‘Ere they are… Grants, prizes and paid residencies, each checked against the funder’s own page rather than a listings site. Deadlines are UK time unless I say otherwise. Most close this month; two run into 1 October and one has no deadline at all. Everything here is free to apply except MacDowell, Art Omi, Hayama and the Tom Stoddart Award, and I’ve listed those fees where they are.

Where to start

If you’re self-taught or your CV is thin: Art Omi states on its own page that it accepts self-taught professional artists. Hayama and Tokyo Biennale judge the work and the proposal rather than your credentials.

If you have a decade of shows behind you: Pollock-Krasner is the largest single sum here and needs ten exhibitions in ten years. Radcliffe, Platform Dalí and Ars Electronica also pay properly and enforce their eligibility rules to the letter.

If you hold a UK passport and no EU work rights: read the Ars Electronica entry before you start. It’s the one hard eligibility wall on this list.

If you need money rather than time: Radcliffe, Columbia, Unlimited, Ars Electronica, The Supporting Act and Pollock-Krasner put cash in your hand. MacDowell and Art Omi mostly give you space and food.

If you work with archives or documents: Embassy of Foreign Artists in Geneva and the European Cultural Foundation in Florence are built for it, and both will reject a general practice pitch.

If you’re a photographer: the Tom Stoddart Award is the one aimed squarely at you. Note that Pollock-Krasner explicitly excludes photography as a primary medium.

If you can’t travel: Unlimited, The Supporting Act and Pollock-Krasner can all be done from home. Unlimited covers England, Scotland and Wales only.

1. Platform Dalí, Barcelona

Residencies 2027, “What is real?” Fee paid, costs covered

Closes tonight, Monday 7 September, 10.59pm here (23.59 CET).

You get a EUR 7,500 fee plus a production budget of up to EUR 25,000 for a new work. Travel, accommodation, subsistence and insurance are covered for artists based outside Barcelona, within a set budget.

You need at least eight years of professional practice. Any nationality, any discipline, and collectives may apply, though the fee and budget are then shared.

Be aware this is a 12-month programme, not a short residency: a three-day introductory visit, up to 45 days on site, then roughly ten months of remote development and production. Five artists are selected, one at each of five partner institutions: the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, ICFO, the Institute of Marine Sciences, the Institute for High Energy Physics and the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park.

Worth it for the production budget, which is larger than most UK project grants. No scientific background is required and they say they welcome first-timers, so the eight years of practice is the only real gate.

Read the full call and apply

2. Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Radcliffe Fellowship 2027-28 Salary

Closes Thursday 10 September, 10pm here (5pm ET). Apply under Creative Arts.

You get a $78,000 stipend for the academic year plus $5,000 for project expenses, an office or studio in Byerly Hall, and a Harvard visiting fellow appointment. Relocation, housing and childcare funds exist but you may or may not be eligible, so don’t budget on them.

You need, in visual arts, at least five years of work as a professional artist, several curated group shows and at least two professional solo exhibitions. You must live in the Cambridge or Boston area from September to May. Anyone currently enrolled in a degree programme is ineligible, as are former Radcliffe fellows.

Be aware this is a heavy application: a 1,400-word proposal, a CV, twelve images and three letters of recommendation. Start the reference requests today or don’t start at all.

Worth it if the CV is there, and a wasted fortnight if it isn’t. Read the eligibility twice before you write anything.

Read the full call and apply

3. MacDowell, New Hampshire

Fellowships, spring and summer 2027 Time, board and help with travel

Closes Thursday 10 September at 5pm EDT, which is 10pm on Thursday here. Not the early hours of Friday. Check this one against the clock, because it closes earlier in the day than almost everything else on the list.

You get a studio and accommodation for a residency falling between 1 March and 31 August 2027. There are no residency fees, and need-based stipends and travel reimbursement grants are available.

You need only to be an artist. MacDowell takes applications from artists of all backgrounds and all countries across seven disciplines including visual arts, and about 300 fellowships are awarded a year.

Be aware the panels weigh three things: your record of professional achievement, a current work sample and your project proposal. It isn’t purely the work. Check the application fee on the guidelines page before you start, as the main page states only that there is no residency fee.

Worth it and fiercely competitive. It rewards a strong sample and a clear, specific proposal.

Read the full call and apply

4. Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center, Tainan, Taiwan

AIR in Tainan 2027 A fee, a flat, and a budget you don’t control

Closes Thursday 10 September, 4.59pm here (23.59 Taiwan time).

You get up to NT$30,000 a month for a maximum of three months, so NT$90,000 at most, roughly £2,200. Accommodation is a suite at no charge, plus a bicycle, an exhibition space, a shared studio and basic tools.

Read this carefully. The NT$150,000 materials budget is not paid to you. The centre procures materials and services itself through government process. Your grant is taxed, at 6 to 20% for foreign artists, plus health insurance contributions, and you pay a stamp duty of 0.1% in cash on top. Payment arrives in instalments on government reimbursement timelines, and they advise bringing NT$15,000 to 20,000 to cover your first month. Flights are not mentioned anywhere, so budget for your own.

You need a project responding to the 2027 theme, Site-Specific Art, engaging Tainan’s hydrology, physiography, ecology or local culture. Minimum 45 days, maximum 90, across three possible terms between January and August 2027. Basic English or Chinese. At least one signed letter of recommendation, uploaded before the system closes.

You must deliver one achievement exhibition and at least one parent-child workshop before you leave.

Worth it for three funded months in Taiwan with real production support behind you, as long as you go in understanding that the big number is a procurement budget rather than cash.

Read the full call and apply

5. Art Omi, New York

Artists residency 2027 Board and meals, travel possible

Closes Monday 14 September. The page gives no closing time, so file on Sunday.

You get a studio, a private room and all meals at no cost from Thursday 17 June to Monday 12 July 2027. This is a single fixed session, the only one they run each year, so you can’t pick your dates.

You need to have been professionally active for at least five years. Having studied art is not a requirement, and they say explicitly that they accept self-taught professional artists. Disciplines include visual arts, sound art, performance and social practice.

Fee $15.

On travel: several fellowships include a travel grant and a $500 stipend, and international applicants are automatically considered for the two Larkin Dawn fellowships without applying separately. The Every Page Foundation fellowship carries $2,000. So a flight may well be covered, but plan as though it isn’t.

Worth it, with eyes open on the odds. Art Omi aims for roughly 75% of residents to come from outside the US, which helps, but in 2026 they took 24 artists from around 1,395 applicants. There’s no public transport from the campus.

Read the full call and apply

6. Embassy of Foreign Artists, Geneva

Artistic research residency 2027 Stipend and a room, you pay travel and materials

Closes Tuesday 15 September. No time given.

You get CHF 1,400 a month for three months, roughly £1,250, as a daily allowance, plus a private room and shared common areas. Run with the Centre for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism at the Geneva Graduate Institute, who provide access and guidance.

You need to be over 28 at the time of application, have a professional practice with a substantial body of work behind it, speak French or English, and not be enrolled in a basic art training programme. You must accept that travel and production costs are yours.

Your project must use the archives of Geneva-based international organisations as its primary resource, the UN Archives Geneva or the ICRC archives for example. This is the whole application, so a general practice pitch will sink.

Worth it if you already work with documents. Duos and groups can apply, but the stipend doesn’t increase.

Read the full call and apply

7. Unlimited

Partner Awards 2026/27 Project funding

Closes Monday 28 September, midday.

You get one of eleven awards from £15,000 to £40,000, £280,000 in total, each tied to a partner venue. Eight in England, two in Scotland, one of £20,000 in Wales. Visual art partners include the Sainsbury Centre, Scottish Sculpture Workshop and Creative Folkestone.

You need to be a disabled artist, or a disabled artist leading the creation of work within a disabled-led company, aged 18 or over, based in England, Scotland or Wales, and not in full-time education. Northern Ireland is not covered by this round.

Worth it as the biggest pot here for anyone who qualifies, and the only one you can do without leaving the country. Each award has its own page with its own eligibility and criteria, so pick your partner venue first. Guidance is available in audio, BSL, Easy Read and large print, in Gaelic for Scotland and Welsh for Wales, and they offer access support to apply.

Read the full call and apply

8. Ars Electronica

Ars Biologica ArtXScience residency, České Budějovice 2028 Fee and production

Closes Monday 28 September, 11pm here (midnight CET).

Check this before anything else: applicants may be of any nationality but must be eligible to work and travel in the EU. If you hold only a UK passport with no EU work rights, this one is closed to you.

