I got into the sold-out show for Houndmouth last night. I can’t kiss and tell…kidding. They just let me in when I told them I lived nearby.

I don’t often go to shows by myself, but when you can walk to the venue and you have a new pair of jeans you want to show off, you do it. I wasn’t banking on them letting me in, but I thought it was worth a try.

I’m really settling into what it means to be an artist

For years, I knew I wanted to be an artist. Literally since I was a kid. I had a natural talent and drive towards the arts. And, when my dad transitioned to a woman, the only thing I could do was paint and draw. It helped me process something, but it was also an outlet for my pain. Pain into beauty. We’re alchemizers as artists, don’t you know?

But, I really, truly, had no idea what it meant to be an artist in the modern world. What it would mean output-wise, how you make money at all, if you make money at all, how to apply for grants and shows, and how you keep to your own education. How to build your website and get your stuff out to the world. I didn’t finish art school. I dropped out two years in because I got nervous about making money, and I wasn’t getting the intensive study that I desired.

Art schools are kind of weird today. They give you too much freedom (in my opinion) and don’t focus on skill development. I built a doll house at one point, and then an 8-foot by 2-foot section of hardwood flooring that I then put a small plastic Lego cart on, filled with plaster that had my hair and nails mixed into it. I liked what I was doing, but I didn’t know how to have the work ethic on my own time. How to chart that I wanted something and go get it. They didn’t teach us that. I’m still learning it.

It was already such little structure, and I floundered. I had a nervous system that could barely focus and a chip on my shoulder for more. I applied to one school and one school only, so going to do anything else other than the arts was something I also wanted to prove to myself that I could do.

The artist’s life, at least how I experience it, is much slower. At the time, I wanted to work and work hard. I took 18 credits a semester after that switch. One semester it was 22 credits. I was deans list ’s list every year. I started a campus club called the Social Enterprise Club. I worked in the Virginia Senate part-time. I had internships and went to The London School of Economics and Political Science for the summer. I was just hungry.

But the artist, it’s not like standard business. And, honestly, nothing about what I learned in the business world is helping here. When I try to add what I’ve learned (process, plans, branding), it just fails. It’s not let me make a detailed, strategic business plan and follow it. It’s sure-fire trial and error, it’s 80% creative, 20% everything else. It’s keep your part-time job because you might have money from your endeavour in December but in June you’re broke. It’s buckle in for the long haul if you choose this. It’s you better have a tough stomach and a benefactor.

It’s everything about authenticity and nothing about planning. It’s sort of just vibes all the time. It’s adjusting to the thing before it. It’s not knowing what’s coming next.

I follow another artist/coach who goes online by the name of Inspired to Write. She’s awesome. At this stage, I see her as more coach than artist, but that is her art. Motivation. Moving you with words. Helping you understand the world. That is art.

There’s young artists all over who are trying to figure this out. Who have to say, there’s nothing else for me but this, and just keep going. This is me going. Even when every other day I’m like, well, maybe I’ll just go get that other certification and then do that job. I’m too much of an all-or-nothing person to do something as a side gig. Either we sink or swim, and guess what, we learn more when we do that anyway.

It could be years before I make any money as an artist

I’m letting that above statement really set in. The sober reality of that. Like, oh, wait, wow, okay, it really is years. I didn’t get that when I first started this. I’m used to: do X thing and get Y dollar. But this isn’t a job, it’s a way of being.

Being an artist is more than just selling a print. It’s a constant and consistent way of being with and seeing the world. It’s both spiritual and vocational. It’s not even really production-based, but production is a goal. It’s more about prioritizing the relationship to the being and the craft, finding your own path for education and contemplation. It’s all of that over money and product. It’s not really a business first, and that is the first paradigm I’ve broken in my belief about what it means to do this and do it well.

And yes, there are great artists who make great money. Damien Hirst is a multi-millionaire. Jeff Koons mass produces his work into office decor. Musicians make great, wild money. Authors get book deals and sustain themselves. It can be done. But what you have to be ready for first is for none of that to come. For nothing to be there but you and what you’re making. That what you’re making is the most important thing. You don’t have kids to say, Ah, I can’t wait for you to start working. No, you have kids, so they can simply experience the world, be loved, and prosper in whatever way they can. Your art has to be treated the same.

There might be a time when your art turns into production, but fuck, you can see the difference it when it does. The art becomes mechanized. It sort of lacks soul. It’s not saying much, it’s just pretty. And art should be pretty, absolutely, but there’s a big difference between a Damien Hirst work from his early days and the literally mass-produced stuff he’s making now. It’s lacking. It’s devoid of intimacy and vulnerability. It misses the best parts of why art moves you and what art is.

Finding my medium

I’ve been so confused as a human. I think we all have. Who am I, what am I, what does that mean, how does it impact my personal brand? It’s the kind of questions we simply shouldn’t be dealing with. It’s the kind of questions that only plague a culture that is image-obsessed, material-driven, consuming, not making, and disconnected from our aliveness.

I want to be a painter, I do. But fuck, it’s too hard to paint from an RV. I can do a painting occasionally, but I can’t paint a body of work like I want to. And I can’t get attached to this identity that therefore, I’m a painter, so I SHOULD be painting. No, just make whatever is coming forward at this time. Flowing and not pushing is the artist’s way. Fucking find it for God's sake. I wanna hit my own self over the head sometimes for getting in the way of my own creativity. Make whatever the fuck you want and make it badly if you have to, but just make it!

Love,
Val