I knew there'd come a day, but I didn't think it would happen so fast into my little small works experiment here - a day when nothing works no matter what you do to it. So I'm breaking a TINY rule. I'm going to call this "not quite done". Of course, if someone wants to buy it, shee-it...I won't touch a thing. But I'm gonna break out some oil pastels as soon as this thing starts drying.
I was thinking about Boston today and ran across a photo my sister had taken of the skyline when I lived there (I believe it's from the Bunker Hill Bridge), so I decided to do a rough skyline painting. The sketch went in well, and then...the paint just piled. And piled. And piled. I had to take a rag and wipe some of it off, actually, and then about five minutes before my hour was up, I worked feverishly to get to SOME sort of point of "closure". I finished, and wasn't HORRIBLY upset with it, and went downstairs to get the camera. When I returned, I picked the canvas up...and it fell. Face down. It was already a bit "painterly", but it looked WORSE. So I got out an old tortillon (a rolled piece of paper that forms a point, sort of looks like a pencil but with no lead, just paper) and carved some lines in the paint. I decided to stop and then come back in later and use the oil pastels. I hate doing this, because I really want to make my brushwork stronger. I'm more classically and technically trained in drawing, so I feel like I'm taking the easy way out if I bust out the more drawing oriented tools, but at this point, whatever. I considered just trashing the whole thing, but I decided that I need to post this for my own good. When it dries and I do the oil pastel work, I'll post the final.
I guess it just proves - everyone has a bad day at work occasionally.
I swear, I've started maybe 1,000 posts on here and never finished them! I know, I'm slacking. First, I did go to my high school reunion, and yes, it was a shitshow. I highly recommend going to yours, because really - the mean people did turn out to be a hot mess. I was rather surprised to find a few people turned out to be absolute knockouts and success stories as well. I'll post some pictures later.
I have an idea and hope maybe I could get some feedback from my readers here...
I've been noticing a lot of people who genuinely WANT to own original art but are a little dismayed by the cost. I'm all for putting prices where I can get stuff in the hands of people who really want to own it, but after a while, yes, the cost of making work gets in the way. It's not just the actual cost of the materials and support, it's also sales tax, broker's fees, commissions, etc. It adds up. I wish I could just give it away, but yes, Molly's gotta make a living.
SO - here's my idea. I'm tossing around doing one 8"x10" painting a day, almost a painting sketch, on hardboard that doesn't need a frame (but can be framed if one would like, at cost plus 5% tax) and setting the price at $100 each. Prints can be purchased for around $35, matted, and greeting cards can be purchased for $15 for a set of 10. Prints and greeting cards will be signed and numbered by the artist. All paintings, regardless of their state of being sold or not, will be displayed in an online gallery, so if a painting is sold, a client can always order prints or greeting cards.
I'm figuring this might make original art a little more accessible. Here's my theory: you get your photograph taken by a photographer, order prints and after framing, that 8"x10" space on your wall is about $100 to fill, regardless of oil vs photograph. Original art tends to go up in value as the artist ages (and God Forbid, kicks the bucket), so it's even an investment!
Would you go for something like this? What do you think?
I had the oddest dream last night that involved the following elements:
1. A plane that crashed shortly after landing. But we were all cool with it, and we were more concerned with getting to our destination (Myrtle Beach, SC for some reason - I haven't even been there since I was probably 13 or so) than with the fact that we had just crashed a plane.
2. A very crowded Burger King at breakfast. They didn't have any numbers on the menu for the value meals, and when I asked for my breakfast, I couldn't remember the word for "sausage" or "bacon" or "biscuits and gravy" - which I've never really had - and when I finally got it out by describing it, the people wouldn't take my order because they said I had to give them the number of what I wanted. There was also some sort of focaccia pizza that I kept calling Pizzacata, which is actually the name of a restaurant here in Philly - that doesn't serve pizza on focaccia/Northern Italy-style, it's served Neopolitan-style.
3. A midget. I don't know why, but the midget was there. This scares me, because I had a dream a couple of months ago that I had to go to someone's wedding with a midget as my date, and he was really mean to me. I didn't even like him in the least bit, but everyone thought he was the coolest person that has ever lived. I hereby apologize to the little people/dwarfism sufferers/vertically-challenged community if I've just offended, I don't know what the proper term is. His stature had nothing to do with why I didn't like him in my dream, he was just MEAN.
4. The city of Charlottesville, Virginia. I haven't been there in two years.
5. The people I went to Cancun with on Spring Break of my senior year of college. Ryan J, Natalie M, Traci R, Leslie C, and a bunch of guys from Traci's boyfriend's fraternity. I have no idea what was going on, but they were all there. With the exception of hearing from Traci every once in a while on IM/Facebook and Nat and Ryan being facebook friends, I haven't talked to any of them since I left UGA.
Anyone got any ideas of what this means? I was painting a very vivid, high contrast painting very late until when I went to bed, so I think my my mind thought it was in some sort of hallucinatory state.
I am posting this with the tag "art" because my favorite part is the sketch. Actually, professional police sketch artists aren't much better, so I don't know why they put "amateur" on there.