You get EUR 24,000 in total: EUR 6,000 fee, up to EUR 15,000 production, up to EUR 3,000 for travel and subsistence. Accommodation for a one-month stay comes from a separate budget.

You need more than five years of professional practice and prior experience in interdisciplinary collaboration, art-science production and community engagement. 18 or over. Individuals or collectives.

They want two things, not one: a spatial artwork that goes beyond the screen, and public engagement formats involving the local community. The science partner is the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, working on soil and freshwater microorganisms.

Be aware of the commitment. Two positions only, running January 2027 to April 2028, with a month in February or March 2027, an optional month in August or September 2027, and a month in March 2028 for the festival.

Worth it for the production budget, and the first-round application is unusually light: a 250-word proposal, a few 100-word answers and some images.

Read the full call and apply

9. Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Paris

Fellowship 2027-28 Salary

Closes Wednesday 30 September. No time is given, so file the day before.

You get $75,000 for the academic year at Reid Hall in Paris, September 2027 to May 2028, with your own office, administrative and research support, and access to Columbia’s libraries and research facilities in Europe.

You need to apply under the creative arts category, be unaffiliated with Columbia, and, regardless of nationality, not be permanently resident in the United States. They cannot accommodate groups.

Be aware the cohort is up to 15 fellows and only half are outside artists and writers, so this is a handful of places. The application needs a 1,500-word project description, a work sample and three letters of recommendation.

Worth it as a year in Paris on a salary, if you can line up three referees in three weeks.

Read the full call and apply

10. European Cultural Foundation

Artistic Research Fellowship, Florence Costs covered

Closes Wednesday 30 September, 4pm here (17.00 CET).

You get EUR 10,000 for a research stay at the Historical Archives of the European Union, covering travel, accommodation, living costs and artistic production. You work at Villa Salviati, within the European University Institute’s scholarly community.

The subject is narrower than it looks. This is not general access to the EU archives. Fellows are expected to work substantially with the European Cultural Foundation’s own historical holdings, which opened to the public in June 2026, and to engage with ECF’s history, networks and ideas and what they say about culture in Europe now. Material is primarily in English, with a good deal in French, German and Dutch.

You must complete and publicly present or publish the outcome within two years of signing the grant agreement. That’s a binding condition, not a nice-to-have.

Worth it if archives are already your material and the ECF’s own story gives you something to work with.

Read the full call and apply

11. Tokyo Biennale, “Social Dive”

Site-responsive proposals, “From Me to Us” Costs covered, small honorarium

Closes Wednesday 30 September, 3.59pm here (23.59 JST).

You get a ¥100,000 honorarium, about £500, return travel to Tokyo up to ¥300,000, about £1,500, for one person only, accommodation in Tokyo, a project development budget capped at ¥200,000, about £1,000, plus interpretation and translation support and an invitation letter.

You need a proposal for one of eleven designated Tokyo sites, from temples and business districts to Ueno Station and Akihabara. Open to artists, curators, researchers and collectives, 18 or over, with no nationality or residence rules. One proposal per applicant, in English or Japanese.

Be aware of the timeline. Despite the name, the presentation period runs roughly 45 days between October and December 2028, and you must commit to a minimum one-month stay including the opening, on top of research visits and preparation beforehand.

Also note that by applying you agree your proposal may be published even if it isn’t selected, once it clears the first screening.

Worth it for the biennale line on your CV and the covered costs, but go in clear-eyed: £500 and a £1,000 budget against a month in Tokyo and two years of commitment.

Read the full call and apply

12. The Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence, with GOST Books

Long-form documentary photography A published book and £5,000

Closes Wednesday 30 September. The entry page displays 10.59pm, which appears to be UTC, so 11.59pm here. File the day before rather than test it.

You get a photobook produced by GOST Books, clothbound hardback and distributed worldwide, edited alongside GOST’s director Stu Smith. Plus £5,000 towards expenses, a trip to Verona to see the proofs and check them, publicity through The Guardian as media partner, and a run across the award’s own channels.

You need a long-form documentary project that is nearing completion and substantial enough to carry a book. 18 or over. Submit up to 40 representative images, a short biography and a concise project synopsis. No AI-generated imagery.

Fee £50 per entry.

Worth it if you have a body of work sitting unpublished. This is one of very few open calls where the prize is a real trade book rather than a group show, and the Guardian tie-in is worth as much as the money. Run by the Ian Parry Photography Grant, with Don McCullin as patron emeritus.

Read the full call and apply

13. Hayama Artist Residency, Japan

June 2027 Costs covered

Closes Wednesday 30 September, 11.59pm US Eastern, which is 4.59am on 1 October here.

You get a return flight to Narita or Haneda, a private bedroom in shared accommodation at Hôtel ami hayama for four weeks, 1 to 30 June 2027, and $800 for meals and local transport. Staff meet you at the airport.

You need to be a visual artist over 21, anywhere in the world, any medium. Applications in English only, via Submittable, and you can’t edit once submitted. Up to ten work samples.

Fee $95 for first-time applicants, waived if you apply again the following year after missing out.

Be aware they provide no art materials, you buy your own food from the $800, and visas are entirely your responsibility. No partners, family or pets.

Worth it for the flights, which almost nobody else here pays for. The distinctive thing is that you are not required to make any work at all: they recommend rest, research and reflection. If that’s what you need, nothing else on this list offers it.

Read the full call and apply

14. The Supporting Act Foundation

Artist Grant 2026 Unrestricted cash, no travel required

Closes Thursday 1 October, 10am here (11.00 CET). A morning deadline, so this one is effectively 30 September for practical purposes.

You get one of ten unrestricted grants of EUR 10,000, paid as EUR 1,000 a month across the year. No restrictions on how you spend it, though it’s intended for living costs and artistic development. Grantees also join a network with online events, workshops and peer exchange.

You need to identify as an emerging artist with between two and ten years of professional experience, be at least 21, and have a practice involving collaborative or community-focused creative processes. You must identify as belonging to one or more underrepresented groups, or as someone facing systemic barriers to equal opportunities in the arts. You must be based in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain or the UK, and hold an IBAN bank account in one of those countries.

Worth it as the rare grant that funds your life rather than a project. Monthly instalments rather than a lump sum is the point: it buys twelve months of not panicking. Free to apply.

Read the full call and apply

15. Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

Grants for artists The biggest sum here, and no deadline

No deadline. Applications are open year-round on a rolling basis. Expect the review to take nine to twelve months, so apply now and forget about it.

You get an unrestricted grant of up to $50,000, though most land around $35,000, intended to cover a year. The amount is set by your circumstances, and you state what you’re asking for and why in a one-page cover letter.

You need to work primarily in painting, sculpture or works on paper including printmaking, and to have a minimum of ten exhibitions in the past ten years at professional galleries, museums or recognised exhibition spaces, while actively exhibiting now. That is the hard bar.

Not eligible: students, and anyone working primarily in photography, video or film, performance, graphic or commercial art, illustration, craft, or generative and AI-generated work. Craft here means functional objects: jewellery, clothing, pottery, furniture. A small video or photographic component within a painting or sculpture is fine.

Be aware the application is exacting and will be disqualified for getting the details wrong. Ten JPEGs at exactly 2100 pixels on the longest side, named to their format, a matching image list, an artist statement, a CV with solo and group shows separated, and three professional references. Two-person collaborations only. One application every 24 months, and if you’re declined you wait two years.

Worth it as the largest unrestricted sum available to a painter or sculptor anywhere on this list, decided on merit rather than need, with grantees in more than 80 countries. Free to apply. If you clear the ten-exhibition bar, there is no reason not to.

Read the full call and apply

Cheers me dears,
SLART

“True art is always found where we least expect it, where nobody thinks about it or utters its name.”

— Jean Dubuffet, L’Art brut préféré aux arts culturels, 1949

Art was least expected to be found in a scruffy but stunning glass building in the Western suburbs of Swindon.

Enter Studio BRUT

My view of how it all went as a co-founder:

We had the opening of Studio BRUT in Swindon, Wiltshire, on the 15th of August 2026, and it was overwhelmingly positive. I must admit, a couple of days before I was very stressed about it. I felt like there was too much to do. But I got a lovely group of people to help me finish what needed to be done, and it worked out in the end.

I got there early to help the DJ set up. I briefed my niece on how to use the card machine and get donations for drinks and artwork. There were a couple of journalists in there waiting[1], they came around a bit earlier, and they interviewed me while the people poured in. Then all of a sudden there were 100 people there at least.

