Matthew Dalziel is a visual artist who works in collaboration with Louise Scullion. Their studio creates artworks in photography, video, sound and sculpture that explore new artistic languages around the subject of ecology. These are Matthew’s his first five jobs.
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1 Turner and Miller with The National Coal Board
My first real job after leaving school lasted six months and it was an apprenticeship as a Motor Mechanic. I can remember how cold it was working under the cars in a leaky, drafty, oily garage especially in winter. I left this job as I was accepted on as an apprentice Turner and Miller with the National Coal Board which became British Coal. I served my four-year apprenticeship and worked another three years as a time served worker. Working for the National Coal Board was supposed to be a job for life but the collisions that took place between Thatcher and Scargill made it clear that the industry was on its knees, it was obvious there was no long term future in the form that the community that I came from would recognise, in many ways it was this that created the impetus for me look further afield, so I attended night classes locally got some highers and applied successfully to Art College.

2 Salvesen Pea Factory
During the four years of my art school training I worked at various job but the most memorable of these was at the Christian Salvesen Pea Factory, I can honestly say this was the hardest physical work I ever took on! My then flat mate, Iain Nicoll, who was studying engineering at Dundee and now runs a very successful Alternative Energy Business worked there every summer, it was both tedious and relentless, I still can’t look at a frozen pea without feeling the burn of the rake we had to use to coax pods into the shelling machine. Ian and I now meet annually to go trout and salmon fishing, he insists on accompanying every meal with… peas.

3 Co Director of Image & Installation
My Art School training took me to Dundee, then Newport in Gwent Wales and finally to Glasgow School of Art. Leaving Art School can be a tricky time because momentum can be lost and friends and allies may go their separate ways. I was fortunate that I made some really close friends and we pulled our ideas and energies to come up with some schemes and plans to keep afloat. I graduated in 1989, which was just before Glasgow’s year as European City of Culture.  Myself, Stevie Hurel and Oladele Bamgaboye thought that if we got together and formed an organisation or group we might have a better chance of accessing funding from both The Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland) and also the many companies who wanted to get involved in the year of culture.
Our blue sky, or grey sky thinking it was Glasgow after all, mainly took place in two sorts of venues, a nice restaurant if we had any cash (Olly was a bit of a foodie) but mostly in the pub. We came up with some ideas and managed to write and present them competently enough to persuade The Scottish Arts Council to part with a healthy sum of cash and many local venues and companies donated their spaces, electrical kit, high fi gear, catering etc. For this they all received advertising in our brochures, invites etc and their friends all came along to the various openings and events. This taught me two things firstly that I enjoyed working in collaboration with others and secondly if you approach someone or some company, business etc with a good idea they might actually support it.

4 Artist in Industry with Shell
Image & Installation like all bright stars shone fiercely for a short period of time basically when the 1990 year of culture ended and we all went our separate ways. What to do next? The Scottish Arts Council’s news letter was my first port of call when looking for interesting opportunities and I saw advertised four one year long posts as Artist in Industry. This was brilliant for me as my previous experience as a Motor Mechanic and Turner and Millar was very useful at the interview and the Image & Installation documentation proved my artistic capabilities. I managed to secure one of the posts and moved to Peterhead in the north east coast of Scotland to work at the St Fergus Gas Plant. This was a brilliant experience, if a bit lonely, as I was the only artist among hundreds of engineers and oil workers (they called me ‘Picasso’!). It introduced me to this part of Scotland and I had access to images and material that no other artist had access to. I made a body of work there, which got selected for The British Art Show which really shot my career forward.

5 Artist in Residence for Banff & Buchan
I loved the landscape and seascape around Fraserburgh and Peterhead and after leaving the residency I decided to stay on in the area and try and make more work. I found a cottage for rent in a small fishing village called St Combs, which was very cheap and was close to the sea. Another very nice by-product of being in the British art show was that I met Louise Scullion who was also selected for that show, at the time she was working in another residency within the NHS, but through talks we each gave at the British Art Show, we recognised that although we worked in very different ways we share many overlapping interests. When Louise finished her Aberdeen residency she moved to St Combs and we started making work together but we had no source of income. A few months later we saw some posts advertised (locally and on The Scottish Arts Council newsletter) for artists in residency in Banff & Buchan. The head of arts development was a great guy called Ian McAuley who managed to raise enough money to have a dancer, writer, musician and visual artist in residence for a period of a few years. Louise and I joint shared the post, which had a salary of £15,000 per year, which was fantastic. Our first job was to compile an inventory of all the artists working in Banff & Buchan, this is a huge area and a lot of work but we met some fantastic people who we are still in contact with today. Louise and I started to create works together as Dalziel+ Scullion inspired by our location that had some of the biggest geo-related industries in Europe as well as remaining relatively remote and ‘slightly’ wild.