Some artists work exclusively on one piece at a time. I'd love to have that kind of concentration and dedication, but I just can't do it. I've got to have options on what to work on, I get frustrated with things, put them aside for a while, then come back when I have some fresh eyes. At any one time, I probably have about ten pieces in the works. Here's a small group of them: This was actually a HUGE reworking of a painting that I was never crazy about. I don't think it'll ever go up for sale simply because it's an overpaint that I never did correctly. I still play around with it every now and then - it's been "in progress" for six months. So far, this hasn't had a bit of paint associated with it, but this was an initial sketch from a picture I took of my "little" brother Blake. I'm a little iffy on the composition of it, the paper I drew this on is a lot more square than the canvas I want to put it on - it's hard to translate it onto a different space. This isn't showing up as well as I'd like, the color is quite a bit off. I found the reference picture associated with this while looking through an old high school friend's myspace page, and I took a bit of creative license to it. Some days I'm ready to trash the whole thing and start over. This had a lot of promise when I started... I found the reference picture - a friend had taken it of a poppy field in France - the same day my friend Claire told me the story of how she started her obsession with poppies. She was having a really rough time a few years back and was driving a lot between Knoxville, Tennessee, and Lynchburg, and one day, she was having such a hard time, she just pulled over to burst into tears about everything. When she finally looked up, she noticed that she hadn't even looked over on the side of the road, and right there was a huge, beautiful field of poppies. It hadn't been there the day before, and may not have even been there the next day, but she kind of adopted it as HER flower. I loved the story, and I think I might have kept it in my mind as I worked on this for a while. Unfortunately, however, the lighting has driven me a little crazy. I can't seem to give it depth. I'm going to pick it up and finish it pretty soon here.
I'm hoping to finish all of these BEFORE I move back home. I'll update as some of them get completed.
After a weekend of cleaning and organizing, I attempted to get back to work while getting the last of the stuff on my list done. Procrastination is not an easy habit to break, I tell you.
I'm working on a couple of pieces that I need to finish before I even think about leaving Philly. It's kind of a tough thing - I know I'm going to still have work up here when I leave, and with gas having jumped 15 cents in the past week with no end in sight, I guess I'm going to be eating a lot of expenses when I'm gone. It's amazing how much you expense when you're working for someone else, but when you're working for yourself, you'll do anything to avoid spending what little money you've got "invested." I put that into quotes because in reality, I'm investing everything I make back into further work. Anyway, I started a couple of things that I'm hoping to get done within the next couple of days so that I can get it off my mind at the very least.
I have a gift card with an art supplies website that I have avoided spending for quite some time. First of all, I usually need art supplies the EXACT day I buy them - I run out to buy something when I discover I'm out of it. With pastels running at $5 a stick, oils upwards of $50 a tube, and paper at $2 a sheet, it adds up...especially when I feel like I waste a lot of materials on stuff that will never see the light of day. Second of all, the website in which I have the gift card is a bit more expensive - leading to a bit of a pickle. Do I spend the giftcard on stuff that I KNOW I could get cheaper locally? Or do I save it for a time when I might find a deal with them? I have no idea.
Aaaaannd now I feel like I'm rambling about nothing. I think I'm in a funk. SOMEone, get me out of it. I need some good news.
I'm at Starbucks, where I came to get some "work" done. All I'm accomplishing is consuming my 7th cup of coffee and people-watching, but whatever. I am NOT going to the shore, home or out for the weekend, I'm having a Stay-cation. Staying in and getting stuff DONE.
I'm struggling with time management lately. I've always been a procrastinator. Not because I couldn't figure out how to do things, or because I took on too much, but simply because it was possible for me to procrastinate and still succeed. My evidence?
-I never did homework in high school. EVER. I'm not kidding. I was smart enough that I didn't have to do it. The closest I ever came was when I was driving to school every morning - I gave two guys in my neighborhood a ride to school every day, and one of them would sit in the back and call out questions while I gave him the answers. If it didn't require handwriting, he filled out my paper too. If it did, he gave me his paper in homeroom, and I copied it back in my own handwriting during Channel One. Ahhh, Channel One. It was the BEST. -College? Rarely did it there either. My dad told me the secret to college - which I should have ignored, given the fact that he failed out of Virginia Tech once - was to just GO to class. Even if you didn't take notes, you learned something. At the end of the semester, if you were smart enough, you could basically wing it and at least get a C. I graduated with a 3.75, and I'd consider myself to be a "coaster"...I put it off and did all my work at the end of the semester, cramming like you wouldn't believe. -Grad school? Yeah, a little different, but it was group work. I had a GREAT group of friends there - we all took the same classes, we always picked each other for groups, and we knew that each of us had strengths. I could put together written materials at 3 am, and I could pick up a presentation and wing it without ever practicing. Celeste was AMAZING at numbers (I seriously am going to hire her to run my business at some point), Kevin was a research guy who actually knew what those databases in the library were, Andrade was great with technology, and John...well, John was just pretty to look at. He kept me sane because I just always wanted to make out with him. -The corporate world...well, that's the tough one. I was in the wrong profession anyway, and I got scared I'd make mistakes that could feasibly cost millions of dollars.
Now I still procrastinate. I'm scared sometimes that my boss in the site I write for is one day going to say "Molly, it's called DEADLINES. KEEP THEM" or just fire me. Portraits are usually finished at the very.last.moment (just ask my friend Meghan) and I've literally had to send work off to a show on the last possible day to get it postmarked - still wet. I've rarely packed for a trip anything except the day I leave, and I'm famous for finishing my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve - in the last store open.
So I want to change. I'm trying the ever-present "To Do" list, but I'm making this one public. I want to get these things done this weekend...I will let you know what I get done. If I don't get it done, please come up to Philly and beat me over the head.
1. Get my winter clothes downstairs in storage. 2. Put summer clothes upstairs. 3. Clean the kitchen, living room and bathroom - top to bottom. 4. Assemble stretcher frames. 5. Write my assignment for the other website I write for - an essay on "I have never been more drunk than that night..." 6. Call my grandmother. 7. Get my friend April a baby gift - any suggestions? 8. RSVP for April's shower (Ha! maybe it will bring may flowers? Kidding, she's due in late June) 9. Clean out the fridge. 10. Start cleaning out the studio. 11. Get a list of stuff I'm going to sell before moving - anyone want a big-screen? 12. Find the $20 I got out of the ATM the other day. 13. Do some SERIOUS work on this business plan I'm working on.
