Quit The Day Job.

In December 2003, Pamela Wells decided to quit her "day job" as an artist. Having been a "professional" artist for over 10 years, she has been fortunate to make her living as a creative practioner. But the grass always seems greener on the other side and Pamela had romantic and ideal notions about the world of "honest work". Having never had a "real" job, she fantasised about the possibilities of a regular routine - luncheons with colleagues, swimming during lunch break, chatting with the same people on the train every day.

And so, Pamela signed up with an employment agency, the first "artwork" of this new project being to re-write her CV removing the word "art" to see what was left. Discovering that she had more transferable skills than she might have thought, Pamela landed a temporary position for 7 days, working as the Personal Assistant to the Interim Head of Planning and Transportation at Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council. This resulted in First Assignment, a day by day account, tangentally recording this experience.

Much to her surprise, Pamela was invited to fill a maternity-leave opening in another area of the directorate. Thus she joined the Strategic Intelligence Unit of the Service Improvement Team for 10 months. Falling in love with Microsoft Excel, she began to make art with spreadsheets and was invited to take part in "Brain Jelly" curated by aas. Dance With Spreadsheet was a live art piece, sited in an office and set to sound by Zbyszek Gozdecki.

Outed as an artist early on, Pamela was surprised that her manager seemed interested in her creative abilities that she at first did her best to hide. Before long, she was engaged to evaluate a large-scale project providing acitvitied for young people during the summer holiday period, called Ready Steady Summer.

Apart from acquiring a slight fetish for office wear (her wardrobe now includes 2 suits), Pamela is also working on a new body of works on paper that play with the vocabulary and materials from the everyday work world - using staples, ring binder reinforcers, photocopies and cellophane tape.

RELATED DOWNLOADS:
First Assignment.pdf
Dance With Spreadsheet.xls
Ready Steady Summer.pdf