Photo: Virginia Woods-Jack; Treatment: Tina Tiller

PartnersJune 1, 2023

How Ana Scotney gets it done

Guest writer

Photo: Virginia Woods-Jack; Treatment: Tina Tiller

The interdisciplinary artist from Te Whanganui-a-Tara shares all the mahi that happens behind the scenes.

Ana (Ngāti Tāwhaki, Ngāi Tūhoe) has won multiple awards for her theatre work, and has been the recipient of the Te Tumu Toi New Zealand Arts Foundation Springboard Award, where she was mentored by Dame Gaylene Preston. Most recently, she has been a student at A Wave in the Ocean, Jane Campion’s pop-up film school, and has toured her show ScatterGun: After the Death of Ruamoko, to critical acclaim. She also makes music under the moniker Kōtiro and recently released the award-winning podcast True Justice, about people who have lived under the criminal justice system.

The start of the week

My pre-work rituals are important! I live in Mount Victoria, and if the weather’s fine, I’ll go out swimming with my little ocean swimming group The Washing Machines which is this chill WhatsApp group, and then we’ll usually go for coffee at Lola Stays on Marjoribanks Street, which is where I’ll start the process of going into work mode for the day.

It’s usually random stuff, like addressing admin stuff for a forthcoming show, or invoicing, all of that kind of niggly stuff that I’ll try and tackle on the front-end. It’s the same for any freelancer, right? It just depends on what you’ve got sitting there in that first bout of admin for the week.

If she’s high res, she’s up at 6.30, she swims like 2km in the moana. But if she’s feeling a little low-format, like 8-bit as opposed to like a high-quality PDF, then the day will start either with some Buddhist prayers to psychically ground me, or I’ll sleep a little longer and then hiss into the city to go and get a coffee and start tackling those emails.

Working on a script as an actor

Script work for me at the moment looks like just taking a good couple of hours or however long it takes to read a piece in its entirety, then I’ll read it again, make some notes and then give feedback to the writer or the director or whoever’s made it. Then, if someone’s sent me references to watch, as well, I’ll just try and really go in on those. So if I’m looking at a horror, which is well outside of my territory, I know I’m going to have to cover more mileage to actually get there.

This process can be as simple as going and looking at two or three features for 2024 or 2025, bearing in mind that the process for a writer developing a feature, or even a short, can take years. Like, they’re not necessarily confirmed, or I haven’t necessarily booked them, but I’ll go and get them professionally printed at Harvey Norman, get them bound so that I just have them as they are being developed. I feel protective for writers as I’m printing them. Like, “don’t look!”

It’s about respecting the breadth of time it takes for that individual to conceptualise, actually write, get funding for, then execute and realise, it’s like the least that I can do is like read your script every few months or years when you’ve got an update and keep track of it for you and be like, “this was really strong here, where did it go? Why did you delete Mrs. Whoever?”

Working on my own mahi

The bulk of the mahi in that middle bracket of the week is that wānanga and really workshopping whatever project is at the foreground of my mind, whether it’s Scattergun, True Justice or something else. I find that opening that rehearsal at 10 or 11 and closing at 2pm, that’s heaps.

But if I’m working on music, because it’s based on the availability of my friend Thomas [Arbor, music producer], then we might just have a couple of informal sessions on a Wednesday or Thursday evening at Pyramid Club, which is where he has a recording studio. I lean into the evening time bracket to work with him, and then the days will be for rehearsing either for that film mahi or sovereign rehearsal periods for my original work.

The hard stuff

It’s the unsexy back end of all of the admin that comes with all of the freelancing. It makes up the majority of the job – so communicating with venues, making budgets, making applications or like writing proof of concepts for applications for stuff, sending invoices.

For example, It’s the end of the financial year and I’ve got all my GST or whatever stuff looming. At the same time I have like a week or something that I need to get back to a director to give him notes on his script which he’s hoping to shoot. And then it’s also that I need to get back to everyone from the Whakatāne Art Gallery about when we’re next doing ScatterGun. And then get a press junket of footage together for Marnie (Karmelita, creative director of NZ Festival) that she can show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival people. Also I need to have my script ready for Campion Movie School!

It’s never one specific thing, but it’s the conglomeration of the admin mind needing to be on, as well as the creative mind. There’s the expectation on one’s self and to deliver to everyone that all cylinders will be consistently charged and ready to fire.