That's about it. Seriously, don't let me be a slacker. I wish I could give myself an incentive, like a new something, but unless I find that money in item 12, I can't buy myself anything.
I haven't had a lot of art postings lately, but I'm getting back to it. My first step toward this is a daily "spark" to make you think creatively. Be it art, writing, music, whatever, hopefully it will get your mind going when you're staring at that blank canvas, paper or musical instrument. Even if you aren't an artist, it will help you think calmly and clearly throughout the day. I promise
Today's creative spark:
Pick a random picture from a magazine, flickr, or any other source. Don't look at any accompanying caption. Write down everything you see for five minutes. Write down everything about what you don't see for ten minutes. If there's people in the picture, who's taking the picture? What are the people thinking? What do they really want? How did they end up in this picture instead of another? If it doesn't have people in it, why not?
I love good branding. No, not where you burn the side of a cow, but the kind where good advertisers can evoke the message they want. I especially love branding when you don't even have to show the product - the consumer just KNOWS. Because ad man is THAT GOOD.
I am working toward getting rid of my photographically-challenged persona, so I dug out my mom's Nikon FE 2 35mm camera on Saturday and took some pictures. Hence the contest. I'm trying to understand a little more about the SLR so I can make my own artwork slides, saving both time and money. The photo excursion was fun, and they turned out at least halfway decent.
I was also THRILLED to find out that Adobe has made certain parts of their fabulous Photoshop software available to anyone for FREE via their new Photoshop Express service. Adobe, if you want to have me love you MORE, I highly suggest dropping a "review" copy of your CS3 Master Collection for Mac software.
Check out my photostream on Flickr for all of the photos I took, but here's a couple of favorites:
If you read Part One: My Story, arose from your cubicle chair, pushed the wall down ala Office Space, gave your ugly plant to your secretary, told the annoying girl in the corner that you really don't give a damn what stupid fucking flowers she picks for her bridesmaids' nosegays-not-bouquets and walked out the door with a big old middle finger in your boss' direction, I commend you. You much bigger proverbial kahonays than I do.
But you might want to get a plan.
As promised, here's my advice on how to actually quit your job.
1. As I said earlier, don't think it's going to go away.
I mean this in a bigger way than you might think. Say it bigger than you think you need to: I am not THIS job. I will go be THAT instead, and I am still me, regardless of it all. "I am" is a complete sentence in and of itself - the labels that follow are up to you, and only you can identify them.
2. Accept and grieve the loss of what you might have achieved in your current job.
The reality was not that I was a dumb insurance broker or that I was capable of "doing" the job. In fact, I was, and am, pretty darn smart. I could have gone pretty far in it. We're somewhat conditioned in high school and college to steer toward the career path that makes the most possible money while still falling within the range of our intelligence, talents and range of tolerancy. I wanted to be an artist. But I was smart enough for and could tolerate (at least for a while) an MBA and insurance. I could be making a lot more money, drinking Stoli-Doli's at the Capital Grille in Pencil Skirts, and talking to hot little businessmen from Underwriters' offices every day. But I made the wrong decision. So I had to go back and make the right one.
Truth be told, I can't say that I don't walk by commuters in Center City, sing Dolly's "9 to 5" in my head and feel a pang of jealousy sometimes. They can afford Starbucks - with an extra shot. They get conversation with adults. They get built-in feedback from all kinds of people while I second-guess myself. If they mess something small up, they don't run the risk of not being able to pay the rent. The list could go on and on.
But do I bottle that jealousy up and cover it up by getting on my high horse to scream to the world about how they're "sheep" and that their lives aren't tolerable in the "corporate slave" world? No. I'll leave that to the thousands of hipsters running around this city crying at Dashboard concerts. I had to admit to myself that while I wanted to be what I am more than anything and was willing to sacrifice what I needed to, it didn't mean that I couldn't miss certain parts of my former life. When you go through such a big change, it is quite literally like a death. You have to let that person go - but it doesn't mean you can't remember the good times.
When you acknowledge that you will have those pangs from time to time, you'll be better tuned into whether or not you regret things or whether or not you just have natural human envy. The envy passes, I assure you. While I'd love to sip fancy cocktails in cute little suits from time to time, I know that I don't really want the whole corporate shebang ever again.
3. Figure out how much you are willing to give up - then double it and triple it.
Or halve it or third it - whatever. The point is that it is harder than you think. When you have that amount of money - because let's be honest, it comes down to money sometimes - that you are, bare minimum, willing to live on, cut it again and figure out what you can do for supplemental income. More on this later.
4. GET YOURSELF INSURED.
I pay $483 a month for health insurance under COBRA. I consider this a travesty in the world's most developed country, who considers expression of one's self to be a founding principle, but that's another blog. My point is that you can NOT risk getting sick in this day and age. Take it from me. When I had zero money, I developed an ear infection, went to the doctor, and found out that because of lifelong frequent ear-nose-throat infections, I needed surgery within months or I risked losing my hearing. I was in surgery for nine hours. Yes folks, that's pricey. I was unable to commute ten feet into the studio for two weeks. Had it not been for that Cobra coverage, I could have literally gone deaf - there just wasn't the money available to go pay for surgery on my ears and sinuses. Furthermore, when you are hurt while working for an employer, you are entitled to Workers Compensation benefits that provide for your care. If you are self-employed and therefore not subject to the Workers Compensation Act and/or have dependents, it is all the more essential to find and keep health care coverage - that policy is your only source of health care. While chasing after your dreams is a wild adventure, it just doesn't mean you should risk life and limb just to prove that you're a starving artist.