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… We ran our artistic partnership from our base in St Combs for eleven more years, developing and refining our philosophy of work and creating a brand of sorts. We made two very important works while at St Combs The Horn on the M8 motorway, this work opened us up to public art commissions, and the other work was Sargassum, which was selected for the Venice Biennale and lead to solo exhibitions at the CCA Glasgow, The Arnolfini, Bristol and The Ikon in Birmingham. In 2001 we moved to Dundee, we have been working together as Dalziel + Scullion for eighteen years, with nature, ecology and landscape at the core of everything we do. Our work has been shown all over the world and is in many collections, despite the current economic climate we are busier than we ever have been.

More: Website

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

[Brochure a collaboration by Lyall Bruce & Johanna Basford]

On Sat 6th Feb 2010, Censta and members went on Dundee Popup, a tour round the city’s creative people and places.  Artists, designers, illustrators, film-makers all gathered for a day of behind the scenes studio tours at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Duncan of Jordanstone and WASPS, private artist talks with Martin Boyce and Daziel and Scullion, plus an exclusive preview of the soon to be opened McManus Gallery after a 4 year refurbishment.

Members were blogging, tweeting and documenting in stills each part of the day, so you can take the tour for yourself.

As well as a day for members, and the city’s creatives to meet and discuss their work and practice, Dundee Popup created some LTD edition artworks. Censta members  SooperDD and Johanna Basford worked together to produce the booklet detailing the day, and Superfly worked with artists from the site to create a poster gallery round the city. Read more about it here.

To top it all off, we had an evening of talks from members, followed by wine and some rather fine Central Station cakes, created by Nikki McWilliams.

To see some of the photographs from the day look here. Read the rest of the blog to find out more about the day, and click here to find reviews and thoughts by the members who joined us.

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What? A tour of the creative world of Dundee, Central Station style. Private talks, tours and presentations. As well as lots of members meeting & discussing.

Where? Dundee

When? 11am – 8pm Saturday February 6th

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[SuperFly poster by Jen Collins - part of a series]

11am:
Meet us at the Reception entrance of Duncan of Jordonson College of Art & Design. We’ll have a quick chat…and then the tour begins. Join us for some or all of it and come visit us at The Rep for a coffee stop.

11:30am options:
i) See the new exhibition at Cooper Gallery, Public Image, accompanied by a Curator talk & listen to sculptor student Julie Duffy talk about her practice

ii) Meet some graduates from DJCAD who’ll talk about how they’ve got themselves noticed since leaving

iii) Have a private tour of Dalziel + Scullion’s studio space

1pm options:
i) Go to Generator Projects for a private talk and tour

ii) Go to WASPS for a private studio tour

iii) Go to a screening of a film selected by Martin Boyce, with a live soundtrack by saxophonist Raymond MacDonald (please note there is a charge for this event & booking is necessary)

2pm options:
i) Get a rare private walkround of Realtime Worlds

ii) Have an exclusive peek inside the newly renovated McManus Galleries

3pm options:
i) Pop along to The Visual Research Centre

ii) Go to the DCA Print Studio for a private tour

3.45pm:
Hear an exclusive Martin Boyce talk about his No Reflections exhibition at the DCA

5pm options:
i) See the SuperFly Pop-up exhibition at the Hannah MacLure Centre

ii) Hear Yann Seznec talk about his Gelkies exhibition at the Hannah MacLure Centre

iii) Take a look at Handmade Heaven’s handmade wares at the Hannah MacLure Centre

6 – 8pm:
Join us for This is… Sit back and listen to a selection of our members giving quick-fire presentations about their work & practice. Then a chance to chat, mingle, drink and nibble

[Cupcakes by Nikki McWilliams]

Earlier today we spent somewhere near an hour in the Dalziel + Scullion studios in DJCAD. Matthew chatted to us about some of his live projects, talked us through how the commissioning and making process usually works for him. Very refreshingly, he discussed profit-making frankly, without any embarrassment and / or pain. How does an artist make enough to sustain him/herself and his/her work? How do you learn about contracting and working with all the various other people necessary to make particularly big installation pieces? No answers…just a tip to talk to people, to take advice, to think forward.

