Reunion by Bryce Widom

Penelope Trunk writes that it is childish to expect that you can change careers without changing salaries.

She’s right. I know she’s right.

Which is why I love to hear stories of people who think “what the hell” and do it, anyways.

The Bigger Life Beckons. It Calls. It Won’t Be Quiet.

Bryce Widom is that story, and he tells it well.

I connected with Bryce – where else? – on Twitter. Gwen Bell tweeted his blog post celebrating the two month anniversary of his new painting-for-a-living gig.

(I LOVE Twitter. When Twitter and I first met and started flirting, I was a skeptic. I wrote a skeptical piece about it. Not lifechanging, methinks, I thought. The revolution will not be twitterized.

I was wrong. Maybe not about the revolution, but Twitter makes it possible to talk, right here, right now, to people and connect through our ideas.)

And Bryce’s blog, and his online gallery of romantic, edgy, soulful, playful pulpy paintings connected with me.  I wanted to know more.

I asked him for a thirty minute interview and we doubled that, and then some. We talked and we talked and we talked, about beautiful, high-level, heart-centered, soul-searing stuff.

In other words, we talked about his work. His process. His paintings.

We talked about the things generated by contractions. (I’m being fancy. We talked about The Recession.) In a weird way, Bryce might be  grateful for the recession.  It makes him appreciate, profoundly, the money that people are willing to part with to buy a painting. Because for many, it is a sacrifice. Really and truly.

He also thinks that constraints are generative. For example, the Boulder, Colorado housing market is shaky. Brand-new condos are sitting empty in lonely buildings so an enterprising, community savvy real estate agent fills them with paintings and holds open houses/art shows. Bryce just participated in his second space-for-sale/gallery night. The gallery nights fill these hollow unsold spaces with people, life, art and aspiration. Maybe it helps potential buyers feel the life in the space, and buy. Or maybe they’ll buy a painting. In any case, people are coming together and vibing on community in a contracted economy.

Speaking of contractions, and contracting, vanishing paycheques, did you have fear around that? you know, like about eating?

Bryce: Heck yeah!

Oh thank goodness you said that. Now I can like you, not just because your paintings are good and they speak to me (they are and they do) but because you’re real and you’re truthful.

On Mouths to Feed – Or Being One, In The Name of Your Art

Here’s the thing:

Self-help gurus and now-commercially successful artists counsel us to do what we love and the money will follow, jump and the net will appear, quit your job and let the chips fall where they may, face the fear and do it anyway…

And, I suppose, they’re right. It seems like a lot of them have done just that, so they’re speaking from experience. They’ve propped their TVs up on cardboard boxes or lived in unheated squats in Berlin or had the roof cave in and couch-surfed.

But you know what else I’ve noticed? Very few – if any – did it on their own. Lots of them were married, or had partners or lovers who were bringing home paycheques and, presumably, groceries. Hopefully these artiste-lovin’ lovers and partners and spouses also ponied up moral support.

That’s not to say: lookit you, you had help – because not only is that NOT a bad thing, it’s a mofo great thing. It may even be beside the point entirely - probably all of them could have done it without a partner. They would have found a way, because they had to. That’s the thing about art, or a calling. You do it no matter what, because it owns you.

But – wonders the single mama - doesn’t having another salaried adult make the jumping and hoping-net-will-appear more possible?

It is a bit paradoxical that I’m ruing my lack of a husband as an obstacle to achieving my artistic dreams. There was a time where what a woman writer needed to create was a room of her own.  And – probably – she needed to be single.

I have a whole house of my own and I’m kinda thinking that in order to keep it, I need a breadwinner. I’m willing to put out.

Of course, there is a danger in comparing your journey to the cruises and mountaineering of others. There is a danger in wanting someone else to carve out your path, ahead of you. That’s your job.

But there is also truth here, too. I want to know, for real, how it was done. I like high-altitude exhortations that arose from hard-lived, hard-won experience.  I want to know the nitty-gritty of that hard-won experience. I want to know how gritty it got. I want to know if I’ve got enough grip.

I want specifics.

Money. Specifically. It Always Comes Back to Erin Brockovich.

The truth is tiny.

Artists know this. That’s why a painter can anguish over a detail, a brush stroke, a smudge, and paint over a character five times until it becomes the bear it was maybe meant to be and allow the demon Perfectionism overwork a painting until it is painful. (Bryce says so.)

Writers know this. That’s why we eavesdrop. The smallest details are the whole story.

The writer of Erin Brockovich, the movie, knew this too. Erin Brockovich is a great story and a great example of how tiny truths tell the entire tale.

George: Can I have your number?

Erin Brockovich: You want my number? Which number do you want?

George: How many numbers you got?