The details: You are allowed, under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, to elect continuation of your current coverage for up to eighteen months after you have left your job. If you have access to equivalent coverage (if you get a new job or are covered under student insurance if you go back to school), you may be required to pick this up instead. The catch: you may be required to pay UP TO (yeah, they COULD charge you more in other cases) 100% of the premium. You can find coverage for you and your family - even with the SAME or better coverage - for much less through sites like this. Please read the fine print - mental health coverage is excluded, as is ANY and ALL preexisting conditions (except pregnancy) in most of these policies.
Please note that I have used my experience as my basis for this statement. While I am licensed in insurance in Property & Casualty Insurance in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I am not, nor was I ever, licensed in Life & Health Insurance. I do not have the moral or ethical authority to counsel you on insurance matters. Your HR representative will answer any of your questions or point you in the right direction for further information.
4. Go on a "stuff" diet.
I didn't even say "spending diet" like Oprah's gurus say to do or whoever. Welcome to the Wild West, because you're headed for LEAN TIMES, settler. Spending, saving, selling, reusing, robbing Peter to pay Paul - you name it, I can do it. This is such a big topic that I'm going to address in a later post, but do yourself a favor and sit down and take inventory - of everything. Everything you have, everything you owe, all of your ongoing bills, everything. If you have access to your bank statements, go through them for the past year and sort through by LOCATION. Put all the Starbucks, all the Targets, all the Krogers, all the CVS' together to get an idea of what you're spending if you have no idea. We'll get to work later on this.
5. Banish the phrase "Backup Plan" from your vocabulary. I'm not kidding. It's amazing how quickly you can get what you want when you make what you WANT your full-time job. I'm not saying you have to quit the gig now - I'm just saying to change your thinking. Do not say "I'm an executive assistant right now, doing the acting thing on the side until I can afford it full-time". If you don't think you're an actor, no one else will. Say "I am an actor." You may have a part-time gig that consumes 40-80 hours a week for extra cash, but you're an actor. One of the most valuable lessons I learned in business school was that Plan B is almost always devised for people and businesses who truly believe they need them. Solution? Work harder on Plan A. If you happen to need money along the way and there is no possible way your bills will be paid by your passion that month, then by all means, go find a way to make ends meet.
6. Seek advice.
Find people who know you, know your field, know what it's like to have experienced such a job change, and know the ins and outs of how to make this thing work. People who are good at something innately have a desire to mentor others that remind them of themselves or their experiences. I've called my grandmother for advice on acrylic paint more times than I can count and I've asked the advice of many artists - never once have I had someone tell me "I don't have the time to talk to you." Likewise, talk to your friends and family that know YOU the best. You'd be surprised at how many of them want you to succeed and are willing to help. I am not kidding you when I say that without exception, every single person who knows me has said "I know you made the right decision" at least once throughout this journey. Finally, find people who know the sheer logistics of how to make it work - and think outside of the box. On a lark, I called a friend in the financial business and simply said "tell me how I can quit my job." I was surprised to find that he gets a lot of people calling and asking the same question - how they can continue some semblance of their lifestyle while pulling in less income. News flash: they do this for a living - it's called retirement planning. Inventory your personal resources - and use them.
7. Forget about #6 - Don't pay any attention to advice. At least some of it.
There will undoubtedly be some people who think this is the dumbest idea you've ever had. I find they fit nicely into three categories:
a) people who wish they had the balls to do it as well b) people who don't know you very well c) assholes.
Criticism is part of life - and at the end of the day, I'd rather listen to the critic known as ME rather than one of the above characters. When my younger brother and I spoke right after I had made "the big announcement" to my family, he said something that proved invaluable -
"I want to see you do it - because I think you have the talent and skills to do it - and I want to see you do it on your own, if not for anything else than just to prove to people 'look, I did it, and you didn't think I could. So fuck you.'"
I know, we swear a lot in my family.
My point is this: yes, it is entirely possible that the critics could be right. I could die penniless. But I'd still be dead, and I don't see any armored cars following hearses of rich people either. Neither of us can take it with us. But I'd die knowing that I did what I loved and listened to myself rather than taking the advice of people who I never even liked to begin with.
8. Stop shopping for that crystal ball.
Yes, you could die penniless. But you could also hit it HUGE. That's the great thing about pursuing what you love - you just don't know. You DO know one thing for sure, however. No one is going to come barging down your door begging you to do this, and you will never know what you're capable of until you try.
9. Work your ass off at this. One of the things that truly pisses me off about celebrities is that they always seem to give this song and dance of "I'm just so blessed. I'm so lucky to have ended up where I did."
Shut the eff up.
Though I appreciate their bad attempt at humility, it's just not the whole truth. There is an element of luck involved with their success, but rest assured - they worked their asses off to get where they are. Even - God, I can't believe I'm giving her a compliment - Paris Hilton works her tail off at being famous for being famous. This country was founded on entrepreneurs and The American Dream, and it's almost never achieved without a huge amount of good old-fashioned elbow grease.
10. Meditate. Every day. Non-negotiable. You can think I'm new-age and full of shit all you want, but even Dr Oz agrees - it works. It spurs creativity, allows a better outlook on life, and creates an environment in which you will find what you need.
Don't tell me that you don't have the time - five minutes is all you need. It doesn't have to involve chanting or incense or anything, it just involves you letting go of your mind. In that great book I mentioned before, Eat Pray Love, the author went to India to learn the spiritual side of herself in an Ashram after learning the pleasurable side of herself in Italy. She talked about how difficult it was to meditate at first - like me, she was raised in a Protestant home in typical American fashion. You are not turning your back on any faith that you hold dear, I assure you, you are simply listening to God instead of talking to God in prayer. If you are Atheist or Agnostic, it still works - you are recalibrating your body to prepare it for another go-round of this crazy world.