I’m just really surprised at how calm and confident I felt. I had the most clarity I’ve ever had in that kind of situation. It was as if I was meant to be there. It’s hard to explain. It just felt natural, let’s put it that way. It felt natural that I was there, doing what I was doing. I dropped the shy little boy that held me back in so many situations like that.

I had interviews with a couple of local media outlets and radio[2], and chatted with so many people. It was non-stop talking all night. People came up to me, and as soon as someone finished talking to me, someone else had grabbed me. And it didn’t feel stressful. The only thing I was a bit stressed about, not stressed about, but I wanted to speak to more people and I didn’t get a chance to. There were some people I invited that I just wanted to chat to, and I didn’t get to, because there was so much going on.

The first half an hour flew by. Everyone came in, and then there was time for the speeches. I got the people together myself: Dr Rod Hebden from Swindon Culture Collective, and Claire Garrett, who is the Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire and a fabulous social entrepreneur as well, and then the local mayor, Neil Hopkins, Swindon Mayor.

I opened up saying how grateful I was for people to be there. Not in a false way. I said that your presence means a lot, and just being here tonight is not nothing, it’s more. I said that you chose to be here tonight, you could be doing anything else, and you chose to be here, and it means a lot to me.

Then I went into the ideas behind it, and I said a couple of rules for the evening. I said to drink lots of beer, and I didn’t get any laughs at all. And then I said spend more time with the paintings than feels natural to you. Just spend a bit more time and see what unfolds. Because with social media these days we glance at things and we scroll through things, and it doesn’t have a second thought really. So I encourage that, and I always will do now. And then I said photography and video is encouraged: the more that people take photos and share, the more it gets the word out.

And then the event was open. The mayor usually cuts a ribbon. I had no ribbon or scissors, so I tied a piece of cloth to the door, and it just looked a bit tacky, and the mayor didn’t cut it in the end. It’s fine. But I opened the studio doors, and people started looking around the studio part of it as well.

Just after the speeches, I had a massive surprise from my siblings who live in Margate, Kent, which is a really cool arts place actually. They drove down three hours to come and see the exhibition. In the morning of that day they all wished me luck with the exhibition and I was really moved by that, and then they ended up turning up to the event. I was just over the moon. It meant the world to me. It really did.

The night carried on. We got lots of donations, we had a fabulous time, and it was just bustling, and lots of chat with all those different people. Then it starts to quieten down about half eight, and a few latecomers turned up, my close friend Charlie. The vibe totally changed and it was very chill. There were probably about 15, 20 people, and then it dwindled down to about 10, and we came to a natural end just around nine o’clock instead of half nine, which was actually fine.

The only thing I would say about the location: it’s fine, and it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous building, but it’s not in the town centre. If it was in the town centre there could be more scope for doing it a bit later, and people partying a bit more. But it’s absolutely fine. It’s creating its own thing out of town, and it’s serving that community in the Peatmoor area of Swindon.

So I was absolutely over the moon with the exhibition, and then we kept on with the momentum. I spoke to BBC Wiltshire on the Sunday for some sound bites, and then on the Monday morning to say how it went[3]. I spoke a bit about Quentin Blake, how he messaged. I contacted him and he sent his best wishes. He said he couldn’t attend. He’s 93 now, bless him. I don’t know how much he gets about, and I’m not too sure where he lives as well, it’s quite a way to go.

And the press has kept rolling: interviews, photographs, more emails than I can keep up with[4]. It has been genuinely exciting, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t.

But a conversation this week put all of it back in its proper place. I was chatting with Helen Downie, whose work I have admired for years, and we ended up agreeing that successes like this are lovely, but it always comes back to the enjoyment of creating the work. Everything else, as she put it, is a kind of noise.

That one is staying with me. The press, the mayor, the full room: all wonderful jubilant noise. The making of art is the thing.

On the Monday a good friend, Fenella Rouse, came to see the space, so I got to give her a private tour. She kindly bought some postcards and stuff. She couldn’t make it on the opening, and I said on Monday I’m going to the studio, why don’t you pop down, come along and see what it’s all about. It was a real pleasure to show her around.

So yeah, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. And the next steps are having this open call for the next group exhibition. It’s open to Wiltshire based or working local artists, outsiders, if you want to showcase your work.

So yeah. Let’s do the next thing.

Salon des Refusés…

Watch this space!

——————————————————————————

THANK YOU

None of this happened alone. The opening night ran on generosity:

Swindon Culture Collective and Hypha Studios, who made the space possible. Cass Art and CREATE Education Project, backing the studio and the free makerspace to come. Arkell’s and Tap Social Movement, who stocked the bar between them (Tap Social’s beer arrived two days before opening, driven up from Oxford). Flawsome! Drinks, for the soft options. WillSecure, who kept the door safe for free. Bert’s Books, flying the flag. And Gideon Liddiard, who photographed the whole night: every picture in this post is his.

“These artists derive everything from their own depths, and not from the conventions of classical or fashionable art.” Dubuffet

——————————————————————————

FOOTNOTES

[1] Swindon24 came along and wrote it up two days later: “Underused Swindon building transformed into new outsider art studio” (16 August 2026). https://www.swindon24.co.uk/news/underused-swindon-building-transformed-into-new-outsider-art-studio/

[2] Before the night, Dave Franklin previewed us in The Swindonian: “Self-taught Swindon artists open town’s first outsider art studio and gallery” (22 July) https://theswindonian.co.uk/culture/self-taught-swindon-artists-open-towns-first-outsider-art-studio-and-gallery/ , Rhona Jack wrote about us in her INK Magazine culture column, online at The Ink (30 July) https://theinkswindon.substack.com/p/all-systems-go-for-swindon-city-of , and Mike Buss announced the night on Entertainment Swindon (14 August) https://entertainmentswindon.co.uk/2026/08/14/swindon-mayor-to-open-swindons-first-professional-art-studio-for-outsider-artists/

[3] BBC Radio Wiltshire had us on across the opening weekend: live from the studio on the Saturday morning, sound bites on the Sunday, and a how-did-it-go chat on the Monday. I’ll try my best to locate the recordings.

[4] Raw Vision, the world’s outsider art magazine since 1989, featured the opening in their weekly newsletter the week before we opened, with a piece in the September print magazine to come.

This was the week of asking.

Somewhere in the last month I stopped thinking of letters as admin and started thinking of them as part of the practice. Every invitation to the opening night is a tiny artwork with one collector… the person who opens it (Corny I know). Some get framed in memory, most get binned, and a few come back to you in ways that move you.

Here’s the one that moved me…

The earthworm comes home

In 1993 I was eleven, and I drew an environmentally friendly earthworm for a national children’s competition run by Friends of the Earth. The judges were Raymond Briggs and Quentin Blake. I was one of ten winners in the whole country. The Marlborough Times took my photo, and my mum told the paper she hoped my love of drawing was “a talent which can be fostered.” See below for the full story…

Thirty three years later, three weeks before opening a gallery, I wrote to Quentin Blake to tell him what became of the boy with the earthworm.

His office wrote back. With a message from the man himself, which I have now read roughly forty times:

“What you have to do is to just start drawing, even if you think perhaps that you don’t do it well – you probably are doing something of interest. Start to draw and find out what happens. And, I will mention this in the hope that it may be of some encouragement, I have no professional qualifications at all!”

I have no professional qualifications at all. Quentin Blake. If outsider artists ever needed a patron saint, he just applied for the job in writing. That last line is going on our wall at the opening, and honestly it might go on the door.

Mum was right to hope. The full story is on the gallery blog: studiobrut.art/quentin-blake-wrote-back

The cheeky email that worked

Harrie messaged me on a Sunday evening:

‘what if we find a sponsor to give us a 3D printer?’

I replied with the full weight of my strategic planning:

‘sure, I’ll send some emails.’

So I sent a slightly cheeky one to a company in Chorley called the CREATE Education Project, and instead of a polite no, a man called Chris offered us a printer off their own demo fleet. It’s being boxed up as I write this. When it arrives, it goes to work in our free workshops, and its first print will be, if I have anything to do with it, an environmentally friendly earthworm.

The formal complaint

Asking gets addictive. This week I also wrote to Joe Lycett, and because he’s turned the complaint letter into an art form, I opened with one: a formal complaint that he’s opening a free exhibition in Birmingham seventeen days before we open a free gallery in Swindon, and at no point were we consulted. I informed him that we intend to formally blame him for the movement. When I say it out lout it’s not really funny, but hopefully gets his attention with a ‘WTF?!’

