Good things shouldn't freak you out OR Things all art students should know what I finally know

Today was Commencement for our 2012 graduates. I know many of my own students are filled with the terror of "what's next" and "how will I earn a living". I remember the terror too. Trying to explain that you might have a job outside your field while you pursue your art is hard enough to accept, not to mention, explain to others. As art faculty, we have the same problem. The alumni surveys go out with that question, "Are you earning a living from your degree?" Usually the answer is no. No, I work in radio or real estate or dog grooming, but I ask, what job doesn't benefit from an education? And more so, is salary the only judge of academic success? What about happiness or cultural appreciation and contributions? What about the artist who make a small amount of money from art, but gains a lot of happiness and peace from it, while they have a "day job" as a seamstress?

During our recent job interviews, one question I wrote was, "please talk about a time you felt things were going right in the classroom," and I was amused by imagining my own answer. Of course, seeing a light bulb go on as a student finally connects content and technique, but I think my favorite moment in teaching is more subtle. When I see students suddenly achieving at their work, making work for themselves and not just for me, that is when (I know from experience) the anxiety sets in. "How will I ever find a place in a world that is so career and rank oriented? How can I be so selfish to think I'm good enough to be an artist?" That realization is such a trauma. While it reveals a low self esteem for the student artist, it also means they have reached a level of knowledge to know how much there still is to learn. The student who doesn't show this, in my experience, is the student who has not yet questioned their own assumptions about "talent" or how an education should challenge their preconceived ideas about themselves as artists.

It's the students with that traumatic realization that are both self aware and in a precarious place in their learning. Then I tell them this, and I tell them as many times as I need to, til they believe me.

Art students in many ways are more challenged in school than other students. Most degrees ask you to learn what is already known, to retrace the logic of an experiment or philosophy that you might be able to replicate it, then send you to graduate school to start creating new knowledge. Not so with students of the arts. Much earlier, these students are asked to create new, never before seen works from new ideas. It's hard work they will likely never be acknowledged for by other degrees ("oh, you got an art degree? That sounds fun, but what are you going to do with that?"). This is an area art majors are at the advantage over others in the job market: generating NEW ideas.

And as for being an artist? We are both at the advantage and disadvantage. We will never be "hired" as an artist (in terms of making personal work), while doctors and lawyers are hired. They never question if they are a TRUE doctor or lawyer, but artists always question it (or at least, cyclically). BUT we can also Never be fired... we can only quit.

I usually point dramatically at the room at this point.

No one can fire you; but you can quit.

And when I see really good students (it's usually the really good ones) still struggling, I take them aside and ask, "Do you love this? Is this something you feel like you need to do?" When they say yes, I say, that's because you ARE an artist. You need it. And you want someone to tell you it's true, so I am. Remember it. And I know they will because I still remember when the title was bestowed on me.

There is always terror about the next show or series. Life tries to tell me my time is better spent doing something else, but here I am, still trying to make it work. I'm happy to be moving to be with my sweetheart and also joining another excellent program as a faculty member; I'm happy to find myself in escrow so quickly. But I resent all the time these things have taken the last couple weeks. I have art work to do!

Standing still

Who would have thought adjusting to the road would be easier than adjusting to being stationary again. I still sleep in the trailer, even though there are beds available. I shower inside, but that is no different than at camp. Daily showering seems extravagant. Addictions such as television, Internet, air conditioning, and eating out come slamming back like unwanted friends on Facebook.

How do you spend a day when there isn't a road to cover, strangers to make friends, and at the end of the day, you always end up exactly where you started from?

Sent from my iPhone

Three weeks

Yesterday marked the three week anniversary of my journey on the road. I crossed the border into California, marveling at the giant trees that closed in on the road, looking black to either side even though the sky above still showed day-time. I stopped to photograph a 1500 year old tree. A mosquito bit my forehead.

I'm in the Humboldt area now. Another hippie town, the northern sister of my alma mater, Santa Cruz. More rural that I remember Santa Cruz.

I'm picking J up from the airport today. He will join me the rest of the drive, probably concluding on Sunday. I have mixed feelings about this. It will be nice to have company, but it also terrifies me. All the silent moments, the thinking, the spontaneous stops, the not-closing-the-bathroom-door... will these all be lost with company?

I used to write in a journal, sketching ideas, reacting to events. It was good material for ideas for projects, and good ventilation for a cramped mind. When I started writing online, I know I began to restrict what I wrote, but was also pleased that the writing suddenly seemed "useful" because it had an audience. I worry I do not ponder things as deeply now, because I am trying to compose them, bring a beginning, middle, end and theme. Do musings always have these things? Right now, I am using the blog to outline the days, while I decide how this whole trip will be assimilated into my mind. Will having someone to talk to pollute these thoughts?

I have been listening to books, which I have worried would be too distracting. When I look at certain fields, I suddenly see the scenes described in my book, on the other side of the world. Will I lose the American landscape, if I am listening to a Middle Eastern landscape?

Leaving late

I enjoyed my relaxation weekend. You can tell, because it is noon, and I haven't left yet. Everything is stowed, and cleaned and ready, except to unhook from the land lines. But I linger. I spent most of yesterday photographing or watching t.v. on the Internet. It has been nearly two weeks since I have seen television, and I stared at it like a car accident. Even as I am hitching up, I keep starting new shows, shows I don't need to see, stories I will not miss if and when they are erased from my memories. It is clearly an addictive substance, the way drugs or alcohol are. To be back on the road is to separate myself from it, and I think that's why I linger. Sure, I am going on the Internet regularly (another addiction), but usually my signal is too weak for the video streams. It will be good, and lonely to lose this connection.

On the other hand, last night I watched a show in which a crazy person was trying to kill camp counselors in the woods outside their cabins. I am not in a cabin, but the trailer park looks just like a camp ground, especially at night, as I crossed through the dark to do my laundry. I have not felt scared on this trip until then, and it had nothing to do with real threat. That is what t.v. does, I guess...

Lake Superior, Minnesota

Still no Wi-Fi, so I can't update my map in the right. Now, I am likely to be in small roads and won't find Internet fir a while. iPhone it is! The success if today was a goal I set myself last night: to not use the GPS. Yesterday, it brought me a lot of grief, misjudging distances to turns or deleting the address numbers of remote parks and sensing me out into the countryside, on roads I could not reverse navigate. I stacked my wrinkled map pages onto my clipboard, picked highways over freeways and set their numbers to memory, and was on my way. It was a much more enjoyable drive. It has also brought me at last to a cross-continental two-lane highway, Route 2, which I will set out on tomorrow (I'm currently in Duluth). I'm not sure where I will camp tomorrow, but Saturday night I will be in Grand Rapids, North Dakota.

I will try to "typecast" (type-written blogging) again in the morning before I head out. I also have lots of pictures I'm saving for WiFi to post.