Erin Brockovich: Oh, I got numbers comin’ outta my ears. For instance: ten.

George: Ten?

Erin Brockovich: Yeah. That’s how many months old my baby girl is.

George: You got a little girl?

Erin Brockovich: Yeah. Yeah, sexy, huh? How ’bout this for a number? Six. That’s how old my other daughter is, eight is the age of my son, two is how many times I’ve been married – and divorced; sixteen is the number of dollars I have in my bank account. 850-3943. That’s my phone number, and with all the numbers I gave you, I’m guessing zero is the number of times you’re gonna call it.

That’s specific. Specifics are the story. Danielle LaPorte writes about Erin Brockovich, too, and gets similarly real about wanting specifics:

If only we were so real at business conferences. Venture capital, ROI, cash flow, cost of goods – there’s always lot’s of strategy talk, but rarely a drill down into specific dollars. So did you raise a million bucks or did you put $10k on your credit card? What does “turn a profit” really mean? How close is a ‘close call’? Facts give perspective.

Bryce Widom. Artist. Real. Specific.

So. I like Bryce Widom for being real. For being specific.

For saying he is worried. For talking about asking for loan from a loved one and feeling gratified rather than shamefaced about receiving it. For feeling like it was a testimonial.

For feeling that the message inscribed in money is this: I believe in you.

For stepping into his larger life, because he had to, and for being honest that things are tight, and hard, and he’s worried, and he got a loan, and that’s wonderful – and you know why? Because that means he has support. Social support. Someone – and, I think, a LOT of someones –  believes in him.

And that is everything.

Because we’re all in it together, really.

The Walls Come Tumbling Down, 2.0

Bryce and I talked about this wild and wide-ranging togetherness and support for essentially solo pursuits. It is unprecedented for artists and writers to have such a wide, real-time audience.

Let’s admit it. We’re creators, which means we’re praise-whores (I may be speaking for him, here. At no point did he say he is a praise-whore. That’s all me).  We create because that’s who we are and what we do and the urge is tyrannical and will not unseize our throats. But for whom do we create?

For an audience.

For you.

And, it used to be, that we laboured alone, in garrets and attics and basements and cellars, emerging, pale and starving, for gallery shows or book signings. Then we got filled up on fat words and cheap wine and retreated the cave and hoped we’d ate enough praise berries to survive the winter. To sustain.

Now, we can get fed every day. We can connect with our people.

The proliferation of awesomeness will be fed. I hereby eat my skeptical words - because some day you might find you are hungry/and eating most of the words you just said – and the revolution will be twitterized. 

The Art of Commerce, and Vice Versa

Bryce’s idea for 1,000 views of God is commercially genius. These paintings are priced at $150 and are affordable, accessible, and steady source of revenue. 

They’re selling. He’s at #20 and only six of those are still available (‘course, there’s more coming…). He’s recently added a gallery of $30 prints from his chalk originals.  This is intelligent marketing. He’s got his big fancy schmancy works that cost $1,900 but he’s still covering off all the price points. He’s making his art accessible and making sure he can connect with as many people who like his work as possible.

Because here’s the truth about being an artist: you need to be an entrepreneur.  It might be a more personal and enmeshed business than most, because you’re not selling widgets, and more inflamed as well, because you’re not selling widgets.

(no slur on widgets or widget makers. we need widgets! my car runs on widgets! please keep manufacturing widgets!)

I wrote about this. Penelope Trunk wrote about this. Amanda Fucking Palmer wrote about this. Chris Guillebeau wrote an entire guide about this. (If you make a living as an artist or a creative, or want to, it is a really useful primer and is chock-a-block full of real-life case studies.  People really do this.)

You, and Us. The Case Studies.

People really do this. And you can do it, too. 

To start: get yourself a social media goddess.

I did. So did Bryce Widom. We were encouraged by two wise women to use the force of social media for good. They’re both part Yoda, only prettier. Obviously.

Sometimes it only takes one person to open your eyes to another world and affirm your choice and confirm your talent and even introduce you to a slew of people who will do the same thing and so on and so on…

So a social media goddess is a great thing. A tribe is even better. The first can show you that the second exists.

But that one person who can change your life?

You.

Together. We’re all in it together.

The End, or More Likely, The Beginning

To recap: There are lots of talented, beautiful artists (like Bryce Widom) and writers and creatives making healthy, happy livings for themselves and their families. It doesn’t have to be a choice between the garret and the double garage*. 

I hope. I really do.

_______
* I don’t mean ‘living in a garage’. I’m using the house-with-double garage as symbol of regular life with regular salaries. I am, however, totally open to deconstructing everything a double garage represents.

And, for the record: single garage. I’m so noble.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 11:19 pm and is filed under Meaning, Money, People, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.