It may be art but is it cricket?
Sports versus the arts is a seemingly perennial – though entirely pointless – debate. Michael Vaughan, the former captain of England and Yorkshire is the latest example of the two meeting, with his new career in the visual arts threatening to give a whole new meaning to the phrase Turning Point. Apparently enjoying the galleries of Shoreditch on rainy days has led him to a new practice he calls ‘artballing’. (As dictinct to the art balls that some artists talk?) See here for a news story and here for the gallery's d

Who do you think benefits most from the work of the Arts Council - and who should?
I said I’d return to the topic of who our stakeholders (artists, arts organisations, local authorities and other partners) thought currently benefit from the arts Council’s work, and who they thought should benefit.If we look at who respondents feel currently benefits most it goes like this:1. Arts Organisations – 50%2. The public – 18%3. The Government – 15%4. Artists – 11%5. Other – 4%6. The Arts Council – 2%Who they feel ought to be benefiting is intriguingly and significantly different:1. The public– 49%2. Artists – 30%3. Arts Organisations– 18%4. Other

In a right steady state?
MMM and ERA21 held one of their peer-to-peer events in Newcastle this week, in the trendy new offices of Northern Film and Media in the Hoult’s Yard development. The theme was whether the sector is now ‘overbuilt’, underachieving, at ‘steady state’ or in a perilous condition. Or indeed none of the above.The conversation demonstrated, for me, that we are at the point when innovative solutions start to pop up – ie that bit where you think you have a series of irreconcilable ‘truths’, and an intractable problem the current tools can

A thought on writing
'But why this urge to speak things, rather than make do with observing them? Where does it come from, this compulsion writers have to turn into words everything that touches them or holds their attention? Would it not be more sensible to prune and look after those trees, before

74% of Everybody's Happy Nowadays
I’ve done a presentation on the headline results of our ‘Stakeholder Focus’ survey twice this week, once to staff and then to Regional Council. It’s a kind of customer satisfaction survey, where people get the chance to say what they think of Arts Council England, their relationships with us, how we work, our impact and so on. So it’s always a bit nerve-wracking opening the document and seeing how you come out.Fortunately, things are heading very much in the right direction, and it's certainly a far more positive feeling than last time we did it, when there a few 'difficult messages'. Obviously not everyone thinks the Arts Council’s great