In 2013 I was asked by my friend and Vivid Projects curator Antonio Roberts to photography an event he was running for the documentation. Dirty New Media, at the Barber Institute, was a follow-up to GLI.TC/H which he had brought to Birmingham in 2011. As I took my photos the following things went through my mind.
- I could do that.
- I would never do that.
- That’s brilliant.
- I did something like that.
- That’s stupid, and I can explain why.
- I want to do something like that.
Basically I felt I was watching a peer group I could and probably should be part of.
So, on 21st March 2013 I decided to actually become a proper artist, to do this sort of thing as much as possible.
I happened to be sitting next to Karen Newman, now director of Birmingham Open Media, and asked her if she did mentoring for people who thought they might be artists. Were it not for that day the rest of this website would be very empty.
