several towns, an activity or event space for local school or theatre groups ... all of this making the market street potentially more of an experience which draws people in as an alternative to online or out of town shopping... Go [or stay] local.  CREDIT: Image: Amanda Moore, SÖCIÅL SPÅCE Project 2020 When lockdown started in early 2020, in relation to the global pandemic, the arts were badly affected. In terms of galleries, many had been forced to temporarily close in towns due to social distancing measures. In the summer I was lucky to be commissioned by People United, along with 5 other artists, to design artistic concepts which would make social spaces kinder and, well, more social. This culminated in a graphic leaflet which people could download at home. The idea was for communities to work together to produce an outdoor artwork which would assist with social distancing in a playful way. The artworks would allow us to interact more with our local public realm, particularly at a time when indoor spaces were subject to tighter occupancy guidelines.
Through 2020 and beyond, could there be a greater impetus to take artwork outside onto the streets and what are the benefits?
And are there any limits to the placement of art outside of the gallery?
These projects are often commercially sponsored, paid for by arts councils and trusts or form part of planning application agreements or council regeneration projects. They can be temporary or permanent and they can have a much larger role than art as commodity. They are art as identity, interaction and engagement of people with their surroundings. |
AuthorWhat am I doing here? I'm collecting sea water to fill 1,000 bottles and hang them from a scaffold inside an old ruin. Why? Why not? Archives
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