Dalziel + Scullion’s work is pretty wide-ranging. To classify what they do is pretty tricky – Matthew finds it hard. But he does say all their work is united by theme. Their work focusses on all things ecological, man’s place in the natural world. Which has proved to be pretty useful in a political environment that’s increasingly interested in the climate. They’re talking to the government about projects, have recently made a piece of work for the HBOS headquarters etc etc.

As well as working to commission they also make self-initiated, often smaller pieces of work. Including these beautifully printed bark tubes (I’m sure that’s not what they’re called.) The images are Dalziel + Scullion photographs that are then printed up in Dundee at the Print Studios. They’re made into tubes, sent down to London and sold through a gallery / shop. I think I’ve got all of those details right.

They were initially made for a show in a now closed gallery in Skye. It was part of a dispersed project that happened across the world, and all invited artists in the various countries were briefed to make something that could be sent through the post. And it’s kept going. It’s a nice small project that makes the guys some money. One of the questions asked – how does that make you feel? Working the same piece up over and over again? Does that make you a designer rather than an artist? Matthew says no not really. It makes you someone who can earn through his art, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And if someone wants to talk to them about turning the tubes into a commodity, say a lamp pendant, well they’d be more than willing to do that. Why not?

Last thing. They’re looking into setting up an MFA in Ecology and Art. Sounds interesting eh?

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.

It’s already looking like a great day and a great turnout of people, but don’t fret if you can’t be here. Along with some of Censta’s members we’ll be blogging and tweeting the day. Watch out for blogs in the Dundee Popup group, follow @censta for tweets, tagged #dundeepopup and there will be photos uploaded by Ross_McLean all through the day and footage coming from Andy later in the week.

Posters by Superfly have been spotted all round the city, and the LTD edition booklets by SooperDD and Johanna Basford are already a coveted item.

The blogs as they come in…… and the tweets for the day.

And here’s the first blog … read all about Public Image at the Cooper Gallery @DCJAD.

Lots of people meeting, eating and blogging in between tours at the Censta hub at the Dundee Rep.

Emlyn Firth gives the lowdown on the DJCAD graduates showcase, including a live link up on Skype.

Our very own Suzy Glass gives her view of the Dalziel & Scullion studio tour.

Ever been inside the coveted doors of Realtime Worlds? Jon Carlos went along, what did he see?

Censta and members got a very special sneak preview of the soon to be re-opened and very much renovated McManus Gallery. Gillian Easson gives you an idea of what’s in store.

Heidi Proven disappeared into the Visual Research Centre at Dundee Contemporary Arts, and thinks you should too.

JonGill took in the DCA Print studio, screen printing, etching, block, lino and litho. Jessica Ashman gave us her account of the DCA Print Studio tour too.

Martin Boyce took members round his No Reflections instillation at the DCA, and explained the challenges of exhibiting the work in two different spaces. Here and at Venice Biennalle. Curator Donna HolfordLovell takes us through the talk.

Superfly has an obsession, find out what it is.

Artists and makers from Handmade Heaven, showed off their wares and Censta members a plenty bought things. See what Hellojenuine liked.

Then it was time for This is… at the Hannah Maclure Centre which went like this:
Yuck & Yum told us about the ways they distrubute art without using gallery spaces
Johanna Basford & Sooper DD entertained us with stories of collaboration
Arika went through their KYTN 2009 plans and how you can get involved
Genevieve Ryan & Jo Swingler talked us through recent illustration & creative writing collaboration
We heard and saw music & animation from Colliderscope‘s Fiona Soe Paing
Georgina Follett let us know about the V&A Dundee developments.

These were covered by Htothep, suzy.glass & DJCADExhibitions.

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.