Home Is Where the Art Is - needs a makeover!

Yet another programme from the BBC about art and crafts - this one is called (groan!) Home Is Where the Art Is.

The Title Image for the Programme

This one's a bit different - because it's being broadcast every day for a fortnight - so I thought I'd give you

• the idea behind the programme
• a rundown of the basics of how each episode works 
• the synopsis for each episode.
• what's wrong with the process and programme - after watching two episodes

However...

YET AGAIN - the BBC is NOT providing credits that include the names of the artists participating/working in the show.  Every other professional - but not the artists!

So I'm including the names of the artists in Episodes 1 and 2 under the synopses for those episodes below

Home Is Where The Art Is

The programme was commissioned by Dan McGolpin, Controller of BBC Programming and Daytime (salary £203,000) AS part of the factual and factual entertainment shows for BBC One Daytime. I shall be focusing some more on the word "FACTUAL" later.

You can tweet him your thoughts about the show on @dnmcg!  Can I suggest something like

"Why do you get paid £200,000 of taxpayer's cash to do your job and yet you won't give a named credit to artists appearing in 'Home Is Where the Art Is'"

Here's the one paragraph synopsis

In Home Is Where the Art Is, presented by Nick Knowles, amateur artists compete to win a special new commission for one paying homeowner. Three artists, whose skills range from everything from painting, metal work and embroidery to woodcarving and ceramics will get to snoop around a Mystery Buyers’ home before pitching their ideas. But which one will hit the brief and bag the commission?

Interestingly the emphasis in the synopsis is on AMATEUR artists. I don't remember that being in the brief when they were seeing artists for the programme - see my blog post TWO NEW BBC Art Shows

This was the advert for artists - no mention of amateur artists!


This was the advert for those commissioning. Note the artists are now NOT "amateurs" - but rather...

some of the UK's finest artists, from painters to potters, carvers to crafters, screen printers to street artists

Seems to me we might be in the realms of the Advertising Standards Authority's Non-Broadcast Code for adverts in newspapers or journals.

I'm just wondering how they validated their claims to the effect that these are "some of the finest"?  Would their defence be that this was an obvious piece of "puffery" I wonder?  No offence to the artists - I'm not disputing many are professional and produce excellent work - it's just I'm wondering why they should be described as finest. It just occurs that somebody thought this a logical extension of 'fine art'!

To me, it's very clear from the advert and research for this blog post (eg I talked to artists who had talked to the BBC about participating in the programme) that

• the BBC had no professional advice about commissioning art
• the BBC have a gameshow mindset.  A number of people were very interested in how competitive the artists were and those who said 'not in the slightest' did not get on the show.
• at the outset had done inadequate research into the process of commissioning artwork and typical budgets.  

It's also very clear they had to change their mind about budgets as they progressed (see Episode synopsis below as to the fact they crept upto £1,000 from the £500 mentioned in the advert)

It reminds me very much of crafts on the cheap i.e. the era of BBC when crafts were what you could make from two toilet rolls and some 'sticky back plastic'!

Basic Principles of how it works

At the end of this blog post is an extract from the official BBC letter and description to artists of how the show works.

In summary

• 'Somebody" responded to the commission adverts and has let the BBC know they want to commission an artwork - and have a set budget (it would appear this is non-negotiable)
• BBC select three artists (painters, illustrators, pet portrait artists, textile artists, ceramicists, wood sculptors, metal sculptors) to come up with ideas for a pitch
• Three artists then get to do a 'free' pitch for work
• first they're allowed to snoop around the empty home to pick up on their tastes and preferences
• then go away and work out what might work
• present their pitch at their first meeting with the clients
• Two artists are chosen to create a final artwork.
• The Clients choose one artist - who gets paid the commission sum for the work (as opposed to what they'd normally charge for that amount of time, effort, expertise and materials)
• The other artist is refunded the cost of materials.

So basically "Through the Keyhole" meets "DIY SOS" (remember the instant artwork for people who get a makeover for their homes after a tragedy in their lives) to provide competition for "Money for Nothing"!

I'm going to watch it - but I'm not overly optimistic I'll like it.  

• The idea behind it - of revealing the scope for commissioning local artists to produce bespoke art is an excellent one. Unfortunately the game show tendency then takes over.
• This is emphatically art for entertainment NOT education. I like the creativity aspects. I hate the game show elements.
• After two episodes it's clear that on the whole it's also very far from factual - in terms of pricing.
• Or as one artist who applied - and then rejected their programme format put it

Watch this for entertainment, sure, but please honour and respect the skill, training, and talent that genuine artists and makers put into their work - and value it accordingly

BELOW are the synopses for each episode re the commission and those making art in each episode.  The episodes are being broadcast in the afternoon at 3.45pm on BBC and then repeated the next day on BBC2 at 7.15pm
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