another long break between posts. It does appear that launching oneself in the creative economy, and blogging about launching oneself in the creative economy, are two very different, and possibly mutually exclusive things. Like the year I spent 47 days walking a picket line, telling myself to keep a diary so I could write about it one day, and never wrote a word about it, because the whole thing was just too crazy and immediate.
That’s actually why the millions of proverbial monkeys, with their millions of proverbial used remington selectrics, were originally enlisted, to help produce the kind of high minded verbiage necessary to communicate the importance of the mission to those who might be tempted to view the intermittent 12 hour days at art shows and endless carting around of monotypes, along with the sporadic attempts to corral workshop participants and Facebook visitors, as the chaotic strivings of a mono(type) maniac. Far from it. A sublime plan has been set in motion, whose workings, like those of the Simian selectrics, are a mystery to all of us. Yes even me!
Suffice to say, the monks are making good progress, they assure me, on the squishtoid manifesto, so necessary to our overall mission, which is simply put, to squish, or be squished. several sentences are nearly complete, give or take a few verb tense agreement issuers, and a nasty infestation of dangling participles.
And the more public endeavors are going well, too. Three days in a booth at the Denver Modernism show produced just enough sales to pay fees, and buy the monks some new typewriter ribbon. The first-year Denver Print Event the following weekend surisingly also produced sales, including a couple for yours truly. And the fall workshop at the Art Student’s League is underway, and with six students feels more relaxed than the preceding two classes, with 8 and 10. And all along, it feels like what summer, and so-called retirement is all about: meeting and enjoying both old and new friends. Like the squishtoid manifesto, and unlike the 48 day strike, it’s not about the destination, but the journey.
The sun has gotten gold-tinged, the temps have plunged into the 80’s, even the monkeys are feeling contemplative, philosophical even, if I,m reading the reams of gobbledy-gook the bang out and hurl at the trash basket and me correctly.. Last year at this time, things didn’t seem quite so sanguine. I’d had an unprecedented run of shows with no sales at all, in places which made expenses hard to control. I contemplated getting job.
Instead, over a long winter spent reading on the couch and refining my pot bean recipe, I talked my self into believing that the continual scrounging for sales and workshop participants, the legwork put in hunting down small payments and cutting expenses; the hours spent trying to figure out inexplicable Facebook and Blogger apps; were all part of the fun. I did finally find a very flexible temporary job in a college bookstore. (which also figures into the recent lack of posts). I’ve now punched the clock just often enough to remind me that I was right. Now, several shows in a row have paid for themselves, I’m catching up on bills, and despite what the political fear mongers say, things are getting slowly better.
And what’s next? Well, who knows. The mechanics of doing business as a freelancer may be interesting, especially to the one who depends on their outcome, but a summer, or a creative body of work, sometimes calls for banging on the typewriter keys a bit and seeing what comes out. So the irregular posts may continue. somehow it seems, a week in mid- to late September, my favorite time of year, has escaped the scheduling crush. Time to leave the monkeys in charge and relax with a household project or two, then a quick get away to Wyoming. Can you blog from an iPhone? (serious question) The mind, and the rental car, wanders. To Wyoming, where they say, there is nothing. But it’s been a full summer, and I could use a little nothing.
Death rattle gold Vedauwoo aspen leaves on big sky blue nothing. Sage green alkali flat Chugwater antelope mosey red rock mesa nothing opening out into a distant faded blue denim glacier Laramie-peaked range of nothing with other ranges marching off into nothingness, and later a million star specked milky way nothing.
Even without a map or manifesto, I think you can see where I’m headed here.