The end of the week

I have a Taurus moon, so my home environment is vitally important to me, and because what we do as artists is so front-facing having a flat whānau is really important to me. So doing shared dinners with my flatties is important, or going to a gig, having a few drinks with the girlies, but more recently it’s been cool getting back into going on missions.

Me and my homegirl Lily (Paris West, Mermaidens), we have this little crew called the Sea Hag Summit, very Wellington twee vibe, and we have these quarterly or bi-annual summits where we come together with a cast iron skillet and we make a bonfire and we cook saussies and go in on the AGM. We’re just like, “What’s going on? Where are you at?”

We just go for a big heart-to-heart and it’s so restorative and so important.

Support is crucial

Firstly, I had rad foundation here in Wellington which came through being a part of Long Cloud Youth Theatre when I was a teenager and finding a community at that seminal age where your self concept and identity is still taking form. A lot of the people that I trained in Long Cloud with are still really close friends and collaborators today.

Going to Toi Whakaari was also seminal in terms of developing as a performer and as a storyteller, and one thing I took for granted at that time was training in a place which had a pedagogy that was derived from kaupapa and tikanga from Manutūkē Marae.

But the people that have helped me in my career are my tuakana, my elders Coco Solid, Jackie Van Beek, Maddie Sami, Ains Gardiner, Puti Lancaster, Briar Grace Smith, just to name a few, and then the homies of my generation who, through being raised in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, it’s the people who have made this career and lifestyle, and dare I say vocation, too fun to drop out of.

What makes the work worth it

“The beauty, radiance and radness of what we do is that aspect of travelling, and not being fixed in one place. It’s like getting back from Whakatāne a few days ago, taking Scattergun to perform for whanau in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and into the mountains in Te Urewera after that, or being able to go with Bad Behaviour to Sundance, SXSW and New York. The thing that I love is telling stories from our place from Aotearoa and being able to do that in a local and international way. That’s the sexy front end of this thing that I love.

Even though there are certainly moments where the stress of needing to output in all of these different facets is like literally performance, literally to be expected to show up and deliver like an athlete, sometimes I clock a feeling of agency, and a feeling of freedom that I really cherish. There’s also the very sort of literal and practical surplus and deficit, also needing to be sharp and tuned into dealing with budgets and dealing with people who work in that very mathematical, Gregorian realm.

All that stuff gets overwhelming at times, but I just think there is something that is so heartening for me about knowing, “Yeah but actually Ana, this is towards you being able to do what you love”, which is, as twee as it sounds, telling stories and making people reflect on stuff that is experienced.

So within that Gregorian cycle of a week, what I cherish is those private, little psychic blocks where I realise I’m doing something that I legitimately love and it’s all part of that.

As told to Sam Brooks

Keep going!

PartnersMay 31, 2023

Art is work: A look inside the engine of our creative sector

Sam Brooks

Contributing writer

Introducing a new editorial series produced by The Spinoff with Creative New Zealand exploring the practical working lives of eight New Zealand artists.

I’d like you to think of a painting in a gallery for a moment – it could be any painting in almost any gallery in the world. Now, I’d like you to think about every bit of work, from a real-life human being, that led to you being able to see that painting in that gallery.

There’s the obvious work: the fact right in front of your face, that it was painted by an artist.

There’s the slightly less obvious work: the artist needed to purchase the materials required to paint it, set aside time to paint it, and more than likely source a space to paint it in.

Then there’s the even less obvious work: the months and years that go into honing a craft, the many hours that go into planning and carrying out an exhibition, the emails and phone calls to publicise it and make sure that people actually get to the exhibition, the upkeep of the gallery space required to actually show that work.

All of that work to experience one painting. Now, multiply that many times to get an exhibition. Or, take that painting out of the gallery space – it could be a mural, or the cover of your favourite album. Perhaps it’s the painting you see every morning when you wake up, and before you go to sleep. It’s all art, and it all takes work – a lot of it – to get made.

