Insomniac writing about balancing art practice, life and work.
I thoroughly recommend reading Blackbird Rook’s Substack piece Qualified for Nothing and some of the offshoot pieces that have been written in response to it. It is about times when fine artists have to consider taking on a stable form of income or parallel career options in order to sustain other commitments alongside their art practice.
During a bout of insomnia a few nights ago, I read this and I started thinking and writing about balancing jobs, life and art practice. This was a complete stream-of-consciousness tapping away at my phone notes page to try to prevent that vicious cycle of overthinking and becoming more wakeful. Some of what was emerging felt useful, some of it just nuts.
I have since heavily edited it to make it less ranty, but still, I hope doesn’t come across as horribly self-indulgent. At the time of writing I was sleep-deprived, on edge and ruminating about the very same thing - figuring out ways to balance time and money, work and painting.
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The ‘Qualified for Nothing’ post made me think about my own exit from painting practice in around 1998, just into my 30s. At that point, I stopped painting altogether, not returning to it until 22 years later during the pandemic.
Stepping away from painting occurred partly, but not totally due to being financially unable to survive. Since I was a teenager I had worked as a waitress, chambermaid or sales assistant to pay my rent, which I enjoyed and found sociable alongside the solitary space of painting. The other reason was more deeply tied to my own lack of self-confidence which made me feel directionless in both art practice and work, like I was flailing around haphazardly. I felt unable to communicate with people in the art world, even the lovely ones, and spent my 20s through to 40s running away from people and not engaging with life. At the time, escapism through whatever means - alcohol, clubbing, meaningless encounters - seemed far easier than being honest with myself and others or trying to unpick and deal with my issues. In later life I have come to realise that vast swathes of the population probably feel similar existential angst, but most are just less thin-skinned and more able to verbally communicate their fears and sadness than I could at the time.
‘Qualified for Nothing’ states that some artists who were forced to take on permanent, stable day jobs ‘carried the work internally, painfully, while doing what is necessary’. In the period when I wasn’t painting, I had little sense of missing it. Yet during the decade or so before, it had felt wholly absorbing and I thought and read about it constantly. It seemed to help make sense of life, give me purpose and make me feel ‘more me’. Stopping painting initially gave me a sense of relief as money became less of an issue. In hindsight, since being fully absorbed in it again, I realise that not doing it or thinking about it actually left a large void in my life, which my dysfunctional coping mechanisms happily filled (and danced around in, in big old Doc Martens!).
Today, after six and a half years of returning to my painting practice, I can’t imagine life not painting. I don’t paint as a form of therapy, but it does seem to allow me to ask questions about my place in the world and what life is about, even if this results in more questions rather than in answers.
The act of painting feels purposeful and the work seems to connect with some of the public some of the time. Equally my job is fulfilling and creative. But my energy is often low - and time, money and energy are often difficult to balance. Doing both a meaningful job alongside painting means necessarily that at some point something will need to give.
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In my idealistic mind, all paid jobs should be creative and fulfilling. And although this is going to amuse my lefty friends, and hack off a handful of others, I’m going to paraphrase Marx here (in the most basic of fashions).
Passages of Marx’s writing grabbed my attention decades ago when studying art history and critical practice. Most of my reading of his work was mediated via writers and thinkers such as John Berger, Walter Benjamin, Raymond Williams, Fredrick Jameson, Griselda Pollock, and more recently Ben Davis (Art in the After-Culture). Marx has been a source of inspiration ever since, even if I rarely sit down of an evening to read the Communist Manifesto.
As a non-intellectual, I often get a sense that I ‘feel’ his writing more than I fully understand it, however I do trust my gut instinct in believing that he was onto something big! Even though the world appears to have largely moved on from socialism being an accepted, if heavily contested, economic and political model, Marxism and socialist feminism seem entirely relevant today in a time of climate emergency and when people are pitted against each other in the name of nationalism and the financial interests of crypto-billionaires.
Marx argued that humans are inherently creative and productive beings. Unlike animals, who only produce out of immediate physical need (think bees producing perfect hexagonal honeycombs, or spiders’ sheerly spun gossamer creations), humans produce even when we are free from physical need. We do this in ways that can be beautiful, powerful, practical, problem solving; or sometimes without clear purpose. Art can be slippery with meaning. Meaning can emerge over time. Sometimes there can be opacity, dissonance and paradoxical thinking involved. Human creativity can be captivating and moving to others, memorialising and elegiac, or sublime and awe-inspiring.
Marx set out his understanding of our need for creative work and creative life in the following terms:
Species-Being (Gattungswesen). The term "species-being" is used to describe human nature. Marx believed that our defining characteristic as a species is our ability to consciously and creatively transform the world around us. When we imagine something in our minds, mix our labour with raw materials, and create an object in the physical world, we ‘objectify’ ourselves. We look at the finished product and see our own creativity and personality reflected back at us. ‘Work’ is the method through which we realise our full potential.
The Problem: Alienation (Entfremdung). Because Marx viewed creative work as essential to human happiness, he argued that modern industrial capitalism severely damaged the human psyche. When people work in a repetitive, uncreative production line or do mindlessly dull, unfulfilling jobs just to survive, they experience what he refers to as ‘alienation’.