I highly recommend Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now if you'd like further information, and there are numerous resources in your community and on the internet surrounding effective meditation.
11. Cut the excuses.
Dr Phil haunts me every time I come up with one, because he puts it very plainly when a guest gives him excuses on why they can not get toward a goal. No time, family obligations, financial constraints, the list is endless. While they're all perfectly logical and reasonable excuses, to use his words... "and how's that working for you?"
For a more upbeat and inspiring take on it, watch Dr Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video .
It's over an hour but worth it. This man is dying of cancer as we speak and he speaks volumes on the importance of following dreams. One of the most important points he makes is regarding the obstacles that generate these excuses:
"Brick walls aren't there to stop us. They're there to make us prove how badly we want something."
Godspeed, Dr Pausch. I couldn't have said it any better than that.
12. Finally, enjoy the ride.
Every so often, I can not pick up a paintbrush or look at my laptop to write as I truly think it's driving me insane. I go get a cup of coffee. I walk the dog. I go to the Art Museum. I go have a beer with an old friend. I call my mom. And I always remember why I got into this insanity in the first place.
Sanity is overrated, but happiness is not. Find the happiness.
Since I made the decision to jump ship from the corporate world, I have noticed a few things.
When I get asked the inevitable "...so, what do you do?" and I reply "I'm an artist", more often than not, people respond with "THAT is AWESOME", "I SO wish I could go do THAT", or "you are SO lucky". I love these comments, I admit - I love what I do, and when you can answer the "what do you DO?" question with an answer that you're genuinely happy about, it is a great feeling.
Since I've been having these conversations, however, I have discovered that there is a staggering number of people out there who really and truly want to do the same thing I've done. My friends joke with me that I've convinced quite a few people to quit miserable jobs when I've talked to them in bars like this. A couple of photographers, a few painters and sculptors, a knitter/crochet-er, you name it, I've heard it. At this point, they either tiptoe around or ask me very bluntly - depending on how badly they hate their current position "HOW did you do it?" I usually respond with a very vague, but specific answer:
I'm still learning.
I've had to do a lot to get where I am. Having no art degree, no contacts outside Virginia, and hell - only a small French Grumbacher easel and some student-grade paint that had survived five moves - I knew I had an uphill climb, to say the least, but I had to start somewhere. I read everything I could on the internet, devoured the books I could find on Amazon, and asked everyone I could think of for advice, but I soon found that there's very little practical advice out there - no one wrote "How to Give Up a Big Paycheck For a Career That Typically is Associated With Dying Penniless For Dummies". I was on my own. For all that it's worth, however, I'll begin to give some practical advice over the course of this whole blog.
My ongoing series: How to leave your job to do what you WANT to do.
Part One: My Story
Before you even begin to tackle the who-what-where-when-why, take this one piece of advice.
Give up on the idea that you'll make it go away. Chances are, if you are really considering that kind of leap, you're already mid-air. Tim Burton, the creator of some of the most innovative films of the 20th Century, said one of my favorite quotes: "If you have the creative bug, it isn't ever going to go away. I'd just get used to the idea of dealing with it."
When I decided to finally listen to myself, I was literally scheduling my lunch break every day for one reason: to go into the park and - no, not eat lunch, but have a full-blown, honest-to-God panic attack. It was almost a daily occurrence. I was in Independence Park that day on my lunch break, reading a book called Eat Pray Loveby Elizabeth Gilbert. I had just gone through the most painful breakup of my life, and I literally needed something to at least distract me from life for one hour. My dear friend Celeste had recommended the book to me, and the first few chapters had blown me away - I literally thought that the woman had somehow written everything I had been going through. Her description of heartbreak is quite possibly the most identifying piece of literature I have ever read, BAR NONE. I sat down and began reading chapter 27 - ironic since I was 27 at the time - and I became terrified at how much the story was speaking to me.
Gilbert, after going through a divorce and a breakup that spurred a chemical depression, took a life-changing year-long trip that began in Italy. In Chapter 27, she spoke of how she and her friend took a day trip to Naples, asking a friend in Rome to recommend a specific pizza place. It made me laugh out loud when her friend took great pains to write down the name of the pizzeria, pressing the address into her hand and saying - with all the passion and emphasis that he could muster - an Italian ORDER:
"You must go there. You must have the pizza margherita. If you do not, please lie to me and say that you did."
Having had my own falling-in-love-with-Italy, I laughed - if you know Italian culture, you know that Italians are passionate about everything. You could ask a Roman or a Neopolitan about his shower curtain and they would convince you that their shower curtain is the best that design has ever had to offer, and no shower curtain will ever compete. Naples is quite possibly the pinnacle of this type of passion. Naples is, however, by far, the most dangerous city I have ever been in. I met a U.S. Marine while traveling who said he felt safer in Fallujah than in Naples. My sister - a seasoned traveler who has walked through dark alleys in Islamic countries - was genuinely terrified when she and I had to transfer trains late at night in Naples. Every guidebook will tell you to JUST NOT GO. But Neopolitans? They love it. They're passionate about everything, and more specifically, about being passionate. Considering they invented both pizza AND ice cream, yeah, it's worth examining despite the travel advisory.
Upon arriving Naples, Gilbert made a beeline for the pizzeria with her Swedish friend, Sofie. They order the Pizza Margherita, and soon fall deep in pizzalove. They look at each other and dare ask:
"Why do we even attempt to make pizza in Stockholm? Why do we even attempt food in Stockholm?"
Yes, it was that good. I realized in that very second something that to this day still brings tears to my eyes.
I was pizza in Stockholm.
