Now I’m Thirty-Four
The week leading up to my birthday was a doozy. It had nothing to do with my birthday, necessarily, but definitely involved some date-specific stress. Let me start at the beginning.
At some point in my life I decided to be an artist. (Or did I?)
One of my first memories is being two years old: my parents telling me that I could draw so well and that when I grew up I would be an artist. I swear to you, even as young as that I tried to figure out what being an artist meant. Of all the occupations I knew about at that time (a la Fisher Price) fire fighters put out fires, train engineers operated trains, and doctors scared people with needles and stethoscopes. They each performed services that could be played out with toys… There wasn’t a toy that represented the role of ‘artist,’ at least not in my toybox. Which is probably good, because he would have surely been dressed in all black, with a beret, a handlebar moustache, and a little bottle of scotch.
Train Engineer, Fire Fighter, Nurse and Doctor
Fast forward twenty five years later to 2002. I’ve totaled four cars, maxed out eight credit cards, worked nearly thirty jobs and dropped out of three colleges. I was deep in depression. I couldn’t figure out any way to support myself that didn’t drive me completely insane. I knew I wanted to make art but didn’t know how to do this in a financially practical way.
My first day at Watkins College of Art and Design I was ten minutes late to Terry Glispin’s sculpture class. Somewhere in his introduction he mentions the financial burdens of being an artist and how no one chooses this profession to make money. “Let me say that again,” he reiterated, “you will not become rich by being an artist.” I nearly got up and walked out.
Three years later I’m working shitty jobs preparing for graduation and I have realized what Terry meant about the financial burdens. Half of my income was going directly into funding art shows, and the other half was going into art supplies and applications to graduate school. I’m wondering where artists find the money to eat…
Three more years later and I have moved to San Francisco, trying to find a job. At this point in my life I (finally) realize that there is a direct correlation between the fluctuation of my bank account and my states of depression. The closer I am to a zero balance, the more worrisome and manic I become. When the balance dips into the negative, I shut down completely. I’m not sure why it took so long to realize this connection; it’s not subtle at all. But I started trying to work around this incapacitation - I shouldn’t need cash in my pocket to enjoy the gift of life.
Two more years later (last week) I’m looking at the traffic statistics of my website and realizing that I’ve inadvertently been marketing myself and my work for the past year and a half. This makes me happy, and I resolve to put more conscious effort into that. Likewise, updating my portfolio on ArtSlant.com I realized that I have a decent little body of work - it is meager, but consistent. Seeing my eighteen little images all together put me back in touch with the trajectory that I wanted to pursue when I started graduate school. Inspired, I began looking for exhibition opportunities and found some, sent my work to a few, and was really excited about getting my application materials together for the Edward Albee Foundation - a month-long residency in Montauk, New York for writers and visual artists. No application fee. But they don’t accept digital files so I had to order slides. Oops - my bank account is overdrawn, shit. Oops - my emergency credit card is maxed out… The deadline is February 28th, and there is no income on the horizon.
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Sudden paralysis…
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Oddly enough, the fact that by Friday I ran out of food was not my biggest source of stress. And being stuck at home, broke, on my birthday wasn’t my source of stress. Months of an unyeilding job search wasn’t it either. My big stress is missing this deadline. In order to get ahead, it seems like I already have to be ahead. I keep trying to maintain a hopeful outlook, but there’s no way to approach this problem without realizing that I have backed myself into a situation that has absolutely no options.
So…
In the shower this morning I reflected on turning 34. I don’t care about the actual date of my birth but care very much about my dysfunctional state of mind. I know there are solutions and I have to find them and implement them into my life. Other gay artists live perfectly functional lives, what choices am I making that prevent me from being one of them? What efforts must I start making to get my life on track?
The biggest one is shaking off this paralysis and continuing to grow my body of work in the professional trajectory that I recognized last week. That was a solid moment of clarity and I can’t let that simply dissolve because of one missed opportunity. I can get my shit together and apply for the Albee Foundation next year.
The second biggest one is finding an income - a shitty, temporary, part time, toilet-scrubbing income - so that I don’t find myself in this situation again. Obviously I don’t care about having an apartment, clothes, or putting food on my table. But I do care a LOT about being able to submit my work to places. Each of these requires some kind of expense, whether it’s an entry fee, or shipping, or simply the cost of materials.
So I’m starting off my thirty-fourth year of life in the spirit of “just keep aggressively doing what you love and eventually you’ll find a way to sustain yourself.”
The Artist and His Dog