I’ve written to a Colour World Genius. I’ve written to Gilbert & George, who spent fifty years saying Art for All before we borrowed the idea and built it beside a lagoon. I’ve written to people who will never reply (Like Sir Mccartney), and the letters were still worth writing, because every single one made me say out loud what this gallery is for. Try explaining your practice to forty strangers in one week. It’s better than art school anydayy.

Studio BRUT, three weeks out

The building has started introducing it’s self, speaking up. We put our aerial photograph online this week, the glass roof beside the lagoon, and I drew a red ring around our unit like a treasure map, because that’s what it is. There are now what3words directions on the visit page (///jump.ever.corner, honestly) and a wall of quotes slowly assembling from artists who’ve sent us a line of support. The Mayor is opening the night. The Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire is coming too. It’s becoming the event of the year!

And the Outsider art field guide grew. What started as 46 Outsider artist biographies is now 154, every self-taught artist ever shown at the Outsider Art Fair, each with their own page. If you’ve ever fallen down a rabbit hole about a hospital patient who drew the universe in ballpoint, It’s probably in the list studiobrut.art/outsider-art

3 weeks til opening night, and you are invited. Saturday 15 August 2026, 6.30 to 9.30pm, at Arclite House, Century Road, Peatmoor, Swindon SN5 5YN. Free entry, pay what you can, with half of all donations going to the charity Hypha Studios. Come and see the work, have a drink, and say hello.

Bye for now,

SLART

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Last week I asked what peace of mind feels like in a space. This week my foot decided I should find out by becoming all gouty again, so movement has mee limited and rest has been the order of the day.

So, as I said last update, I have been recording voice notes to myself. They were all taken a week or so ago, but I was without my phone for a few days, so they are only landing now. Listening back, they document an artwork coming into the world. Here they are, tidied up just enough to read. The headings are wherever I was when I pressed record.

Brinkworth Road, Tuesday 23 June

I am recording these so I can document my journey as an artist and what I have been thinking about. I have realised a lot of the artist’s work is done before the actual creation of the art. I am enjoying mulling over different aspects of it, joining the dots by thinking about it for a long time, and then I get to the point where I am antsy and I need to make it into physical reality.

In terms of my project, I am trying to answer this question: what would an individual calming space feel like? I do not know if that is the question. I need to work at a better question. But I am starting with the actual framework of the individual space. I have bought some 20mm electrical tubing, which is plastic and hollow, and some corner connectors. It cost about £27 to make, technically, a three metre cubed cube. That is going to be far too big for what I am starting out with, so I am going to chop it up. I will probably do 180 by 180 and save the rest for a smaller cube, or an oblong.

The cube is going to be the individual space, the individual experiential artwork, enjoyed from the outside and the inside. That is a new thing that has come to me: you want it to look right on the inside and the outside, not just the inside. So it will most probably have lights inside it. When it is in a gallery space you will be able to see the cubes and the light. And it is going to have a comfy chair inside.

I realise when I am talking out loud it does not always feel as clear as when I am thinking to myself. But let me go through some of the things I was thinking about yesterday in terms of materials. I have mentioned the tubing, and I have been looking at linen, chiffon and lace as ways to cover the cube structure, and some kind of nice flooring underneath. Having a separate floor is going to give it an extra sensory feel, rather than just the bare studio floor. I was also thinking about layering. Lace curtains with loops in, so they can be fed across the poles and pulled back for an entranceway. And layering plastic on the outside, so there is a kind of frosted glass effect.

When I ponder over these materials to make this calm individual space, it is all speculation. It is nice joining the dots, seeing things in the world and thinking this will work. But you cannot actually know until it is physically built and you are experiencing the space. So how I am going to approach it is: create a first iteration. The blank canvas of the space. The cube structure and some kind of outer covering layer, so it becomes an individual space in itself. Then, when I can sit inside there and feel it, I can intuit and decide what should be added. Each new piece will be an iteration of that.

The good thing about these spaces is that they can be disassembled quite easily and put together in different places. I could set up a space, pack it away, and document that as piece number one, or whatever the title will be. I might just do Space One, Space Two, Space Three. I do not know yet.

I have also had some thoughts around geodesic domes, and a tunnel shape. I am getting these ideas from things used on allotments, the little structures people put netting over to stop snails and insects getting at their cabbages. The tubing I have seen is similar to what they use. There are so many different directions this can go in. But I am keeping one thing in the back of my mind: it is not about being a beautiful space, and it is not about being a perfectly architectured or designed space either. It is the experimentation of something I am very curious about, which is an individual space that lets in a state of no mind. I do not know if that is possible. But we all know that spaces affect the way we feel. Right now I am driving through the countryside, windy lanes, trees, grass, birds flying around. Blue sky helps. The sun helps. Very different to driving through a busy city in hard rain, late for work.

I have always been curious about the idea of an individual sleep pod. Supposedly used by Google, though I do not know if that is true or a PR myth about how compassionate a company can be. The idea appeals to me because I get very overwhelmed, and having permission to have a power nap would transform people’s lives if we allowed it. We are stuck in this notion of pushing through and normalising being exhausted. So these spaces might grow to be more than individual spaces, but I feel they have to be individual for now, because that seems to be where you have no distractions from anyone else and you can focus on your own thoughts. Or focus on the lack of them. Just being. It is not just a meditation space. It is the whole experience taken into account.

I have just got a strong feeling in my stomach about it. I am really excited about setting up this first cube and having this real structure that I have made, standing in a room. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But we forget that we can think about something and then make it. We lose sight of that all the time.

And I am looking forward to going to Scrap Store. I do not know if it is a regional thing, but in Swindon there is a place called Scrap Store. Businesses donate surplus stock and it is sold affordably, and a big part of it is creative materials. It is about £40 a year to join, and there is a section where you can fill up a shopping trolley for free, something like five metres of material every month, plus affordable paints. I am sure I will have an update on that.

I am going to take photos of my bare cube. I am going to sit in my bare cube and see how I feel, and document that. Then I am going to sit in my cube covered, and see how I feel about that. And I have decided I do not want an interchangeable outer shell, because I want each artwork to have its own space and its own feeling. Other people will have different feelings, and that is fine. I am gauging it by how I feel, sat in the space that I create.

A tangent about helium, Tuesday 23 June

I have had a very curious day, going off on tangents about materials and directions of scale. Making smaller cubes with a light source inside, as a public art piece. And then that moved on to my curiosity about helium. How much helium do you need to lift certain objects? Science people can correct me on this, but from what I read it is roughly one to six: helium can lift about six times its own weight, including the weight of the helium itself. So if I wanted to lift six kilograms, I would need a kilogram of helium in a balloon, which would obviously be a huge balloon. I was working out how much helium I would need in one cubic metre. I do not need a floating cube. I want one, though.

Purton, Tuesday 23 June

I have come to realise, as you know, that I am not a man of science. I have never been inclined to use the scientific method. I was not interested in science at school, and I did not do very well. I saw it as a boring subject rather than a curious one.

But since I set the limitation of putting my focus on the square spaces, an internal individual space, it has gone off on many tangents, and one of them was looking at how much helium could lift, and putting that into practice in a cube shape that lives outside. And it has made me think about iterations, having insights, doing experiments, testing hypotheses. I always saw that as quite a rigid act, and in some respects it is. But within that rigidity you have creativity, trying different things you would never have thought of until you took certain steps and failed. That sounds obvious if you are an engineer or a scientist. It is baked into your psyche from a young age. I never had that foundation. I have always been scatterbrained, flitting between things. But I am starting to see the value of the scientific method for testing things as an artist, and I find it incredibly exciting. I cannot tell you how much, because it opens up unlimited avenues for my art.

I pretty much had that before, when I was doing expressionist paintings. I have always got something to share from my personal experiences and from what is happening in the world. But this has a new focus. Rather than focusing on the world itself, it is this tiny segment: how materials behave, how spaces create feelings. Or rather, how people interpret spaces, and how that in turn creates feelings and associations. I am incredibly excited.

Screwfix car park, Wednesday 24 June

So, fucking hell. I have got to this point where I am thinking, what am I doing with my life? I have just been to Screwfix for my ten three metre tubes for the first cube structure, and it is boiling hot today, about 38 degrees. I came thinking they would be neatly tied up. The guy comes out with ten loose tubes, and I am trying to get them in the car, pissing around trying to fit them in, back seat down, and I finally squeeze them in. They are literally on the dashboard at one end and bent over in the boot at the other. My wife would see these tubes in the car and say, what the hell are you doing with those?