Yes, you read that right. I had been trying for so long to make ME into something that I wasn't innately supposed to be, I had completely lost any sense of what I was. I had a great job, a Masters degree, a fabulous apartment, more designer jeans than I knew what to do with, great freaking hair (if I do say so myself)...and none of it was working. I was trying to fill a hole that wasn't ever going to be filled with promotions, jeans, purses, highlights or anything else - except that which I was ignoring. I was a pizza in Stockholm being made with the same ingredients, with the same methods, in the same ovens as the ones used in Italy - but that magic, fabulous pizza just wasn't happening. But Naples...every pizza cook in that pizzeria makes every pizza with the same feeling in every bone in his body -
THIS pizza is the BEST pizza that has EVER been made.
That's it. That's the secret ingredient. The passion. The love. The excitement. That's what made it the best pizza in the world. Nothing else came close.
I decided then and there that I was sick and tired of being Stockholm pizza. I needed to be Naples pizza. Perhaps by some divine intervention, it just came to me: I was never going to be happy in the career path that I had selected. There was no way around it - I needed to go do what I was, dare I say, born to do.
I walked back into work with the most euphoric sense of clarity that I have EVER experienced. I went home, poured a BIG glass of wine and called my mom my to tell her about my decision. I just blurted it out: "Mom I'm going to leave my job and go be an artist." I fully expected her to be stunned, start yelling, tell me I was stupid, or call the loony bin. But she surprised me by pausing and saying what every person who really knew me would later say as well.
"I think that's the best decision you've made in ten years."
That was the easy part.
How did I do the other stuff? How am I still eating? How did I give it up? Stay tuned.
I decided to work on portraits yesterday and today and got a few things done. I got a few things done, one of the biggest being that I got the commission I was working on completed. I called the mom of the subject, hopefully she'll come by as soon as possible to pick it up, and more importantly, pay what's owed.
I also worked a lot more on Caroline's...I'm still working on it, but here's an update:
It's weird how much you actually DO have to see the subject in real life to get it right, or at least "good enough." I'm still working, there's a couple of things that I'm holding off until as late as possible since it's what's going to say "okay THAT's my kid." For now, though, it's progressing about like it should.
Finally, I've been working on this, which is based on a picture taken in 1972. One of my biggest problems has been that I left myself few options for properly composing it - I either am going to have to crop off part of the guy on the left or part of the guy on the right, and most likely, parts of both. Kind of a bad thing composition-wise - to have to crop out elements on the left AND right - but I suppose I can manipulate it a little better once I get it on a bigger drawing board or just on a bigger surface.
I'm still working on this one too - the third guy from the left's head is too small, the guy on the right isn't looking how I want him to look, and the child is barely even sketched in. I've got a lot of work to do. I'm not commissioned on this one, it was started during a class I took a while back, then I decided to go a different direction.
I've got some more posting to do today on the art stuff, so stay tuned...
I took a class last fall with the amazingly talented Isaiah Zagar. I'm no mosaic-ist, but I live next door to the Philadelphia Magic Garden and decided it might be a good idea to stimulate creativity, meet people, create some new veins of artwork, all of the above...who knew, I had money burning a hole in my pocket, and it seemed a good way to spend it. It was an experience I can't even explain...but I'll try in a later post. I met some great people in all kinds of creative mindsets. A graphic designer, a couple who owned some sort of paint-your-own-pottery place, one was trying to integrate murals into her work in the Camden County Community Gardens, and - my favorite - a fashion designer based out of Philly. If you're like me - and by "like me" I mean "watches reality television like it's her job" - you may know him...
Jay McCarroll, the enormously talented winner of Season One of Project Runway.
Jay and I spent two days with about 15 others making a big old mosaic mural in a warehouse space in South Philly (Sidebar: part of Zagar's genius must lay in the fact that he somehow has people pay him to do his work...how can I swing that?), and while working, Jay, his sister and I had a grand old time eating Italian deli sandwiches, chatting, gossiping about the state of Britney Spears, and generally creating and contributing toward our collective artistic madness.
Anyway, I ran into him the other night on Walnut Street. Of course, it was right after my roommate and I had cried over a few glasses of wine and conversations about boys, so I got a nice little "Molly, are you okay?". Yes, Jay, I'm fine.
But since I love supporting Philly artists, great design and nice people who cure a hangover by singing "Me Against the Music" to me on rainy, cold October mornings while watching cement mix, Jay gets a free plug.
PS - The picture really has nothing to do with Jay other than the fact that it was taken during Isaiah's workshop. Seriously, that's the guy's HOUSE. Every square INCH of that place is covered in his work.
-This was done loosely based on a view of the vineyards at Castello Banfi, outside Montalcino, Italy. I LOVED this place - ate the best meal I've ever eaten in my whole life, "tasted" a lot of wine (read as: got really drunk) and wandered the grounds of a Tuscan Castle that's been making wine in some form or another since Roman times. If you're ever considering a trip, I highly recommend just renting a car and driving through the region - you'll be tempted to throw the corporate life away.
The Boats 24x36 Oil on Canvas 2007 Swann Collection (Private)
-Cinque Terre, a region on the northwest coast of Italy, is such a vibrant place. There's no black, white, or gray there - everything has these bright, vivid colors. CT is made up of five tiny fishing villages, connected by a rickety old rail system and a beautiful hiking trail owned and maintained by Italy's National Parks. I was tempted to throw my shoes over the telephone wire and buy a boat and become a fisherman. I can still smell it every time I see this painting - when the fishermen came in around 4:30, the entire town of Vernazza would smell of freshly baked focaccia bread that was coming out of every baker's oven in town. I have a theory that if we pumped that smell through every city in the US, we'd see crime rates plummet. You really can't be angry when you're smelling fresh bread.
