Anniversary Edition: Jocelyn McGregor
Last week She Performs celebrated its first anniversary as an online platform, but the movement behind it dates back to 2017 when three women: Lynn Seraina Battaglia, Holly Daizy Broughton and Nicola Waterman created She Performs to bring women artists and their audiences together, empowering them to freely engage with and exchange ideas around equality and gender representation.
While some may dispute the ongoing need for women-only anything, it’s a fact that women artists remain underrepresented compared to their male counterparts, and we would argue that the art world still operates in large part on rules established by male gallerists and curators that reward certain (stereotypically male) behaviours, while holding women to a different standard - dare to have a messy studio as a woman artist and you run the risk of being thought of as disorganised and therefore hard to work with, while a male artist working in a similarly messy studio is fair more likely to be thought a creative genius!
As we toured the virtual graduate shows over the summer for our series of Graduate Spotlights, it occurred to us that as they launch their careers as practising artists, they would benefit from the advice of women who have forged their careers ahead of them. With this in mind we asked Jocelyn McGregor …
If you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently when you first started out as a practising artist?
First off, I would have FOUGHT HARDER for higher paid part-time work like freelance art technician and fabricator work - roles that are STILL male dominated - and CALLED EMPLOYERS OUT more when I felt I was being treated differently to male candidates/employees. I have found that women artists (especially if you are femme) are often ushered down the artist facilitator, youth work or administrative routes when looking for part-time work, whereas my male counterparts went down the art technician, art handling or fabrication routes, which in the long run are HIGHER PAID!
As an artist I've always had to support my practice with part-time work, and for the first few years after graduating I did all sorts, but in 2012 I decided that I would like to become a fabricator. I had developed a good working knowledge of a wide range of sculpture materials, I'd got my Level 1 certificate in mig, tig, arc and oxy-acetylene welding so I thought that put me in a good position to go for an entry level job as a fabricator for a company based in London. I applied and I was invited to interview. My (male) housemates at the time were all art technicians and some of their (male) friends who were fabricators were saying that they hadn't had any welding training before they got their jobs as fabricators, or as much experience with the range of materials I'd worked with, so they thought I was in a pretty strong position to get the job. I arrived at the company warehouse for my interview, a woman came to meet me, looked me up and down and asked if I would just wait for a second while she ran something past the director and left the room. She and the director came back together and asked if I would interview instead for the receptionist role. Long story short, I turned the role down and cried at the bus stop on my way home, before going back to my office manager role at a cake shop the next day.
This wasn’t an isolated incident, but to begin with (aside from being heartbroken because I just wanted to weld shit up!) it didn’t make that much difference money-wise. At the time, the starting salaries for freelance art tech/fabrication and freelance artist facilitator or admin roles were pretty much the same (£10 per hour), BUT now my male friends are earning twice (or more!) as much as I am with far more flexibility and job security because of it! The longer you're in the art tech/fabrication business the more you seem to get paid, the work is much more flexible and they are always in demand i.e. if they have a residency abroad or a big exhibition they can just not take the work for a month or so and more easily get back into it when they're ready. Whereas, I am lucky if an organisation agrees to me making up the hours when I return, and most of the time I just have to quit my job. Also, artist facilitator and youth work in a part-time/freelance capacity is usually done for art charities/publicly funding organisations, consequently the pay has remained pretty much the same for the last decade and organisations will always try to pay you as little as they possibly can, even when your responsibilities increase. Furthermore, I have found I have more responsibilities and often more emotional labour (e.g. dealing with child safeguarding concerns, etc) than my male art tech counterparts, which can be difficult to juggle when your art career picks up pace. Admin in a part-time/freelance capacity is basically working as a temp or a receptionist, again the pay doesn't increase that much with experience, as companies don't see it as a particularly skilled job. Lastly, because it's almost a decade since 2012, I now have a lot of artist facilitator/youth programme/administrative experience - I have been headhunted and recommended for similar roles and find it far simpler to get more of the same sort of job than start again with jobs I have far less experience in, making it much harder to get out of it.
So, if I had my time again, here’s what I would have done differently:
I would have challenged the interviewers at the fabrication company in 2012 on why they had changed their mind on the job role when they saw me. Employers don't have a right to judge you by your appearance, they should only be focusing on your experience.
I would have asked employers what experience their other employees had when they first started, and if my CV was lacking in an area in comparison (which I DOUBT!) what their advice would be for gaining that experience or what training was available in house.
I would have asked the people around me for support and told them how and why I felt discriminated against - that would have given me the strength to fight it.
For recent graduates starting out in their careers as practising women artists, my advice would be - don’t let anybody (and that includes women who have bought into the patriarchy) put you in the boxes they use to categorise people. Most filing systems are archaic, whack and no longer fit for purpose (says the jaded PT administrator). Don’t make it easy for them to tidy you away and kick change down the road!
And secondly, KEEP CALLING THE CREEPS OUT! Yes, I have come across a lot of creepy men in the art world, and I wish I’d been more vocal about them at the time. Remember: better an insulted man (temporary emotion) than a molested woman (permanent consequence).
Jocelyn McGregor is an artist and sculptor based in Cumbria. Her work, Jennifer (2016-17) was featured in She Performs’ inaugural, self-titled exhibition (14 - 17 June 2018, London Gallery West) and she has twice told a story at She Hears, our series of storytelling events.
WWW.JOCELYNMCGREGOR.COM