It just makes me laugh, the things I end up doing. Obviously I am really into this project, and this is the first stage of the physical manifestation of the ideas, and I will have to do silly shit like this. I thought it was quite funny to say out loud. I bought a little hacksaw as well, so I can start cutting them down. A three metre cube is a bit too much, and it would be wobbly. But the tubing is pretty good for what it is, and I am excited to play around with it.

Westcott Place, Wednesday 24 June

Recorded a few hours after Screwfix. It runs to nearly three minutes and the only words the transcript could find in it are: Jesus Christ. I have no memory of what prompted it. I am keeping it. It might be the truest artist’s statement I have ever made.

The B4014, Thursday 25 June

Popped by the studio and dropped off the poles. Ten times three metre poles, and I am looking forward to building the structure now. It is slowly coming from my mind into reality, and again, that is just such an amazing thing. It is magic.

Space One, first iteration. Diary, day one, Friday 26 June

This entry exists as a voice note, recorded sat inside the cube. You can listen to it as it happened:

First cube structure built, and I feel really satisfied. It got quite stressful, because I estimated a measurement instead of using the measuring tape, and it is not quite even. But this is my first one, and the cube looks great.

I am writing down my feelings sitting in the structure. At the moment I am feeling pride, and the pride is blocking any other sensation. But aside from that, the best I can gauge sat inside the cube structure is: it feels empty. Of course it is empty. But you can feel the presence of something there. There is a beginning of something, and you feel like you are in the space. Saying this out loud sounds obvious, but it is very different from just sitting in a room. This is what I am talking about: changing part of a room into a separate space. An artwork which is examining, hypothesising, a space that brings peace.

I keep changing the question, but it is around the calmer end of the spectrum. What I mean by that is, I could make a whizzy space, lots of lights and noises and screens and interactions, something that grabs the brain and shakes it. This is the opposite. Getting away from the mind. Being mindless, in the good sense. A sense of peace where you can forget about everything, not in a distracting way, in a calming way. That is step one of my diary.

Meanwhile, the rest of Studio BRUT

While my foot kept me on the sofa, Harrie and I have also been launching the Studio Brut website, and it has been a big week for it. The blog you are reading is live, with writing from both of us. The artist directory is open, and the first artist has already signed up, which made our week. Harrie announced The Brut List, her plan to make Swindon’s outsider artists impossible to ignore.

What happens next?

Photos of the bare cube. Then the covered cube, and the difference between the two, documented. A trolley run at Scrap Store. And the question that will not leave me alone, getting slowly better at being asked: what does an individual calming space feel like? Or What does peace of mind within a space feel like?

I am building the answer one little experiment at a time.

A huge shoutout to Swindon Culture Collective and Hypha Studios for your support with this space.

One more update before I go. Harrie Dearing and did launch the full Studio BRUT website, so check it out at studiobrut.art, with a blog, an open directory for self-taught and outsider artists, and documenting everything we are building.

We are also throwing an opening night, and you are invited. Saturday 15 August 2026, 6.30 to 9.30pm, at Arclite House, Century Road, Peatmoor, Swindon SN5 5YN. Free entry, pay what you can, with half of all donations going to the charity Hypha Studios. Come and see the work, have a drink, and say hello.

Bye for now,

SLART

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I looked up at a ceiling recently and noticed a single cobweb stretched across it. There was a spotlight above it, lighting up the middle section. It looked beautiful. I stared at it for a few minutes before catching myself.

It got me thinking about my first space that I will create.

How could I recreate that feeling of the light on top of cobweb? Maybe I could wrap wool around each of the five sides of the cube. It would still feel like a room, but the light would shine through it. The space would feel enclosed, but not completely blocked off to the outside.

I’m really enjoying the idea that all parts of my life can become part of the art. It’s like Miyamoto Musashi said:

“Do nothing which is of no use.”

Art doesn’t have to be something I only “do” in my spare time. It is more about who I am. How I think. It is a way of looking at everything.

Use your life experiences. Use the mundane parts. Use the things that happen during an ordinary, boring, bog-standard day.

The fuller quote from Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings says:

“Become acquainted with every art.
Know the Ways of all professions.
Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.
Pay attention even to trifles.
Do nothing which is of no use.”

That feels very relevant to this project.

My mind is constantly looking for materials now. I came across a roll of industrial absorbent paper and started wondering if it could work as a material, but it is about £50 for a box. It is basically strong tissue, so that feels too expensive for what it is, although the light does shine through its pinholes beautifully.

Then my mind moved on to fairy lights. I can get a net of fairy lights for around £25, which is cheaper than a lot of natural materials I could use to cover the cube. For the first version, I need to keep it low cost for obvious reasons. I have no real budget.

Now I’m thinking about smaller cubes as points of interest, almost like street art. Imagine coming across a random illuminated cube somewhere. You would stop for a moment and wonder what it was.

That idea is slightly separate from the main space idea, but it still connects in my mind. I’m following my curiosity, and I’m excited by where it is going.

My first cube space structure has come into form

I recorded a load of voice notes around this project last week, but I can’t access them at the moment due to not being able to charge my phone. I won’t lie, it’s been a welcomed sense of peace from a device that takes most of my attention. But when it’s back in action, I will share more.

After collecting the 3m tubes from the hardware shop, I went over to the studio and gingerly created my cube structure that will house the first art space. I clam up when doing any kind of DIY, I must have some kind of strong belief that I can’t do it. But I ignore that notion as false and went ahead and made it anyway.

Here is how it looked in a timelapse.

After I completed the cube, I sat on a cushion inside of it and documented how I felt. This was one of those temporarily lost voice notes. In short, I noticed that it became a separate space of its own, separate to the room, but it felt incomplete. This seems obvious when I said it out loud, however, it’s noticing the beginnings of how it feels as a space and will evolve over time as the project progresses.

Keep in touch with Studio BRUT. Connect with us on Instagram if you are on there.

We are also creating an outsider artist directory, so please fill in this form if you are interested. It is free.

A huge shoutout to Swindon Culture Collective and Hypha Studios for your support with this space.

Bye for now,
SLART

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If you’re new here, I’m an outsider artist, documenting my art journey whilst navigating full-corporate bullshittery work.

Over the past couple of months, I have been applying for remote and hybrid job roles, as my current role is 5 days a week in the office. This is the first part of my lifestyle change, as well as working in a new studio and evolving my art practice.

The tally now is, 5 jobs with more than 1 interview, all turned out as rejections, but there’s still a few opportunities hovering about and I should have interviews next week. I must have applied to well over 80 jobs in total.

So this week, I have decided to delete the Substack app and I am not writing any Substack “capital N” Notes for a long while.

We are a product of our environment. In other words, we are a product of what we observe, experience, say, listen to and imbibe.

For the past few weeks, probably longer, I have been getting royally frigged off with posts that tell you how to win at Substack. The only thing I want to win at is art.

The more I come across posts that offer advice, the more I feel inclined to act on that advice, and the more likely I am to waste a lot of time in the process.

If you comment on this post, I probably will not reply to it for a while. Nothing personal. I just need to get out of the platform mind suck and focus on my new art space, which I think is going to be life changing.

Time is so precious. We forget how much so. It is not just the wasting of time itself. It is the frivolity of our relationship with time. It is the way these platforms take away the precious headspace we all crave. It’s the frazzled feeling we get when we feel like there’s not enough hours in the day.

I cannot be consumed with how-to Substack posts any longer. I cannot be consumed with advice, tactics, hacks, platform etiquette, note strategies, growth loops, optimisation threads, or any other digital breadcrumb trail that takes me away from the actual thing I love.

I am quitting the platform noise.

So for now, I will share my words with you from my laptop, slowly and carefully, probably written while at my day job, or while sitting somewhere that reminds me why my art and writing matters. Maybe one day, my daughter will read my posts and get to see another side of her old man.

Every now and again, I think I need to see flowing water in my life.

My mind has been so busy for so long. I am tired. Properly tired.

I am sitting on a sofa in my new studio right now, looking out of the window. I can see gravel, rocks, grass and trees. Beyond that, there is a lagoon. The water is moving from left to right. There is a pagoda in the distance as well.

The movement of the water is calming me down.

We have had this new studio for about three weeks now and are still setting it up. Still moving things in. Still working out what it is, what it can become, and how to use it properly. I do not think I have really had time to appreciate what a gift it is yet.

