This is me approximately 30 years ago. Fall of 1993. I'm sitting somewhere near what used to be Union Station in Chicago. I commute daily (five weekdays) to The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. I walk, I dont take cabs. can't afford cabs. I'm working on completing the first year cor program. 2d, 3d, and 4d time arts, and one Lecture Hall Arthistory survey taught by someone who was knighted. In our creative writing class we read a wonderful book by Ntozake Shang called Sasafrass Cypress and Indigo. The next term in spring (we had winter off) I would take a literature class called "going to hell". That studied poetry and books like dante and the ever popular 'K. Goes to Haiti' as well as whatever was written about Persephone (a greco-roman chick with seasonal affective disorder). Not known for it's literary instruction at the time, I thankfully forgot much of that course. I remember my 4d time arts course. Performance art was a part of it. i did one piece. scared me to death and scared everyone else too, got an a. it was good, but you had to be there. I loved editing video and sound. we even used a DAT. The next term I would be in the dorms instead of commuting. You see that girl there couldn't afford her monthly train pass to get downtown. She got home from the city around seven and had to drive another half hour to work for $4.75 an hour at a local big box store. There she was a clerk/ checkout girl, cashier, sales associate, floor employee; whatever you called it then. Registers were beginning to be hybrid computers. She did not have a cell phone. She did have a computer, but it belonged to her point man of the day, who was off at his college of choice.
None of this bothered her. She was an artist. She was going to learn how to get into galleries. However, she was aware she had survived a couple of wrist injuries just the year before and could never reliably wait tables. She also couldn't remember enough at one hearing of the moment to wait tables. So she decided she may have to resort to teaching, or even worse "commercial art". While her 4d time arts class "reveled in the eclectic" the internet whispered... we may have to go commercial because the users are not known for their literary magnificence and it's a seedy hive of scum and villany out there. Yahoo was not yet organized to be an email service. You had a .edu and you were a chosen one.
The following summer after some events.. I dropped out. 1200$ separated me from carrying on. Looked like I was going to have to "go commercial" or even worse... become an actual graphic designer... to be IN the art world. You see, there were two galleries in my county. Low traffic no sales to speak of. Art for arts sake.
I needed time to noodle over how to survive as an artist with a short attention span. God intervened and wild child number one was born! (still no voices yet in my life at this point - terribly healthy. just full of angst now and then).
P.S. check out the about page for her second term animation skills.
BTW I am open to remote work, but I wont take on a job for less than 200$
Throwback Thursday