Art is a passion, and for many, it can be a hobby that brings plenty of joy, whether it is to an artist making it, or an audience engaging with it. It enriches our communities, and is a conduit for the country to participate not just in culture, but in engaging their own creative minds. But for those who have devoted their lives to it, it’s work. Like many jobs, the amount of labour, time and energy needed to even get to the point where a creative can make that work is huge. That’s true of all art forms – whether it’s a painting, a live performance, a video game, a musical composition, a sculpture or a book.

What comes out at the end of a process is barely representative of the work that went into making it; it’s the tip of the iceberg made up of blood, sweat, tears and, probably, lots of emails. It’s the bottom of the iceberg that shows how resilient our arts sector is. Our artists overachieve internationally, our art is a crucial part of our country’s heritage and culture, and our communities rally for more support from the powers that be.

A survey released last week by Kantar Public on behalf of Creative New Zealand and NZ on Air estimated that just over half of creative professionals are satisfied with their career, and the same amount have experienced burnout in the past year. The main reason given for that burnout is a low and inconsistent income, with just a quarter of all creatives being able to live comfortably on their present earnings.

The research paints a starker image when it comes to the actual dollar amount – what artists are paid for the work they do. The surveys found the median total income for creative workers, across all artforms and practices, was $37,000 (although creative work only makes up $19,500). Compare that to the median total income of the average New Zealander, which sits at $61,000. Only 35% of those professionals believe they are fairly compensated, with a full 33% outright believing they are not fairly compensated.

Furthermore, this survey found that nearly half (44%) of creative workers had to find work outside the sector. That doesn’t even count the multiple hats that many in the sector wear to make ends meet, simply to stay afloat: 71% consider themselves to be active participants in the gig economy, working job to job, paycheque to paycheque.

When those disparities are broken down by demographic they become even more clear. On average, men in the sector get paid 32% more than women, a much more extreme disparity than at the national level (9.2%). Deaf and disabled creative professionals are also paid much less than the median for both their total and creative income, as are people aged 60 or over.

“We know that New Zealanders support arts, culture and creativity more than ever, and the value of artists’ work is felt and seen by communities across Aotearoa every day,” says Stephen Wainwright, chief executive of Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa.

(Image: Creative Professionals research)

“However, the Creative Professionals research shows us that artists continue to earn significantly less than the median salary for their creative work, painting a bleak picture in terms of career sustainability for people working as creative leaders, innovators and storytellers in our community,” he says. “We want to make real progress towards fairer remuneration and conditions for artists, but this will require fresh, collective thinking and action. We can make changes to the way we support our artists so they can do what they do best – create art that challenges, inspires and connects us.”

“A key part of this is helping to build New Zealanders’ understanding about the reality of artists’ lives and everything that goes into making their valuable work happen.”

It isn’t just the lack of financial compensation that exists as a barrier for creative professionals to work, however. Professionals cited issues both expected (commitments in other work roles, domestic responsibilities, a small market) and unexpected (lack of work due to Covid-19, insufficient capital to invest in tools, and the lack of a career path). Those are huge barriers to overcome for a professional before they even get into the room to actually make the work.

While it’s the end result that gets applauded, the actual work that goes into the art can be invisible. Creative work in New Zealand is a swan, serene and beautiful above the pond surface, while its little webbed feet paddle furiously to keep itself afloat.

Our sector doesn’t have to be resilient, though. You can look overseas and see how systems can work for artists, and the audiences they create work for. There is Ireland’s basic income scheme for artists, New York’s project to rebuild the city for artists, and closer to home, the new Australian cultural policy that centres the rights of artists. These pathways help carry artists, and the entire sector, over the roadblocks into that beautiful thing: sustainable careers.

A step towards art, and therefore our artists, being valued is for the amount of work that they do to be fully appreciated. It’s difficult to appreciate something without understanding it. That’s where our new series, Art Work comes in.

Art Work aims to demystify the work that an artist does in their average week. Eight of New Zealand’s leading artists, including visual arts, literature and dance, will tell us what their workweek looks like.

These are artists from a range of backgrounds – these are emerging artists, established artists, artists working in urban centres, artists working rurally, artists with jobs outside the arts, artists with families to support, artists who just have to support themselves. They’re artists at the forefront of fields ranging from poetry to theatre, award-winners and agenda-setters among them.

The one thing they share in common? They all work, and ultimately, the work they make is for us. They enrich our communities, open windows to stories and experiences, and bring us all that little bit closer together. We want to let them tell you how they get it done.