I want this place to become a genuine working space. A place where I spend far more time painting larger works, testing ideas and making things that might go nowhere, for me.

Last week I was talking about Robert Irwin.

I have been listening to Robert Irwin, reading about his work, and thinking about him a lot. I keep accidentally saying Robert Irving, but I mean Robert Irwin.

What has pulled me in is not just the work itself, but the way it seems to investigate perception, space, atmosphere and the experience of being somewhere.

And that has got something moving in me.

I have this questions in my head:

What would a peaceful individual space look like?

What would a small calming space feel like?

What would it feel like to be inside a rhubarb and custard sweet?

What kind of space could actually transform your mood into something closer to serenity?

I do not want to become a chair designer. That is not the point. This is not furniture design. It is not interior design.

You get designers who design chairs. Those chairs are comfortable and they might go in certain spaces. But my idea is not just a thing that sits inside a space. My idea is the individual space itself.

A small individual space. A seat inside it. Lighting. Smells. Colour. Privacy. A contained atmosphere. Something that has a calming effect, or maybe not.

Maybe it comes from the same part of me that likes the idea of sleep pods. Apparently Google has sleep pods, whether that is true or not. What interests me is not the corporate part, but the idea of an individual space where a person can rest, and maybe just be. And by jove, we need that now more than ever.

I am a big proponent of power naps, even though they are not exactly encouraged at my day job.

It would not be a glossy bit of office furniture. It would be more expressive. Rudimentary. Non-commercial. Individual.

An experiential piece.

Now that I have the bigger art space, the studio space, I actually have room to explore this properly. The starting point is simple. Make it as light as possible so it can be transported, and make sure it has a comfortable seat inside it.

The first step is probably just to build the box. Make the structure first, then work out what goes inside it. Maybe it has a canvas outer layer that I can paint onto. Maybe it uses translucent material. Maybe it uses fabric. Maybe it uses something I have not thought about yet.

The studio itself has big windows and lots of light, so maybe the best place to begin is with that light. The light can be filtered through something private, so you cannot see the person in there, but coloured light can still come in.

This interests me, excites me!

A space that protects you, but does not shut the world out completely.

The documentation part is important too. I am not a man of science. I am not that way inclined. But I am excited by the process of documenting the experiments. Notes, sketches, photographs, voice memos, mistakes, tests and half-formed thoughts can all become part of the work.

This post is part of that documentation.

A record of the idea the thought process, I don’t often do that, but it’s all part of the art.

Maybe that is also why I needed to delete the Substack app.

Because this needs my headspace.

Right now, the water is still moving from left to right outside. The pagoda is still in the distance. My mind is less busy than when I began. And the questions are sitting with me in the studio.

What would a small calming space feel like?

And could I make one? Fuck yeH!

Could I build a space that gives someone, even for a few minutes, the feeling the flowing water is giving me now?

Now, the space itself…

Presenting to you, Studio Brut.

Studio Brut is coming very soon. Lot of gorgeous natural light and lots of space.

It’s an outsider art collaboration, a new studio, a fresh start for both of us. They’ll be exhibitions, residencies and other events coming up very soon, watch this space.

Connect with us in Instagram if you’re on there.

You can also read more from my partner in crime on this project, Harrie Dearing, on her blog.

A huge shoutout to Swindon Culture Collective and Hypha Studios for your support.

Bye for now,

SLART

It’ll be worth it, I promise.

If you’re new here, I’m SLART, a British Outsider Artist documenting my journey and art practice.

I’ve recently got a new studio space (more on that soon) and I’m restructuring my employment model from full time office to either hybrid or remote, I work full time in a tech job you see, it’s paying the bills. I’m trying to see the positive side where I can create art freely without fear of making ends meet.

On Friday 5th, I had an interview for a “Web and Growth Engineer” role which had flexible working options. A good sign was that they approached me on LinkedIn initially. I had a chat with HR first, then a chat with VP of Marketing and then a group call that included me presenting my growth plans for 20 mins then 40 mins Q and A.

I feel like I held my own, I was not perfect by all means, but I gave it my best shot. By the time my next post rolls round here, you’ll know if I’m a “Web and Growth Engineer” so send positive vibes ✨

The Art Practice Bit

I’m grateful to have stumbled across the work of . His essays have resonated with me and has got me thinking in terms of exploration rather than pandering to what’s en vogue, or looks ‘sellable’. Not that I do that, but I feel like, with the new studio, I’d like to evolve my art practice. Blackbird Rook recommended a book by Lawrence Weschler - Titled: ‘Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Expanded Edition’

It’s a biography of the late artist, Robert Irwin and its recommended as one of the best art books.

I’m only 20 pages in so far, but from what I can grasp, Irwin was a strong willed individual who was independent from a young age. What stood out was his emotional security.

His art practice, I can’t say much as yet, but from what I’ve seen in videos is that he was a great experimenter, who used spaces that exist to create art within. It’s got me thinking outside of painting, as much as I adore painting, there’s a whole wider world out there that could be explored.

“Art in a sense is a continual inquiry into the potential of human beings to perceive and know the world with an aesthetic bias”

Robert Irwin

mentions in this video below, some examples of using your studio as a laboratory and your art as the experiment. I’m not a man of science but this way of working piqued my interest.

One example he give was (paraphrasing) “How can I depict the feeling of a spring morning?”. Using your own curiosity to use art as a way of thinking and experimenting, rather than through expression alone as I have done previously. It goes without saying, there’s no right way ‘to art’, but I’m excited about taking things in a different direction.

I said last week that I’d come back with a polished structure but that was never going to happen in 7 days. My intention now is for my practice to unfold into a natural structure that works for me, including the new space in that.

See you next week. Feel free to tell me about your art practice in the comments.

Bye for now.

SLART

If you’d like to support me…

This week's featured artist is a close friend, fellow office plankton, peer, muse, buddy and fellow outsider, Gio Manveli.

It’s been a real pleasure to see his art practice blossom over the 4 years I’ve known him.

1. What first sparked your interest in creating art?

Honestly, boredom.

As a kid I drew a lot, before adult life happened. School, work, family, pretending to be a proper adult. For years I barely touched a paintbrush.

Then in my thirties I moved abroad, found myself staring at white walls in a new apartment, and somehow ended up painting again. It started as a way to switch my brain off after work. No big moment and desire to shake art world. No spiritual awakening either. Just paint, canvas, and a desperate need to think about something other than spreadsheets and meetings.

The funny part is that what started as a hobby slowly became the thing I cared about most.

2. What are your regrets?

The obvious one: not starting earlier.

But if I’m honest, I probably wasn’t ready earlier.

My bigger regret is spending too much time worrying about what other people would think. Whether a painting was “good enough.” Whether I was a “real artist.” Whether I had my own style yet.

The irony is that nobody was thinking about me nearly as much as I imagined.

Most growth happened when I stopped caring about what people say in comments to my art and started making work that genuinely interested me - even if it confused people, looked weird, or failed completely. My moto is “Go cringe and see what happens”.

I still make plenty of mistakes. I’ve just become more efficient at making them.

3. What wisdom would you offer someone beginning their art career, or exploring art for the first time at any stage in life?

Make more bad art.

Seriously.

Most people spend years trying to avoid making bad work, which is exactly why they never make good work.

Your first paintings will disappoint you. Your tenth probably will too. Maybe your hundredth. That’s normal. The gap between your taste and your ability is actually a good sign—it means you know what great work looks like.

Secondly: stop comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle.

Every artist you admire has a secret archive full of terrible work they hope nobody ever sees.

The difference is they kept going.

And finally - my favorite piece of advice, without which everything above becomes pointless: have fun.

Because there will be days when it feels like the world is against you. The algorithm hates you. Nobody buys. Nothing works. Those days are guaranteed.

The people who survive aren’t always the most talented. They’re the ones who genuinely enjoy the process enough to keep showing up anyway.

When you truly enjoy making art, you become surprisingly hard to stop. You show up with the persistence of an Olympic athlete - not because someone forces you to, but because you actually want to be there.

Check out my man Gio via his website.

If you'd like to explore more Drei Fragen interviews, please click the link.

…or if you’d rather. Please share this post with a friend.

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I’m a corporate bod between 9-5, artist 24/7: My plan is to go from full time office working, to hybrid/remote working, which will free up more time and space for my art practice. Since 2021, I’ve managed to fit it all in whilst:

• working full time,

• having a little child,

• having a kidney transplant and

• other life events

Now I’m putting all of my effort into leaving my current role, who praise ‘campus working’ as the key ingredient to collaboration and therefore maximising productivity (profits). I’m sick of it. I hate the open plan office, I come home every single day frazzled.

