Sales

I have a headache and it's not from last night, throwing down another dark beer and burning some trees just prior to brushing my teeth. Nor is it from the back pain that's plagued me lately (air conditioner related). I don't think it's my lack of sleep (caused by a cat that I'm tempted to break). I know it's not the stress of our recent engagement.

It's an irritation born mostly of my deep, growing dissatisfaction (resentment even) with the fact that I have to sell my time, my creative energy, my soul; for what? For food, shelter, health insurance and weekly indulgence in the vices that keep me dulled to just how much of myself I abandon each morning.

I don't hate working; I don't mind my job. What frustrates me, in fact angers me, is that I'm too busy thinking for other people to think for myself. That I'm too tired after stomping home to cultivate innovative thoughts, to create, to live up to the potential so often mentioned in my adolescent evaluations, mentioned in crits, mentioned in international magazines. That I'm too fucking busy surviving to succeed.

Which isn't to say that I'm surprised. I've prepared since junior high (earlier even) for this inevitability. Choosing the title Artist (if it's something you choose; I tend to think it's not) pretty much guarantees struggle. Many hold out hope for reviews, collectors, self-sufficiency. But they're the ones that make objects. Objects on walls. Objects with price tags, objects defined by a narrow definition of "value". I don't and won't, that's not where my talents lie.

Which isn't to say that I don't love materials, or that I haven't spent hundreds of studio hours polishing skills. I make things all the time, I can't help myself. Objects however, are not where I'll make my contributions, not where I'll truly produce. Not where I'll make the works I'm meant to.

I need time to forge concepts, space to craft critique. I'm a starving artist well fed and well paid.