Living as an Artist

Today I ran into a friend from childhood, and upon receiving the question, "What are you doing now?" I answered, "I'm living as an artist."

Just now it is striking me that I can't think of another profession that one declares living as, instead of just saying what it is. "I'm living as a teacher." "I'm living as a social worker." "I'm living as a Zombie Prevention League Investigator" (Live on, friend..)

So now I'm wondering not only why it's a thing that people say, but why I said it without thinking. My guess is that although it is implied that other working people are simultaneously living and earning money doing their job, there is a broad assumption that many artists are making art in addition to "earning a living" doing something else. Art can be a hobby. In the moment, I felt the need to distinguish myself as someone who is making art for a living.

I often hear "How do you make money?" in a genuinely curious, non-offensive way, because many folks are surprised that emerging artists can support themselves just by selling art. WELL IT'S NOT EASY. (Forthcoming blogpost will answer this question!)

Meanwhile, I am living, working, and playing as an artist. As with any part of life, my feelings about it swell and flop by the day. Sometimes I feel so proud to be doing this. Sometimes I feel like it's not valuable to society at all. I always feel incredibly lucky to be in control of my time and energy.

Yes, I babysit on the side to help pay the bills. I am also grateful every day that I have a full-time week, month, and year(s) to make art, to promote my art, to explore my own art-mind and the art-minds of others, and to practice, practice, practice. I can see my art growing in a way that it never would if I also worked in a restaurant or a school or an office, and I am so thankful.

Went West

This spring's Go West! Craft Fest last weekend was sooo goooood. It was gorgeous weather, cool location, lots of variety and very talented vendors (I'm pretty sure. I wish I'd had a chance to wander away from my table..)

I had a blast, and felt quite successful! I wish I'd brought more prints! I'm getting better at knowing what to bring (I think).

I am always reminded how many people love maps and also love maps turned into art. ME TOO. I'm always happy to hear what you want to see-- any country you want as a creature? Let me know.

Thanks everyone who came to visit and all the new friends :)

To Sum Up

Whoops, forgot to post ANYTHING upon returning to the East Coast. Anyway, here is a review of my tiny life as a human/artist in 2013.

• I published Belly-Belly and hosted a wildly successful Book Release/Art Party for it.
• I made art! And showed at a couple events/venues in the early year
• Many thanks to my former assistant and wonderful supporter/partner at the time
• One significant relationship ended as I knew it, and I moved from Philadelphia to Bethlehem, PA
• I biked across the country for 66 days, and kept a sketchbook of daily drawings of the journey
• Landing in Seattle in August, I decided to stay there for 3.5 months, making art and working for a wonderful family as a nanny
• I was very lucky to show work at Revolution Books Seattle, and made all new work for a show there (Maps for Some of Us)
• I tackled some recurring health issues
• I flew back to Pennsylvania in a mere 5 hours, moving home on November 29.
• I felt very grateful to spend a lot of time with my best friend and both our families :)

Looking forward:

• I am participating in a very intriguing social art project in 2014 (more on that soon)

• I will be leading a workshop on Simplicity at the Young Adult Friends Gathering this weekend

• I hope to bring storytelling into a more significant role in my life

• I plan to use my time at home with my loved ones to focus on all kinds of healing


Thank you everyone who has been present to me this year. I love you!

j

Last moments in Seattle

Today I smushed Spaceghost into a cardboard box, packed up my art, said goodbye to my beloved nanny-family, and thought very hard about maybe packing up my worldly possessions to bring back to the east coast with me.

(Spaceghost is my bike, by the way.)

On Friday morning I will leave Seattle, and 140 megawatts and 5 hours later land in sunny Philadelphia.

Hey-- the internet just told me that the energy my flight will consume is equivalent to the energy a typical home will consume during the next 61 years. Pretty cool that I didn't need all that fuel to get here in the first place! ...But yeah, a bummer about all that carbon. I find it hard to believe that the $11 I spent on carbon offsets offered by Studentuniverse.com can actually tackle all that.

It is definitely a little bittersweet leaving this temporary home, but I am very ready to be with my families back east. Thanks for everything Seattle, I have felt very lucky, and it has been super real.

P.S. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Get this card in the card shop!

Summer Review

…So to sum up:

• Biked across the continent with 2 friends
• It took 2 months
• I drew something for every day (U.S and We Sketchbook Project)
• I decided to stay in Seattle
• HERE I AM, IN SEATTLE

This is us, getting to the Pacific:

..and by Pacific I mean Puget Sound, but we biked 3,000+ miles so I don’t want to hear it, it’s salt water OK.

More updates soon on living in the Emerald City.  So far it’s pretty rad.

InVenture, Summer 2013

It's officially Spring now, so here's what I'm doing this summer:

My friends and I are bicycling across the continent

from Bar Harbor, ME to Seattle, WA,

starting June 5,

ending when we're done.

The three of us call this trip InVenture. 

We've agreed on taking off without pretending we have any kind of answers, 

but tons and tons of questions, aimed outward and inward. 