Tulips 20x24 Mixed Media & Acrylic on Canvas 2008 For Sale
-I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and started looking at Cezanne and Kadinsky - their work, plus a desire to get into acrylics and a big old case of Spring Fever equals semi-abstract and vivid flowers. I really enjoyed this one.
Levi 24x36 Oil on Canvas 2006 Collection of the Artist -This was for sale for a long time, but the only piece with which I really ever had any attachment. It was done from a photo that was snapped of a guy I was dating at the time, and I intentionally left the face blank because it seemed to really fit the subject and composition. He had gone fishing with a friend and it's probably the most biographical thing I've ever seen of him - the cutoff army fatigues (they made it through 2 tours of duty, they're probably better worn in than any comfy jeans I've ever owned), the cowboy hat and especially the landscape...it kind of just screams of the area where I grew up. Still wrestling over whether to sell it - I've had a couple offers that ended up falling through, sometimes I think I'm not supposed to sell it, given the number of times a sale has been attempted.
Back Bay Windows Oil on Canvas 2008 24x36 For Sale -I lived off Commonwealth Avenue in Boston for a couple years. After living in Atlanta, where everything was so brand-new, it's a minor shock to walk down these streets with homes that look the same as when some of the Founding Fathers lived there. I found the architecture on Comm Ave (as Bostonians call it) to be so synonymous with the Brahmin that live there - old, stately, classically elegant, and you always kind of wonder what's in there. I struggled with the perspective on this for a long time before finally just deciding to go a little nuts with it. The colors may not show up well, but it's got a lot of expression in it and used some techniques that I was a little unsure of until I really got going.
Mykonos #2 Oil on Canvas 2007 24x36 Hubbard Collection (private) -I went to Greece during the Olympics of 2004. If you've never seen Greece, I can not begin to explain how incredible it is. They hold onto their history, culture and identity like no other people, and have this innate "I don't care what's new, this has worked for thousands of years" ideology. The island of Mykonos, set right in the middle of the Greek Isles, is this beautiful little gem in the bluest water I've ever seen in my whole life. One of the greatest things about Mykonos is that there's these tiny churches all over the island - literally over 12,000 of them, there are more churches than residents. I loved painting the whites of it - mainly because I used relatively little actual white pigments - when the sun goes down, suddenly the buildings reflect all kinds of colors you never knew were there. I saved some of the mixed paint from this as long as I could - I fell in love with the pale yellow and the odd blue of the sky.
I'm not very good at taking pictures. I think it's one of those things where I could be better at it, if only I'd invest some time into it. I'm not knocking photographers at all - far from it. They're incredible artists who capture beauty through perspectives we either take for granted or never knew existed, handily presenting it in a format that our eyes and brains are conditioned to believe as truth.
My theory: good photographs don't happen because of expensive or fancy equipment, they happen because of patience, direction and knowledge of certain aesthetic rules. While painters can get away with creative license and editing certain elements out of their work, photographers are forced to work with what's present or what they can bring. So I started thinking about composition - how one frames their image and arranges their elements.
In an effort to improve my own work, I set out to take a couple of pictures today on the way home from an errand. I meandered through the streets in my neighborhood, hoping for something to jump out at me. I remembered a piece of advice a photographer had given me - to experiment with different points of view - and I tried getting a very low viewpoint to start.
At the park at the corner of 11th and Pine, I found these:
I have a couple more, but this was probably the best one for my little composition goal. I kind of just liked the way the leaves were catching the light and creating a lot of contrast. Tried to create passage through the image, but I was a little limited - I had to take this through a gap in the iron fencing.
I walked down 11th toward my house, finding one of those little horse-carriage streets. For all you non-Philadelphians - yes, we drive cars down these streets. They're narrow. Try turning left from Kater Street a little past 8th Street - it's how you know if you've made it here. Anyway, I found this cute little area. Not too happy with these.
I had to fiddle with the color in iPhoto here. I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't keep the lens perpendicular to the ground, hence the perspective being a little off in the third image..
The final two are my favorites: This is a little private courtyard on 11th. I really love how northern cities, particularly Philadelphia and Boston, have these really pretty green spaces in the middle of the oldest parts of the city. Considering the age of these homes - most are at least 100 years old, and a big portion date back to pre-1800 - I wonder how the neighbors have shared these green spaces for so long.
This was kind of a one-shot, couldn't-repeat-it thing. I was standing in the middle of the street, and I got a little startled by the bicycle when it came up behind it. When I took it, it didn't seem to come out at ALL because of the glare of the sun. I took it home and had to fiddle with it to at least make it visible. I might paint this soon, I like what I think I can do with the color, and I really like the old man (a professor? just a businessman going green?) on the bicycle.
He needs a helmet, though.
All in all, it was productive, I suppose. I'm trying to make the rules of composition a little more second-nature - right now, I have to actively think about things like the Golden Ratio, 5:3, etc. I'm pretty good at keeping the rule of thirds, creating a quiet place for the eye, making a value study, etc, but I'd like to translate a little bit of this into actual painting.
The above quote is by one of the greatest portrait painters - ever. Kind of describes my work sometimes.
