Something to Fall Back On (Diary of a recovering artist)

[doodlemaier]

Yes, it seems that Adolph Hitler and I share similar brain damage . . . .

H just sent me a job announcement for a web content artist, a job I could totally do. I instantly went through looking for a reason to not even bother applying.

a. it's in Rockville.

b. said explicitly in the ad 'Not having created a lot of art isn't fine.'

c. (and most importantly) I have lost all confidence in making a career from my only god-given talent.

The only thing I wanted to do as a kid was draw; I'd have been very content to be that artist idiot-savant. 'No I can't tie my own shoes, I don't even need shoes! But, I can illustrate each step of the process'. These days I just feel like an idiot. I was told as a child that I needed skills to fall back on. These fall-back skills required so much of my energy/attention (let's face it, I'm not a natural mathematician) that I no longer saw any value in my artistic aptitude. I listened to these fuck-heads (whoever you are) and the desire and motivation were conditioned out of me.


These days when I apply for some shitty low-wage, mind-freezing office job, or see a tempting opportunity for someone else from the branch of a parallel universe that I declined, it makes me want to cry; especially when I realize that this is exactly the situation I wanted to avoid through having a rounded skillset! The imbalance is so strong that I feel the need to drop the bomb and watch New York, Paris, and San Fransisco burn while I enter data and file paper!

Fuck art, let's kill!

Comments

[helcat.livejournal.com]

I have lost all confidence in making a career from my only god-given talent.

*sad face* You have several more than one, but sometimes I draw from my own experience fighting my own drive to write. I don't do these things to squash you. And I have to say that, because other people often took my attempts to help as meddling and kicking up the inferiority complex a notch. If I show you the window and you're immediately rationalizing why it's not going to work, that's not healthy. We are trying to fill the blank at the end of "I am a ...." right?

This seems to fit the bill

[deansavatar.livejournal.com]

'. . . I feel like an idiot.'

Even though I know it's not true, I'm deeply tired of trying to fit in this society. I'd rather destroy it.

I'll settle for abandoning it. . .

[deansavatar.livejournal.com]

I know you want to help, and I'm not taking this personally (actually, I am but not from you) but an artistic job is out of the question. At this point I am completely unwilling to do anything remotely art-like for anyone's pursuits other than our very own.

[helcat.livejournal.com]

It's not even that I'm trying to help; I've been shot in the foot for doing that plenty. I just saw that, thought of you, passed it along. What made it interesting to me was they clearly were addressing who was wrong for the job. Aside from your lack of proximity and portfolio, I could already see that it was the kind of thing that would synch with your aptitudes and talents. For me, part of the "I am a writer" awakening process was seeing jobs out there that I could do. Same job in punksghanistan might have gotten the same forward. not because I want you to apply, but because I want to see what _possibilities_ actually tickle your fancy rather than get shot full of lead. At times I'm surprised, like now, particularly at the vitriole you're levelling at a hypothetical.

[deansavatar.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that it's not an emotionally charged subject, for me. But it's not motivating either.

[deansavatar.livejournal.com]

I was perfectly content sitting here wasting my life entering this shit into a database until I realized that this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing!

[helcat.livejournal.com]

i dunno. i feel icky. :(

[deansavatar.livejournal.com]

so do I . . .

[helcat.livejournal.com]

lurvely.

*snug*

[dontshootthecat.livejournal.com]

Dean - you are one of the most talented artistic people I have ever met. Dominic agrees and he's got talent by the boatload, that's doing him no good right now either. Screw the rest. That's why I promised you years ago that I would nuture and encourage lil' d in her art, or whatever she chooses to do (providing it's legal and doesn't hurt anyone). All of my life, I have been told what I can't do, or what not to do because other people think it's foolish. It just gives me motivation to thumb my nose at them when I can do it.

So, the more people who say I shouldn't up and move to the beach are really just encouraging me to do that, and be successfully happy. It ain't about the income, but it's taken me a lifetime to realize and believe that.

Now, pick up that pen and start creating your portfolio. We believe in you!!!!!!

[lil-psy.livejournal.com]

It's rare and sad to find so many people behind someone's talent without that someone also behind their own talent. But... I also realize that this individual usually takes the path less traveled and if everyone is pushing and pointing in one direction he is naturally going to look else where since that direction is getting way too much attention. I have faith though. :)

Oscar Wilde, art, and age…

[majormagik.livejournal.com]

"By the time one is 40, one has the face one deserves."
~ Oscar Wilde

That's been my favorite quote for the past decade or so and I'm reasonably certain it has been a major contributing factor to my not looking 40. But given my parents' "policy" about art as a career I should probably more closely resemble Dorian Gray.

I know most parents struggle with understanding the early searches by their children to find an identity and a path in life. If I had any children I think I'd always worry that I missed their unclear, inexpert attempts to tell me what they 'wanted to be when they grew up.'

My parents did. Why shouldn't it run in the family?

When I was quite a bit younger I wanted to be an artist. I still do, to tell the truth. My parents near-literally said, "That's not practical. You have to learn something you can earn money at, because you're a man."

Of course, six years later they remortgaged the house to send my sister to art school.

Fairly recently, one evening after Wageslaveday, my wife said something like — "You have to quit your job. I know you're trying to make a career at (insert name of corporate hell) but it is actually killing you. I'd much prefer you do what you love and what you're good at AND have you around then be able to say, 'He really kept his shoulder to the wheel' at your funeral."

I quit my "real job" the next day and have been increasingly involved in art, writing, sculpture, and DJing ever since.

Here's the one real problem in following 'the dream" though.

For a very, very long time I'd been taught not to dream at all. That if it wasn't practical and pragmatic, it had no value. For a time, I'd lost the talent. I still undervalue my art.

Don't wait the next six years — til you get your Oscar Wilde face — to realize that your dream is sometimes the only thing struggling to keep you on the planet, my friend.