But InVenture sounds better than OutVenture.

Gosh, joey, that's pretty bad-ass.

Yes, yes it is.

Are you ready?

WHAT?

The only way in which I'm ready is feeling open to changing more than I can imagine,

and embarking with the resolution to live as closely to my self as I can manage.

I wrote out a statement a couple weeks ago, and I might as well 

put it on the internet so I can't back down, right?

Actually it's kind of long and super personal, so I'll just give you the summary.

My goals for InVenture 2013:

Stand up to injustice, instead of running away

Live as a radical spiritual badass

Recognize my privilege, while doing something important

Take care of myself

Love, Love, Love

That's pretty much it.

ALSO-- if you think I'm gonna go 5 months-ish without making any art, 

you're crazy. So watch out for the InVenture art project, details coming soon..

Ver-cation (as in, Vermont.. vacation)

VACATION!! In Vermont. Ver-cation, if you will. ...you don't have to.

Anyway, I'm in Burlington, VT for the weekend with some of my best friends in the world, 

visiting, planning for adventures, and generally having some good times.

Just doing some doodling in a café on Church St. right now:

:)

ART VS. LIFE

i was so happy to share a workshop with young adult friends (quakers) this weekend. i'll let you figure it out from the pictures. p.s. can you guess which one is mine?

Winterfest !

Hey friends, please come visit my table at Winterfest today at the Schuylkill Environmental Education Center in Philadelphia! Look at these super stellar magnets I made that will be for sale:

Plus 18 other cool things that your kittens, best friends, and first grade teachers REALLY want for some kind of holiday gift. Come on over.

More Human

Feeling a little more human than artist today-- still making art though. Just watch out it might get a little real.

In the meantime, trying to figure out the best way to give empire the bird while trying to survive. Other thoughts include:

• Probably moving out of the United States of America, which is stolen land, and send all the American Indians a letter that says sorry about all the stuff I took while I was here.
• While I'm penpal-ing I might as well write to Obama and tell him how I feel.
• Poor guy.
• Building up the courage and confidence to give away all my things
• in general attempting to be more

That's it for now, have a great day !

Message

I had a half-message in Meeting on Sunday that I did not give, but here you can have it now.


I'm struggling and hurting and seeing the Earth running. She's big, she's really big, and she's full-on sprinting, now. You know when you're running very fast and you start to stumble-- and you either catch yourself or you fall hard. It's that moment. I'm waiting to see if she balances out or crashes down.

The other day greg was on the internet trying to find a good pair of hemp vegan hiking boots (who isn't?) and the kind he wants isn't being made anymore. There's a similar kind that would work but it doesn't have the ankle support. He said "do I really need the ankle support?" and I said, well how's your ankle, since he sprained it awhile ago. And he said "well they say after you break your ankle it's stronger."

I wonder if we don't manage to balance out, which let's face it, seems pretty unlikely, sure we would fall hard, and it would hurt... But I wonder if we could get back up, and I wonder if we would be stronger. I know it would take awhile, and it may not be the same earth, but hey. HEY. That's just what I'm seeing.

Good luck, us.

Things to know

Many apologies for the hiatus. I'm not even going to write a long post to make up for it. Here's the nut (that is, the contents of the nutshell) :

• 2 craft shows coming up, more on that very soon
• Been working on greg's website for his awesome project, CHECK IT OUT
• Something very excitinggg is in the works... hope you're curious because it's very cool
[..His name is belly-belly]
• Here are some things I've made:

The Goal

Among the happenings in the past two days while huddled up in our room waiting for Hurricane Sandy to do what she did, was the realization that we should start acting like we're on the same team.

We, as in, earthmates.

So, my new goal in life is to convince everyone (all earthmates) that we are on the same team. And the goal of the team is for things to be OK.

Clearly, things are not OK. BUT, once we all start acting like we're on the same team (goal!) things will get better.

This I know to be true.

So here is what I'm doing to begin this new leg of my journey:

More coming.

Please share !

Still making stuff

It didn't work out to move to Vermont, so now I'm headed to Philly, which is the next obvious choice. Obviously.

Moving into a house in Mt. Airy which is about the cutest little pie in Philadel-pie and I'm pretty pumped about living there and making artsy things.

Speaking of which ! There are even more creatures in Countries Anonymous now which is still up at Moravian Academy, and here's one:

Darius

Green mountains and earth

I have now been living and working and eating at Evening Song Farm for a week.  Beautiful, exhausting, fulfilling, delicious, real. Absolutely adoring being in the mountains.

Looking for a place to live in Vermont, sort of outside of Burlington. Appreciating simplicity as I live off the one and a half bags of clothes I brought for this month, but missing my camera these days because the sights in my eyes are incredible, on top of the smells and tastes. For now here's a pic that someone else took of the dogs in the barn during a CSA pick-up.

Lots of stories to share but for now I'll just say that greg made carrot-beet juice tonight out of our own carrots and beets and it tasted phenomenal.

