Finished!

• November 6th, 2004 • • jobs, painting •

Oh, I am so happy! I finished my first full painting in Studio 4A. It’s still slightly wet, but it’s up on the wall and ready to be photographed when the daylight hours appear again. Entitled “Planet,” the five-paneled piece I feel is quite successful. Though it’s not apparent to the casual observer it makes me quite glad to have used neglected canvases that were once doomed to never again see the light of day.

Painting is good, but I do miss printing. My last print pulled was when I was in Glasgow, Scotland for a week in the Summer. I desparately wanted to edition it upon returning home, but alas, life keeps getting in the way. Though there is a ray of hope: I visited PRINT Press in Denton, where I used to work part-time while I was in school. Currently, they are involved in a very alternative reproductive project that does not in any way involve the press as it is three-dimensional. My scheme involves visiting with the box of goodies I produced in Scotland and beg for some press time, since they love me ever so much. Please please please. . .! Life has a way of keeping me from printing; I could not for the LIFE of me get hired after I returned from Europe. It was the old “you have too much/too little” experience deal. I knew that the brand new BFA graduate would experience some trouble getting hired, but c’mon! Barns and Noble wouldn’t even take me!

Thus, I have been thrown into a crash course of what every art student needs to know, but was never taught in school. Networking. No, it’s not one of those crazy corprate buzzwords, it’s a simple way of saying you must talk yourself up to people you want a job from. Networking won’t work at retail stores because they don’t give a horses behind how much you bother them. Really, most retail managers want someone who is obedient and will do as told. You have to learn who to talk to, where to go, and what to do. Me, I’m shy to a certain degree, though I have no doubts about my abilities. It’s simply scary to go and ask someone “gimmie a job” while at the same time trying to impress them. It’s all who you know, right? Well, you have to go meet people so you’ll know them.

In the meantime, I plan to: be patient, make art, stay away from retail jobs that will gunk up my resume. I worked retail over summer semesters in school: retail is poison to independent thinkers. I would rather ask for financial help from family members and struggle with freelancing than work retail. I know, it sounds completely snobbish. But honestly, if I put the time and energy into working hard, I am going to work hard at finding a job that won’t cause my brain to whither into a raisin, rather than moving low-rise jeans from one side of Old Navy to the other.

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