At some point in an artist's career, he or she will have to write a proposal for shows, residencies and grants. It can be an often frustrating process, trying to express in words an idea which is essentially visual. Artists Blue Firth and Tomas Chaffe, also known as the organisation Via Vaudeville!, might be providing the help young Nottinghamshire artists need. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Proposal Blue and Tomas were asked by the Angel Row Gallery to produce something that was geared towards artists' professional practice. | "Your work can be really multi-layered and you're trying to explain it in a paragraph. It can come across as pretentious." | | Tomas Chaffe |
They came up with the idea of appealing for successful, as well as failed, proposals. The book became known as 'The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Proposal'. Blue explains how the book could help an artist writing a proposal: "[Writing a proposal is] quite a scary notion. There is nowhere you can ask for help, but it's nice to see examples of not what you're up against, but how you go about doing it." Communicating their grand ideas on a form is where artists can get stuck. Tomas says: "Your work can be really multi-layered and you're trying to explain it in a paragraph. It can come across as pretentious. "If you're not someone that organises [a show] you're never going to see a broad spectrum, and this is a way of collating those [proposals] together. We're not trying to say this is the way to write one, or the best way to do it."
 | | The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Proposal |
Blue admits they weren't even sure that they'd even get any proposals. She says: "There was no guarantee that anyone was actually going to send in any proposals. We thought it would actually be quite funny if we didn't get any... [It would be an] irony that everyone is reluctant to share." Tomas can understand that reluctance. He says, "I don't know if I would have personally handed one in!" Download a copy of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Proposal' by going to the Via Vaudeville website: | 
