Small Time

I am a small-time artist.  I don’t say that to insult myself.  Actually, it has only been in the last year or so that I’ve been able to own up to calling myself an “artist.”  I used to call myself a painter or just say I was artsy.  I say that because it is an honest assessment of where I am.  I will never be a Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, or Yayoi Kusama.  I'm not tearing up the art scene in SoHo or London.  I'm a suburban housewife who can't seem to not create stuff.  I think that stuff is pretty good.  However, I really struggle with how much to expect from myself.  Am I good enough to put myself out there?  If I think I am, I risk a certain level of delusion and possibly alienating a future resource.  If I don’t believe in myself enough, I risk losing an opportunity. 

I’m proud of where I am.  Please don’t get me wrong.  I am absolutely thrilled with the progression of this art life.  In several years, I have moved from being a mom of young kids who occasionally hacked out a couple of paintings in the lawnmower storage area (one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling) to being able to paint nearly every day in a “real” studio space, complete with doors, windows, and many (many!) light sources.  I sell through friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends, and complete strangers.  I'm in cute shops.  I'm in galleries.  I am no longer losing money (yay?) and though I couldn’t pay our mortgage, I might have been able to pay for our utilities this year, maybe our groceries.  Groceries are a big deal.  I do have a 14-yr-old boy, you know. 

And although I can acknowledge I’m small-time, small-time is bigger than amateur – or non-existent.  For the first time, I have expectations for myself.  When I didn’t have any expectations, every tiny success was a wonderful surprise.  Since I’ve started this path, each year I sell more, participate in more shows, buy more materials.  What happens when I have that inevitable down year?  I invite this trouble because I had a down December for the first time ever.  A great year!  A miserable December.  If you didn’t know, 4^th quarter for artists is pretty much go-time.  Usually.  It’s like Prime Day, for a month.  I make small pieces, create ornaments, and print cards.  I have open houses and take new work to galleries.  And this year?  Crickets.  It’s tough. 

It’s tough – and it is discouraging.  I don’t do well with discouraging.  On top of that, I didn’t get into a show that I really wanted to join.  I’ve been working on this big series of mixed media pieces that I love and really have enjoyed making.  I was hoping they’d get to debut together at this show.  Now, I’m looking for a new place for them to go.  It’s a blow.

It’s a blow that I will absorb.  Why?  Because my kids were in the car when I got the email about not getting in the show.  They heard me talk about how disappointing it is, how much I was counting on it.  I want them to see me deal with it.  To pick up and go on and find the new path.  If this blog is about parenting, about me, about art, then this moment is also about those things.  I’ve been turned down for shows before.  I’ve not made the sale.  I’ve had commissions walk away.  Somehow this feels bigger. 

I think it feels bigger because I am at this turning point.  I’m invested.  Literally.  I’ve upgraded my studio.  I’ve created a little gallery space in the basement.  I’ve bought inventory software.  I’ve bought some IG ads.  I’m going all in. 

It’s scary.

What if I’m not good enough?  What if all this time and effort has brought me to a place where everyone is rolling their eyes behind my back: There she goes again: talking about her “art”?  She calls herself an artist.  Crazy Shelley.

I am crazy.  No question.  I’m not technically diagnosed with anything; I am mostly weird.  I wonder too much.  That makes me crazy, I think.  At least it makes me crazy in the world I live in. 

It also is part of what makes me a small-time artist.  I’m not examining a crazy world; I’m not living in NYC or some exotic location.  My art is not terribly outrageous.  I'm not making sense of a genocide that I witnessed first-hand or illustrating an obscure culture that I'm reviving.  My world is very, very uncrazy -- like Leave It To Beaver uncrazy.  I’m examining my uncrazy world and still seeing it as crazy. 

I need another word.  Unusual.  Jarring.  Beautiful.  Puzzling. 

I’m an observer and have spent my life trying to reconcile the discordance I feel between light and interest and growth vs. human self-destruction.  Everyday beauty constantly reminds me that life is bigger than we make it.  The contradictions and connections don't depend on glamour or grittiness. I write about it.  I paint about it. 

So this translation of how I see the world is what I make.  It is for sale.  And rejection of what I make sometimes feels like a rejection of me. This is why I had such a hard time sending my writing to literary magazines.  It is why I usually make safe choices.  It is why I “became an artist” later in life.  It is why I am quiet. 

I’m small-time because I am just now getting it together, just now being gentle enough with myself to introduce myself to others as an artist.  I'm small-time because my art might be saying things that people have already said – maybe they even said it better --but I'm saying it in my voice.  I’m small-time because I’m OK with just getting my foot in a few doors, because it is a business when I’m not quite a businessperson.  I’m small-time because it’s the bravest thing I’ve done for myself. 

So far.