Peace Painting - funding

I'm now seeking further funding for the Peace Painting project.

Against all instincts, I'm working on an ACE grant application for the Peace Painting project.

Since 2013 I rejected the arts world and its methods of bureaucratically enshrining funding within hallowed bank accounts inaccessible to such lowly artists such as myself.

After 4 years of refusing to engage in what I saw as a form of financial Stockholm Syndrome, I'm struggling to punish myself with this again.

The greater risk is that I won't finish it before Universal Credit is imposed, and I'll be made destitute.
I asked the Citizen's Advice Bureau for the following information:

When is the DWP imposing Universal Credit?
They do not know. 
During recent research, I read that the reason Syrian children seem so calm in beheading videos, is because terrorists rehearse them several times.
I am being kept in the dark about when the financial abuse will happen.
The reason I'm so stressed out is because since I left my financially abusive ex-husband, I've struggled enough to survive as a single parent, I thought a career in the arts would be better, and now this Universal Credit thing is more financial abuse.

I must clarify that the threat of destitution imposed by Universal Credit motivated me to quit the art world, not to produce any work under a system of welfare slavery, however, Article 27 of the Human Rights Act overrides the DWP, so this is what I imagine will happen if I fail:

Everyone who reads this blog will carry on reading it for free at my expense, so I will rarely post. 
I won't post at all if I'm destitute, as I will be unable to survive.
I will be busy in the CAB, or at the police station reporting the DWP and the Arts Council for human rights abuses.

I will have six weeks of financial abuse akin to that of my ex husband, which is why I'm so stressed out.

The doctor has advised me to self refer for counselling. Talking to someone will be another waste of my time, and will not help to put money in my bank account.
It may lead to me being sent to hospital for malnutrition / survival. Which will place further burden on the NHS, and I shouldn't be there.

I will be unable to pay a month and a half's rent. This will cost £770. Every week I will be £300 short of income for food and bills etc. For six weeks.
The total loss will be £2,570. My overdraft has a £2000 limit.

You will all read this blog and not pay a penny.
Or you will stop reading it and look away, because it contains an inconvenient truth that you don't want to hear, or refuse to do anything about.

What I would prefer is that:

1) Someone finally buys Portrait Of Ian Duncan Smith With Bandaged Nose.

2) Someone commissions new work.

3) The Arts Council Grant application is successful.

4) Universal Credit is never imposed, and Universal Basic Income replaces it.

4) You all complain to the UN, or whoever may be able to help - Amnesty for example, that the British government is abusing Article 27 of the Human Rights Act, and that artists are suffering, instead of reading this blog and sitting there stroking your cats and laughing maniacally.

Copy and paste the blog link and send it to the police, tell them a crime has been committed; artists are having their livelihoods stolen.

I'm writing this now while I still can.

What do we want? When do we want it?

I went to a lecture by Chris Packham, naturalist, television presenter and visiting lecturer at the University of Lincoln.
He said that when you graduate, you are at the pinnacle of your field, the trick is, to keep going with that afterwards.
He went at his chosen career at a slightly unusual angle.

And afterwards, I thought about this. 
If I was paid according to my Artists' Day Rate since I graduated from University - my University degree being enough to confer my status as an an artist worthy of an income, never mind the work I was at that time trying to continue with, then the total amount I should've been paid is approximately £124,800 over the past 8 years.

Not whatever it is that the DWP say "the law states you need to live on" plus the odd occasional extra payment and arts council grant rejections / cuts.
I hope that when the Tories go, I get all the money I'm owed back so I can buy a proper house.

And if I'm forced to rely on benefits - which I'd rather not - then "what the law states you need to live on" is an illegally low amount, and if the DWP try to take it away without notice, I'm calling the police.

Universal Basic Income.
The arts world seems to be a big supporter of this concept, and I agree with it. But I would still rather be paid at my Artists' Day Rate for my work, not the rate of benefits, or UBI.

UBI would be better than the current welfare system of failing to recognise graduate fine artists as working, and forcing us to take on other jobs that less qualified people or robots could be doing instead, or working minimum wage jobs to keep the DWP from our door, but it isn't as good as just paying artists to do what we do, at the rate we have worked out we should be earning for ourselves.

My zero hours contract job.

This week, I will have to take time out from Peace Painting or any art practice to go and do work in a zero hours contract job.
When I took it on, I was totally disillusioned by the art world and its failures.
I was looking for a part time job, for two days per week, that would pay me well enough not to have to rely on benefits.

This work was suggested as something I could do.
In reality, I'm lucky if I get 2 days work per month.
It isn't enough to stop me relying on benefits, and I'm still looking for that kind of work.
Ideally, if I were to do 2 days Peace Painting workshops per week, doing the work that I spent 3 years at University training to do, and all the experience I've gained since, paid at my Artists' Day Rate, then I would be able to do that and still have time for my own practice.

Carer's Allowance

I have absolutely no intention to give up my work as an artist and claim Carer's Allowance. 
It is too low an income to live on, and it wasn't my career choice.
I do not expect some Nurse Ratched type person to declare that I don't care for my son, or be persecuted or punished any more by the lack of social care, lack of respite, and general neglect of either myself or my son's needs.

Carer's Allowance should be covered by UBI or paid according to the wage of the profession a Carer has been forced to give up due to a family member becoming ill.
Or it should be paid in addition to an existing wage to cover the cost of taking time out for caring responsibilities. 
Either way, it should not be a replacement for other income that has been stolen or taken away because of the criteria for Carer's Allowance.
Carers should not be financially abused or neglected in that way.

I am posting these thoughts because the current government have not asked me whatI think, or what I want, they just keep imposing austerity upon me and others against our wishes, and I wanted to make it very clear what we want. And we want it backdating to the time that all of this was stolen from us. Our rights, our livelihoods - we want it all back now.