So, with the new job search progress, I’ve had many multi-stage interviews and 4 company rejections in the past couple of weeks. I have another final stage interview on Friday 5th June. Wish me luck!

My aim is to secure a hybrid working role, even fully remote. This will open up time for my art practice.

How hybrid working life will be life changing

• Hours of communting time slashed

• I could make art during lunch, or go for a walk

• More time with my daughter in the evenings

• Most importantly, head space

• Not be frazzled every evening

Going into the office is 5 days per week, 48 weeks per year is killing exausting me. I often feel guilty about this as it’s not like I’m doing backbreaking manual labour for 12 hours a day. But fuck it, you know, It can be useful to get some perspective from others less fortunate, but I’m not playing that game any more, I don’t feel great being in the office for 39 hours, especially when sometimes there’s no work to do, but you still have to pretend to be busy, it’s modern day madness.

I think it might be my age, where you tend to see the bullshittyness of the modern workplace, or more specifially the so called rat race. We’re pretty much trapped in a cycle, and I know, before you say, ‘we’re free to leave our jobs’, technically yes, but a) The job market is batshit of late, and b) it’s too risky to leave without a plan B.

Now, how can I structure my art practice? Let’s start with…

Blindspots

We all have blindspots, and that’s totally ok.

I can be hyperfocused on tasks and that feels like it consumes my entire life at the time, and totally forget said project a day later, thanks to for pointing it out here.

“ADHD, particularly in combination with the cognitive load of parenting two small children, doesn’t just make it hard to focus. It makes it hard to hold the whole picture in your head at once. I can spend three hours deep in research for a UX client and emerge having completely forgotten that I was supposed to be applying to a light festival whose deadline is tomorrow. I can be genuinely excited about building a new indoor piece on Monday and feel no connection to that excitement by Wednesday, because Wednesday has its own demands.”

Shagun Singh

I can’t tell you how relieved I felt reading that paragraph above, I start too many things, especially since working with AI tools over the past year, it’s super quick to make web prototypes now, but also super quick to waste your time, yet feel super productive.

That said, I am not lazy, I’m not stupid, I’m not incapbable of big things. Now I see that it’s a ‘bigger picture problem’, or perhaps a priorities problem. Shagan goes on to say…

”The standard advice, prioritize, focus, do one thing at a time, isn’t wrong exactly, but it assumes a kind of linear executive function that I don’t consistently have access to. What actually works better, I’ve found, is externalizing the system. If the priorities live in my head, they’ll be overwritten by whatever is most urgent or most interesting in the moment. If they live somewhere outside my head, in a map, a workflow, a structured plan I’ve written down, they survive the interruptions.”

also talks about structure and containers a lot, and it’s having an outer shell for your creative practice, where it can fit neatly inside, this can be imaginary, just so it feels coherent.

(I urge you all to read Beth’s book, Structure Magic)

“Structure Magic is a guide to manifestation and mental freedom through structure.”

What a clear one-liner.

Next week, I will tell you how the interview went, and how I have put some structure around my new art practice. I crave something external to house of of this mess in my head.

T’ra for now.

SLART

If you’d like to support me…

So this is my new plan.

Projekt Rattloch has a stepping stone called Projekt Hybrides Arbeiten. No, that sounds a bit wordy, doesn’t it. Let’s try Projekt Hybrid. Sounds cool. (Projekt Ficken Vollzeit-Büroarbeit came a close second.)

This is the plan for the stepping stone.

Over the past year-ish I’ve been going balls-deep into AI tools, blah blah. I know many people are totally against AI and I understand why, but these skills are in demand and it’s opened doors to multiple job interviews, which I’m very grateful for. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my learning journey too.

I’ve also learned, well not learned but remembered, that “painting is the thing”. I’d still very much love to have a painting-centric life by design: spending most of my time painting, ultimately replacing the working hours with painting hours instead.

So yes, the stepping stone is the move to a hybrid role. I’m exhausted from being in the office 39 hours per week, plus 7.5 hours in my car. Working in a more interesting role will keep me engaged in the daytime, then I’ll have more energy for painting in my spare time, most importantly, in the gaps between hybrid working. I could work from the studio and then paint every lunchtime, for example. That alone would be life changing for me.

That’s it for this post. More to come on progress with the hybrid working job search.

For now,

Tutti bye

SLART

Moving forward, each W̶e̶d̶n̶e̶s̶d̶a̶y̶ Monday I ask a different artist the same three questions.

This week's featured artist is a close friend, peer, muse, painting buddy and fellow beer drinker, . I just had to share his story, he is what inspired the ressurection of Drei Fragen. Enjoy!

1. What first sparked your interest in creating art?

I had been a dedicated dad and in a job that took up in excess of 80 hours a week, so when my children went to university and my new wife was able to take the load of the younger children, I moved to a less stressful job and suddenly found myself with lots of time on my hands. I became irritable and restless, then for my birthday the family bought me a digital art tablet, I started by tracing famous artworks and then recolouring them. This became addictive as I found myself lost in the process and relaxing for the first time in years. Then my sister in law, herself an accomplished artist, encouraged me to enter some pieces inspired by music into the local art fringe. She then also encouraged me to enter a show called Art Brut being curated by the one and only Steve Light. Between the two of them they encouraged me to experiment and the rest is history.

2. What are your regrets?

Only that I believed everyone else who told me I had no talent and for believing that their idea of talent was in any way linked to what I could produce. I draw, paint or create every day now, it just feels so natural.

3. What wisdom would you offer someone beginning their art career, or exploring art for the first time at any stage in life?

I would impart the same wisdom my great friends and mentors Bex and Steve game me, just do it, just enjoy it and most of all believe in yourself. You will find yourself and your path among the various pieces you create.

Check out my man Art for me at 50 on Instagram.

If you'd like to explore more Drei Fragen interviews, please click the link.

…or if you’d rather. Please share this post with a friend.

Share

November 12th 2025. I was scrolling on Facebook and came across this local-rag-clickbait-post that contained the most horrid comments.

The comments ranged from “You call that a woman?” to “She should be shot” and those were the least harsh.

I don’t really spend much time pondering what I’m going to paint, it comes to me as i’m just going about my business you see, and this was something that just struck me as important to share my perspective on.

Her lost, sad eyes struck me.

Reference photo:

Recently in the same studio session, I added the finishing touches to this piece…

Next up, a HUGE shoutout to for reaching her fundraising goal, thanks to all of you for donating!

Best wishes,
SLART

A quick round-up of posts from Cream of The Crop worth going back to.

Posts scroll past quickly, so I thought I'd pull ten together in one place. Nothing fancy. Just a handful that are worth another look if they slipped by first time round.

1. I'm the cream of the crop

The one that kicked this whole thing off. Where I've come from, why I started writing here, and the pull between the life I've built and the one I keep being drawn towards.

2. Give yourself permission and you'll find the way

We wait to feel ready. Ready almost never turns up on time. This one's about getting out of your own way and just starting.

3. The turtle's approach: Slow & Steady

Progress doesn't always look like progress when you're in the middle of it. A small nod to the slow route, and why it's usually the one that actually works.

4. I caught hopesickness from creative legend, Mark Denton

About the lift you get from meeting people who are already living the way you'd like to be living. Sometimes you don't need a plan. You just need to catch a bit of what they've got.

5. DREI FRAGEN with Shagun Singh

One of the Drei Fragen interviews. Short, honest conversations with other artists about making work, doubt, identity, and the rest. Shagun's is a good one.

6. Creativity Unleashed with SLART and Dean Jackson

On taking your creative life a bit more seriously. Not in a grim way, in a "this deserves real time and energy" way.

7. Memento Vivere

A bit of a milestone. The moment something I'd been quietly working on went public. Worth a read if you missed the announcement.

8. Where the Dead Lie and Art Lives: Exploring the Crypt Gallery for the first time

The behind-the-scenes version of Memento Vivere. Nerves, excitement, the "oh god this is really happening" bit. Honest about all of it.

9. Screw it, let's do it (in 6 Days)

Scrappier than most. Sometimes you stop planning and just make the thing happen. This is what that looks like.

10. We Need The Artist's 4-Minute Mile

Less about me, more about what artists can do for each other. Breaking invisible ceilings. Showing other people what's possible.

If one of them catches you, let me know which. Always nice to hear.