The Ideal: Work as True Self-Expression. Marx’s ultimate vision for a future communist society wasn't a world where no one works, but rather a world where work becomes a form of play and self-expression. He envisioned a society where the survival instinct is taken care of, allowing people the freedom to develop their diverse talents. In one of his most famous (and poetic) passages of writing, ‘The German Ideology’, he described a society where individuals are not locked within a single, mind-numbing, cog-in-the-wheel career path. ‘..society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.’
If you can skip past the fact that these are quite macho activities, what Marx is articulating is, that for life to be fulfilling, work and art / creative activity should meld together, allowing humans to constantly innovate, design, and see their true selves in the world they build.
In our current times (how do I label this? Late Modernity, Liquid Modernity, Post-Industrial Society, the Anthropocene?) people frequently have to deal with the gig economy, zero hours contracts, mindless managerialism and ever-increasing pension retirement age. It feels like governments give more thought to pandering to tax evaders/ tax avoiders* (*however you want to describe some of the wealthy incomers to our communities, who pay little and contribute less), than to ensuring that the population’s basic needs are met.
I know that other creative friends struggle materially and financially while maintaining a visual art /music/ writing practice or relying on their partners’ incomes. This sometimes makes them feel guilty (and simultaneously grateful and resentful) and I can see that is often a block in relation to their art practice, putting a strain on relationships.
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I agree with Marx that life and creativity are vitally intertwined and all people need the opportunity to live a creative existence within their work and leisure time. To me, while painting itself is a solitary act that needs time alone and periods sitting mindfully with the work, it feels so important for other forms of creativity to be shared, be this in the workplace, the gallery space, walking the dog, in the checkout line at the supermarket or standing at a bar in the pub waiting with others to be served.
Ways of blending work, art practice and life might include:
Building your network. Engage more with the people you talk creatively with - whether this be about art, world events, or even hyper-local ranty news stories (Guernsey’s looming “trash mountain” and the Great Roadside Weed Inquisition v. Roundup headlines spring to mind!). Make sure your network are people that you like and trust. Introduce them to each other if they aren’t already friends. Meet in person or online, in whatever format that feels right - 1-2-1, in small groups or en masse; occasionally (or often).
Engage with people who don’t speak your politics. Talk to, and more importantly listen to, people whose values are very different to your own. I’m without doubt a smug lefty; a buckfast socialist who loves a good rant about politics. But those who see the world differently or have been contaminated by the toxicity of Farage, Trump, Andrew Tate etc., are not evilness incarnate. It’s so easy to live in an echo chamber, but as my friend George pointed out recently, the only way to change the world politically for the better is to engage respectfully with people whose lives and thinking are different from ones own. Views can and do change, and there are often times when our own thinking needs challenge (though not in relation to the toxic trio - F, T and T!).
Visit exhibitions with friends, go to music gigs, poetry readings and theatre when you can. Talk about them afterwards. The incredible shows are your fuel. They fire you up to get back in the studio and work like a demon. The mediocre or terrible ones make you feel that you can do as well or far better.
Set out short-term goals. These may change quickly over the next month or even week, but they provide a sense of momentum, change and progress.
Comment on posts of artists or creative people you admire. This is not sycophantic or uncool (who cares about cool anyhow) most people feel happy to receive a thoughtful interpretation of their work or a sentence that makes them feel genuinely appreciated and seen.
Invite work colleagues to your PV. A young colleague brought her four year old son to my show in May and I could see that he tangibly enjoyed it far more than some of my relatives did! Art appreciation - start young!
Switch it up. If chaotic like me, break dreaded tasks down into bite sized chunks. And be forgiving on yourself if you miss doing a couple of these tasks or self-imposed deadlines. Shaming yourself is as counterproductive as shaming other people. If in contrast, you are hyper-organised and meticulous, try abandoning routine, set aside normal ways of working, and use different and weird materials in your art practice for a few days.
Put up quotes. Find sayings or lists that your creative heroes have written. I have a fine set lurking in areas of my studio that jump out and scare away complacency at relevant times. Mine are by disparate artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell, and Philip Guston, to Bridget Riley, Amy Sillman and Graham Crowley. Here is Richard Diebenkorn’s list of 10 rules for painting by way of example.
Value, support and acknowledge other artists around you. We do not exist in a vacuum as painters/sculptors/ musicians/writers. No art is made without drawing consciously or unconsciously on work of others, whether historical or contemporary. A myriad of other people’s art practice and thinking constantly nourishes us.
See people’s lostness. If you have felt lost at certain points in time, the likelihood is that others will experience this same feeling. Notice a sense of lostness or hopelessness in others, and be conscious of how people are presenting. If someone has gone quiet for a while, reach out to them and if they respond, listen.
I think the underpinning thread in this piece of writing is probably the importance of the act of care in living a good life - whether this is care of people, animals, plants, or the planet. Caring offers hope and purpose, both in ourselves and our communities. I’m probably sounding very Pollyanna here (thank you Mr Diebenkorn), but making and thinking about art practice seems to draw you down unexpected or circuitous pathways at times that tie in with other aspects of life. Blending life and art practice may not be possible in terms of getting a job that involves making art, but there are ways and means of making everyday life, work and community more creative, purposeful, laughter-filled and thoughtful.