Lots of artists consider portraiture to be a "sellout". Personally, I don't care, you can find an artist out there who will consider ANY money-making activity involving art to be selling out. I do portraits because I'm good at them, because there's a demand for them, because they seem to be a dying breed, and most importantly - because I enjoy doing them. I love photography, but there's something about an artist's portrait that captures what a photograph never can - personality, charisma, and inner qualities that can't be summed up in a split-second exposure onto a photographic plate. I got into it rather oddly - my grandmother (my primary art teacher) hasn't ever really done portraiture, and I considered portraits to be out of range of my talents and education. When I was in the 8th grade, I was given a sketchbook and a subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine for Christmas. On a lark, I drew a few portraits based off of covers from Rolling Stone in pencil. It was 1994, and Kurt Cobain's suicide and the "fall of grunge" (or whatever it was called) called for dark, black and white portraits and photojournalistic styles. I discovered that I could pick up and translate value and shape well, and honed my drawing skills doing portraits throughout high school and college. I'm sure my mom still has those old drawings, the only ones I can remember now are that of Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, River Phoenix and Jim Morrison...man, teenage angst at its finest.
Since then, I've branched out a little, incorporating those portraiture skills into other media, namely pastels and charcoal. While I love my "other stuff" - what might be on the Fine Art side of my work - I genuinely like doing portraits, especially of children. I had my own portrait done twice growing up, and I'm fascinated by portraits by other artists - the aforementioned Sargeant, Andrew Wyeth's Helga Pictures, Jamie Wyeth's incredible depictions of Rudolf Nureyev, even Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych - actually meant as a statement of mass-produced art - they all kind of speak of the subject, the artist and the viewer, all at once. Only the very best photographers can ever hope to accomplish this.
For all that I love it, however...it's a stressful part of my work. Parents and subjects know themselves and their children better than I ever will, and people paying for commissions have a tendency to think that the subject is....shall I say...better-looking...than an artist may depict. One of the reasons I love what I do is that it's very difficult for someone to say that my work is "wrong" or "bad" - critique is possible, but an artist who knows the rules breaks them with beauty. I can't really push that boundary with portraits. It either says "hey, that's Junior!" or it doesn't. I have never had a commission fall through for this reason, but it's stressful. Furthermore, traditional portraiture, in many ways, is a dying art. With simple photo editing software, one can create an artistically-styled photograph, complete with digitized brushstrokes and everything. I, and usually everyone else, can spot this kind of "portrait" a mile away, but it gets a little frustrating when clients will say "I want you to do it exactly like this picture here". Doing portraits from photographs alone is difficult, at best, and the artist is almost never satisfied. Andrew Wyeth, arguably the greatest living American painter, turned down Jackie Kennedy's request to create a posthumous portrait of the late John F Kennedy for this very reason. When his son, Jamie, was offered the job, Andrew cautioned him against it. Later, the elder Wyeth turned down an enormous sum of money when he declined to paint a portrait of Michael Jackson - simply because Jackson wasn't available for adequate sittings.
I wish I could have the ability to take this kind of stand, but...the Colonel needs to get fed, and bills have to get paid. So, on occasion, I will accept photograph-only assignments and commissions. I'm trying to improve my work done through photographs, so I've accepted two from college friends of mine.
My first is of Caroline, my friend Meghan's lovely tow-headed daughter. Quite the little diva, according to Meghan. I lived with Meghan for a year in college and we're still quite close - but Caroline's going on 3 years old and I've never met the child. I know, I'm a bad friend, but I've been living up North. I told Meghan I'd do Caroline's portrait way too long ago - so long I'm kind of embarrassed at how long it's taken. Work got in the way, blah blah blah. It's my gift to her, so I figure I can spend a little longer.
Here was my first attempt:
It was all right. The proportion was a little off, but that's pretty easy to correct. My problems lay in the fact that I should have used a bigger piece of paper to ensure correct composition in a frame, I needed to use better materials, and (here's the big one) - Caroline's a little too young here. Babies are great, but artistically speaking, they start looking like themselves somewhere around 2 years old at the earliest. This is still on my studio wall, though. It's all right I suppose.
My second attempt:
I'm not even going to show it, I am having camera battery issues, to say the least.
This was intended to be a pretty quick sketch, then Oprah sucked me in and I did this for a couple hours in front of the TV. I used the wrong paper here - as children have a "softer" look to their features, I needed a smoother paper. As a result, I couldn't pick up enough of the red in her mouth when I came back over it to blend and lift color. Not my favorite, I hate people even looking at this one.
Now I'm starting over from scratch. She's a little older and a little bit easier to pick her out of a crowd.
Here's the initial sketch:
Fear not, Meghan. It's just a base, it never looks like your kid at this point. Done with vine charcoal on Mes-Teintes Canson Paper, which is seemingly getting more expensive by the day. The shadow in the corner is my morning coffee, which surprisingly managed to keep itself off my work this time. I worked on it for a bit today and put it up when I got stuck. Part of the job is knowing when to walk away from the table for a bit. Kenny Rogers' The Gambler, as related to art...my friend Maverick swears that the answers to all of life can be found in that song, and I agree. It's very Taoist if you look at it.
I'm also working on a sanguine/red chalk and sepia portrait of Shaye's daughter Neely. Another tow-headed, bow-headed, all-around cute little kid. Shaye was nice enough to just give me the login and password to her snapfish account for finding reference photographs, which Neely seems to love posing for. My mom WAS a photographer, and I think most of the pictures of us have one or more of us looking pissed off about getting our picture taken. Sometimes I feel like calling my mom and apologizing for being such a pain in the keester.
But at any rate, this is what I have so far of Neely. I'm a little stuck on what to do with the background. If I can find some decent paper, I'm going to scrap it and try something new involving staining the paper with coffee or tea. Kind of a risk - the acidity in them will degrade the paper over time. But I figure it's worth a shot and I can let the archivists figure out what to do with my work when I'm gone.
I'm obviously still working on her face, homegirl doesn't really look like a China Doll. Comments and critique are welcome...after a scathing review of my portfolio this past winter, nothing hurts my feelings anymore.
PS: I would post reference photos as well, but don't feel that it would be appropriate. They're not my kids, after all.
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