Squishface Studio Information

Squishface Studio is an open comics studio in Brunswick, Vic. It operates as a shared workspace for cartoonists and illustrators and as an informal hub for comics activity in Melbourne. The founding artists are Ben Hutchings, Sarah Howell and David Blumenstein. Squishface has existed since late 2011. Our resident artists pay rent and we teach kids comics classes. This is how we are able to exist. The founders support it financially when necessary. We spend much of our time working commercial jobs to make this possible. We do not receive any direct arts funding to support our existence, largely because Sarah anticipated an event such as is happening now, i.e. a politically motivated savaging of the Australia Council leading to dire straits for small funded organisations. Since the comics/cartooning community has no "peak body" or union, we wanted to explain how we're affected by Mr Brandis' actions. The most visible outcome from Australia Council are arts grants that go to a small number of recipients. This is the outcome that's easiest to attack as "handouts to lazy artists who live off grants at the expense of the taxpayer". Grants are also attacked when a supported project angers a section of the community (or politicians). Our observations over 20 years in the arts suggest that grants are generally used by talented and ambitious artists to execute projects which would be impossible without support (they also tend to put a great deal of their own time and money into these projects, sometimes more than the grant is worth). Here are some examples of comics outcomes which benefited from Australia Council support. Squishface's Sarah Howell received Australia Council funding early in her career to run a youth forum and exhibition (2001) which brought together comics artists from around Tasmania, including Julian Scrivener (Cryptographic), Andrew Harper, Michael Hawkins and Chris Downes (The Hobart Mercury). A multi-disciplinary artist working at Hobart Fringe, she has remained involved in comics ever since. "Getting this grant gave me confidence to do more comics-related work. I was able to pay people. Staff from Arts Tasmania congratulated me and pointed out how difficult it is getting funding from Australia Council.