SLART

This is what came up during a studio session with this week. (There’s nothing like a studio sesh with a mate who loves art as much as you do, and loves beer as much as you do too.)

Cheers 🍻

WIP 🚧 (Thanks for buying me some pinkest pink pigment by Stuart Semple).

Now tell me, what do you think is going on in this piece?

For now, auf wiedersehen.

SLART

⏳ 30 second read, 30 second action…

Ignore if you’ve read already…

Art is my life. But when I see amazing people like Beth Raps create a promise to raise funds for a refugee project that will make a real difference and not get absorbed by a charity CEO’s salary, I just had to share.

Beth runs RAISING CLARITY, and she’s one of those rare people who actually puts her energy where her mouth is. Not performatively. Not for clout. She just gets on with making things better, and she’s bloody good at it.

She’s committed to raising $5,250 for a small, community-based solar installation in a refugee camp in Kenya, run by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. She’s already 40% there and the deadline is tomorrow, so this is proper urgent.

Here’s why it matters.

The community this serves is made up of queer refugees. They’ve already been through enough just to end up in the camp, but being queer is criminalised in the countries they’ve fled. Even inside the camp they’re still targeted. Still bullied. Still assaulted. Still not safe.

The solar installation will power security lights. That means safety at night. It’ll also provide the means to boil drinking water, which is scarce and expensive in the camp. Not freely provided like you’d assume. There are more benefits too, and you can read about them on the GoFundMe page.

Beth said she’d raise this by the end of March and she means it. If you can chip in, do it today.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Every £1 counts.

Thanks

SLART

Art is my life. But when I see amazing people like Beth Raps create a promise to raise funds for a refugee project that will make a real difference and not get absorbed by a charity CEO’s salary, I just had to share.

Beth runs RAISING CLARITY, and she’s one of those rare people who actually puts her energy where her mouth is. Not performatively. Not for clout. She just gets on with making things better, and she’s bloody good at it.

She’s committed to raising $5,250 for a small, community-based solar installation in a refugee camp in Kenya, run by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. She’s already 40% there and the deadline is tomorrow, so this is proper urgent.

Here’s why it matters.

The community this serves is made up of queer refugees. They’ve already been through enough just to end up in the camp, but being queer is criminalised in the countries they’ve fled. Even inside the camp they’re still targeted. Still bullied. Still assaulted. Still not safe.

The solar installation will power security lights. That means safety at night. It’ll also provide the means to boil drinking water, which is scarce and expensive in the camp. Not freely provided like you’d assume. There are more benefits too, and you can read about them on the GoFundMe page.

Beth said she’d raise this by the end of March and she means it. If you can chip in, do it today.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Every £1 counts.

Thanks

SLART

I nearly introduced myself as a corporate drone and didn’t even flinch.

That moment hit me harder than any rejection letter. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The last few weeks have been a strange kind of awakening. I took two weeks unpaid leave from my day job, replaced the lost income through a couple of side projects, and barely broke a sweat doing it, of which I am super grateful. It gave me a clear glimpse of what life could look like with a bit more structure and a bit less of someone else’s agenda.

Here’s the fucking uncomfortable truth I’ve been sitting with: I massively underestimate myself. I think a lot of people do. But I’m starting to actually believe in my own capability now, not in a blind hope kind of way, but in a tangible, I-built-a-thing-and-got-paid kind of way.

I’ve had four job interviews recently, three internal and one external. The external one was the eye-opener. The role pays 70% more than I currently earn. Seventy. Fucking. Percent. More. It sounds obscene until you realise how thoroughly the corporate machine has conditioned you to expect a 3% annual increase and be grateful for it. That’s been my frame of reference for over a decade. I’m approaching 44 in June and I’m only just clocking this.

I’ve been in the same role at the same company for five years. Younger, less experienced people are managing large teams around me. I say that not with bitterness, but with genuine curiosity about how I got here. I work in a gung-ho, scattered way, intensely focused when the subject interests me, and completely disengaged by meetings that exist to schedule other meetings. I’m not sure I even want to manage people. I think I’d be decent at it, because I genuinely give a shit about people. but the politics would swallow whatever satisfaction the leadership brought.

So, the external role. It’s with Pencil, a platform that builds AI-powered ad and marketing content. The job description felt like it was written for me, though I felt slightly underqualified technically. Didn’t stop me. I built a demo app for the interview task: upload a brand guidelines PDF, enter a brief, pick a format, and it generates a compliant image in about 90 seconds after multiple review layers. I tested it on McDonald’s, an old brand doc from 2019 that I found on the web. Two hours of tinkering. I was pretty pleased with it.

The interview itself was fine. The VP of Product was friendly, five weeks into the role himself, a lot of Amazon background. I felt like I held my own. He gave nothing away, no feedback, no social cues, nothing. Classic. He also mentioned mid-interview that the role would be 50/50 client-facing, not heavily technical. Almost the opposite of what was advertised. Good reminder not to take a job description as gospel.

I left the interview not really caring whether I got it or not. That felt like progress. I felt free.

Then came the moment that shook me.

A new senior manager started at my day job. Sharp, well-connected, name-dropping Netflix execs like they’re bessie mates ( will know them). During introductions I said my hobbies were basketball and pickleball, as he’s American, I challenged him to a game next week, and carried on. Not once did the word “artist” enter my mind. (Although, factually, Art is not a hobby for me)

Walking away I felt hollow. I pictured myself at 85, telling someone: “I used to make art, but life got in the way.” That image scared me more than any career uncertainty ever has. All that happened within 60 seconds of walking back to my desk.

I haven’t abandoned it. I promise. I’m in the middle of something I can’t fully talk about yet, a kind of metamorphosis, but it’s coming. The art is still there.

In the meantime: I got rejected from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2026. I didn’t make the next round of the Jackson’s Art Prize either. Paying entry fees for rejections is starting to feel like a choice between self-belief and a decent meal out with the family.

Ce-la-fucking-vie.

But then the universe did its thing. Harrie Dearing and I have been gifted a new art space. Something exciting is brewing between two outsider artists. Watch this space.

Here’s a tiny sneak peek...

For now, adieu.

SLART

I crave a totally fresh start.

I’ve got six years of paintings sitting in a Big Yellow storage unit and it’s costing me money every month to keep them there. Work made between 2019 and 2025, raw figurative expressionism, pieces I’m genuinely proud of, just sitting in the dark.

That’s not what art is for.

I want that chapter of work out in the world, on walls, in homes, being looked at by people who connect with it. Not stacked in a storage unit while I pay for the privilege.

So here’s an open offer. If you run a gallery, an exhibition space, a cafe, a community venue, anywhere with walls basically, I’d love to talk. I’m offering my work on a 50% commission basis. You sell it, we split it. Simple as that. Or if you just want to display it and give it some light and air, I’m open to that conversation too.

You can see everything here:

https://www.slart.me/artwork

If something speaks to you or you think your audience would connect with it, just reply to this email. No formal process, no lengthy proposals. Just a conversation.

And if this isn’t for you but you know someone who runs a local gallery or exhibition space, feel free to forward this on. You never know.

Thanks for reading.

SLART
British Outsider Artist

Hello SLART,

Thank you for submitting your work to Jackson's Art Prize 2026.

Congratulations, we are delighted to let you know that one or more of your entries have been selected for the Extended Longlist!

View the Extended Longlist gallery here, and search by title to see which of your work(s) went through.

This year set a new record, with 16,280 entries submitted from 110 countries, meaning the competition was incredibly strong. As an artist on the Extended Longlist of 4,200 works, your works have made it to the top 26% of entries.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the Longlist on Friday 6 March.

Best wishes,
Josephine Zentner,
Jackson's Art Prize Coordinator

Send me triumphant vibes please.

Have a good week,

SLART
British Outsider Artist

My entry:

Blue Man.

P.S: what did you think of the longlist?

I’ve been questioning what art is this week. I’ve been a proponent of art having no rules, and I do still stand by that. But then what makes good art? It made me question whether popular art like Andy Warhol’s is good, or just popular. I don’t have answers to these questions but it’s given me a weird sense of freedom whereby any kind of comparison to other artists has vanished.

I’ve just been sitting with a painting that has no agenda. It feels uncomfortable and freeing at the same time:

First layers, experimenting with Payne’s grey mix, then moving on to Phthalo Blue oil paint and linseed layers. I’ve missed the luxuriousness of using oil paints, it certainly requires patience.

Have a good week,

SLART
British Outsider Artist

P.S: WHAT IS GOOD ART?… comment the first thing that comes to Mind.