Wong Sing Tai, artist

Do you make a living out of art?

No I don't. I suppose I could if I was prepared to sell paintings at low prices, I've only sold four paintings in my life. I could if I consciously applied myself to making money out of art, but I couldn't do that.

Why?

The reason I don't is because I have a sort of idealism about painting. We all have one life to live and to tit-tract from this idea is a form of prostitution. It's not absolutely necessary to make money, at the moment anyway. I will in time.

Are there organisations to assist you to do this?

The trouble with all the Government grants and so on is that they set terms to be met before a grant is made. The only people eligible are those who fit into their terms. This is paradoxical because you must achieve a certain amount of standing to be accepted.

Then are really two ways to succeed. The first is to conform to the orthodox or conventional means of acceptance by graduating from art school with a diploma and so on. But the dedicated artist doesn't reside within these petty limitations. His is a far harder path, because when he applies lor a bursary, it only becomes available when his work has progressed enough to achieve recognition for his efforts. But then its too late. It is this transitional period during his development when assistance is most necessary.

If you go through those formal, conventional sort of avenues there are opportunities, But this directly opposed to the nature of true art Which steins more from chaotic scenes. That's a pretty loose statement but art is not the end product from years of formal education. Artists are free thinkers.

Any comments on assistance that can he obtained from formal organisations?

I'm a serious artist, I've reached a rea sonable level of proficiency and the chance should be available to progress in the way I'm going. But how do you assess three years of experience. Often the criteria is age not technical proficiency, you know, so-and-so has been around thirty-five years so he must have something. The sort of people who normally apply for these are halfway people". They've done something which they can show but they haven't achieved anything really outstanding. Allocating bursaries is a gamble really. The true artist doesn't necessarily need the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council or any other form of formal assistance. He can always make it if he's dedicated enough because money is a pretty secondary consideration.

Take Van Gogh. He didn't receive much recognition in his lifetime, yet he was great, irrespective of whether he was recognised or not. I've got some friends who are writers. I haven't read much of their stuff, but I'm not assessing them in terms of artistic recognition, rather a sort of spiritual recognition. Art is a product.

It's a physical manifestation of something more than this. The artistic product is like the top of iceberg of something that dwells within the human individual. But the greater part of the iceberg is still under the water unseen. But the main thing is that the ones who make a living out of art are not necessarily the most dedicated. They are artisans, skilled craftsmen. There's nothing wrong in this if I seem to imply it, it's just a question of economics. This is still a pretty bourgeois country and consequently, the art is a reflection of this. In Australia for example an artist proceeds on his own, relying on single-mindedness and dedication. He would be recognised on his own merits where it is a matter of competition. It's the survival of the fittest scene, where you can't produce crap. In his country you can produce crap and get away with it. This situation, where the professional is getting more professional and the gap between him and the amateur is getting more pronounced.

Would you prefer to have developed in another country?

No. The struggle for life, the struggle for existence is much harder. The competition is much harder. For every dozen in this country who have reached a professional Standard, there Would be several thousand in Britain, all struggling to make it.

Paul Melser, potter

Paul Melser is 22 and owns his own pottery in Featherston where he has worked and supported himself, mostly alone, for two years. Salient asked him: —

Do you earn a comfortable living?

No, a low income by New Zealand standards, and most of this goes into property maintenance, tool and building expenditure and financing periods of relatively unprofitable yet essential experimental work —for example my exhibition of sculptural pots in Wellington last year barely paid its way but the techniques developed in the two months spent preparing it have proved invaluable.

Do you work hard?

You've got to work really bloody hard for long stretches in order to get established in the first place, and later on to support the experimental work which any artist needs if he is to improve, and also to keep at bay the kind of anxieties about money that can kill the joy in creative work. Yet no matter how hard the work seems sometimes (and I often work all day and all night) the thought of working for someone else or for the government seems a kind of living death by comparison. I work when I want to and work hard when I do.

Do you feel you're serving the community at all?

I'd like to think so. Obviously in the trivial sense of producing a desired commodity (I suppose pottery too is a consumer product), I serve the community in the same way as any manufacturer and perhaps incidentally educate the public a little as well, getting them to appreciate new aspects of things, livening up their sensibilities a bit. But the reason why I make pottery and the tremendous satisfactions I get out of it have nothing to do essentially with either the community of its money.

What kind of pottery is being exhibited at your Willeston Gallery exhibition this week?

Mainly domestic ware, functional household stuff. I used to think that domestic pots were not suitable for exhibitions and that only sculptural and nonfunctional work could be aesthetically suitable enough to justify a special showing, but recently I've realised the full aesthetic possibilities of domestic ware.

What about assistance from organisations?

Pretty bloody hopeless. It's difficult to get a bursary unless you attend a recognised school of instruction. But it's fairly difficult for any organisation to make grants because of their so-called responsibility to the public. Grants have a sort of taint in some ways because they are official and from formal institutions. And there is the problem that it is very difficult for committees to make inspired choices. The alternative is to have dictator who would at least be consistent in his selections, But more important than grants are big businesses. It's much more satisfying to be able to sell something, rather than getting a grant. I understand there is a system in Holland whereby a section of the cost of a building is compulsprily spent on some art Work. There's just beginning to be a link between the architect and the artist in this country. It is very difficult to design an art work for a building when there is little communication between the two.

Photos: Peter Craven