Back in Action

Not that I was ever out of action-- this summer was a blur.

Camp was jam-packed with activity, emotion, awakenings and a minor head injury. Feeling awake and alive and ready, for something.

What's next ! I got to be in Bethlehem for a couple days, then scooted over to NYC for a minute which was completely overwhelming and now I'm en route to Burlington, VT to see my best friends and I'll end up living on a farm with some other friends for an undetermined number of weeks.

Otherwise, during the tiny scrap of time I was home I managed to put up a version of Countries Anonymous at Moravian Academy Upper School, as an exhibit featuring an alum artist (me), which was great because I got to get back into my artist mind and body, and also got to catch up with my high school art teacher.

So if you're in the MA community, check it out! It'll be up until September 21.

Me and my studio assistant setting up Countries Anonymous at MA

It feels like

Things that I've done since I last posted here:

Put up and took down Countries Anonymous, which was a ton of work and fun
Graduated from College
Moved out of Rochester
Reunited with my best friend
Gotten my wisdom teeth removed from my skull
Packed for 2 months at camp, starting Monday
Fallen in love with all kinds of people and ideas

It feels like many more moons have passed than actually have-- and who's counting anyway?  I feel good. And I've recently come to realize that everything happens for a reason. Isn't that cool?

I will put up some pictures of Countries Anonymous soon.

THANKS! for something. and everything.

Springtime in Boston

Spring Break ! (is over??)

I was lucky enough to swing by (ha) Massachusetts on my way (….) home, and got to visit with my wonderful cousins and a couple other friends, and traipse around Boston for a day.  I'd never been ! Guess what, it's pretty grand!

I was impressed with the MFA where I was pleased with myself in recognizing the work of several artists (I guess I am getting an art education). We also checked out the Mapperium, which if you haven't heard of, it is PRETTY COOL-- a big stained glass globe of the world around 1934. It's incredible how much has changed-- especially Africa. Shout out to my girl Lily in Tanzania this semester.

Secret Mapparium Pic

Modern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

It was so good to be home and relax for this short time, but I'll be going into get-it-done mode when I get back to school… 2 and a half weeks until my show Op/Ed opens (!!!) 7 weeks until the group show at the Hungerford opens, and 9 weeks until graduation…

How's that sound?

Midnight in [Anywhere]

Have you ever seen Midnight in Paris?  I saw it at the Little Theatre this summer and got a huge kick out of it, and watched it again recently.  If you haven't seen it (see it!) the premise is: an unlikeable Hollywood writer turned novelist and his unlikeable fiancée go to Paris with her unlikeable parents, where the protagonist (who in reality is supposed to be quite likeable, but I can't stand Owen Wilson…) discovers he can time travel at night, succeeding in meeting his extremely likeable literary idols like Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald etc.  Predictably, he falls in love with the 20s and a certain mademoiselle in his new (old…) artsy circle.

Woody Allen (huzzah!) is making fun of "Golden Age Thinking"-- the desire to live in the past; the era before the present is always the Golden Age to us.

WELL. As I was watching I thought-- uh, yeah! Totally. I am one of those too-good-for-my-own-time, just-wanna-live-in-the-past-ists, I guess. But actually, the more I've been thinking about it, I am grateful for this time. It's funny, as the internet starts to spin out of control, I think about how saturated our lives are with information. Global and local news, research, events, ideas, art, communication, media, at our fingertips.  It's kind of stressful! Is there an equal amount of good and bad to this? I'm not sure.

I appreciate the past, and I am open to the future. With all this overwhelming information in "real time," it's hard to acknowledge the present. As an annoyingly critical (self and otherwise) individual, I find it personally difficult to place myself in my generation. I want to be important! ..but not in a bad way …?

Especially at this time in my life, in a lot of ways I'm "only 21" so it's OK to still be exploring, but I'm really not OK with there ever being a time when it's not OK. Change is inevitable, but where we go? Ah, the possibilities...

Life in 2012-- and Tommy Kane

I would just like to share with everyone that because I was born in 1990, the last digit of the current year generally matches up with my age, so it's really easy for me to figure out how old I am based on the year. It's not as convenient as if I was born in 2000, but what I'm trying to say is, I'm going to turn 22 in 3 months.  …I wouldn't want to be born in 2000 anyway.

MORE IMPORTANTLY-- there is this artist named Tommy Kane and I am infatuated with his illustrations right now.  I love this kind of style, and his use of text is fantastic-- in this particular image he's talking about his relationship with his art in that moment-- so personal and nonchalant. Love it.

I have looked at every image on his site-- PLEASE check out the News Events, at least.

I have to admit, I would never have the patience to draw like he does, it would take about 8 years per drawing for some of them. The detail is insane! And it sounds like such an experience to draw places and objects from life, with people stopping to look and talk to him, and getting to travel all over the place… So much more interesting than photographs. Yes.

Image with permission from Tommy Kane.
http://tommykaneillustration.com