I can’t say I’ve been gob-smacked by shimmering revelations of great meaning and significance. I cannot say I have been visited by a definitive answer as to what this time means for me or where on earth (or beyond) I am headed. I can say that I have been able to put down the yoke of deep anxiety under which I have lived many of the past twenty years – at least, that is, the yoke of a very specific species of anxiety (since there are others I still shoulder): namely, the anxiety produced by the stress of amassing debt for years on end, while living at or below the poverty line for years on end, while working one's butt off for years on end, while believing that all hope of transcending the stress of this mounting debt, stifling poverty, and endless toil rests on how much “doing” I do or don’t manage to squeeze into today.
Living under this yoke has involved playing a constant mental game of high-stakes choice-making. In this game, I have sacrificed short-term comfort time and again in hope of a hard-earned, long-term benefit. Thing is, I have come to find I am terrible at living this way. Or – maybe I used to be really good at it, but just got burnt out. Or, maybe I only had so much talent for this way of living and I used it all up too fast because I never learned how to balance it with rest, pleasure, and ease. I don’t know, really. What I do know, and can describe in vivid detail, is what living under the crushing weight of this anxiety has looked and felt like for these past many years: a series of gnawing, soul-shrinking, common-sense-defying decisions.
After 2.5 hours spent working, do you close the damned computer already and watch dumb TV with your boyfriend, or do you turn your back to him and hunch over your desk, using your remaining energy to turn passable lesson plans into stellar ones for the coming week’s classes? Consistent high-quality lesson plans could be the thing that makes or breaks that next job opportunity, you know? After a blinkless session spent grading student process journals, do you shun limb-numbing fatigue and spend 4 more hours (2/3 of your allotted sleep time) grading their research papers, when you could do a half-assed job in just 1 hour’s time? Just think: your true quality as a teacher will be revealed in your student evaluations, which you will be required to submit for the next slew of job applications: any shortcut you take now, will bite you in the backside later. Do you squeeze in an hour (or more? – really, it should be more) in the studio, even though this hour will have to be deducted either from sleep or time spent catching up with your boyfriend? Do you spritz and spray and wrap that increasingly crusty clay sculpture in hopes of keeping it moist and pliable enough to (hopefully) finish it some day, or do you say “Screw the triage-rehydrating!” in the interest of devoting more time to the classes you’re teaching? Do you wake up at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning – your only chance to sleep in – to spend an hour scouring the latest college art job postings, and then 3 hours more working on new applications? Do you wake up 30 minutes early one, two, or three days a week (after only 3, or sometimes 6, hours of sleep) in order to coax your tense muscles loose on the yoga mat, in hopes of preventing serious back injury from loading and unloading all those kilns, and before rushing off to a 2-hour commute by car and subway train to one of your three or four teaching jobs scattered across a vast metropolis? Do you dare to buy a new tinted lip balm or pair of cheap pleather boots (the girlish-luxury versions of necessities), and if so, do you dare to first consult your bank account and honestly calculate your liquid balance minus the next student loan, car, and insurance payments, knowing that groceries and other essentials will have to go on the credit card once again this month? Do you make one giant meal from mostly dry goods (lentils, rice, carrot, garlic) to get you through the week, and then force yourself to eat it for lunch and dinner even on the third and fourth day, when its taste disgusts you and its texture feels like lumps of paste on your tongue? Do you leave a class you just taught feeling great about the PowerPoint you presented or the critique you led, only to crash head-first into a wall of shame over the fact that you have spent 3 times as much time working on your classes as you have on your own studio work, and do you wither as you see yourself through the eyes of the “art world” gate keepers who will judge you harshly (or disregard you altogether) for not having managed, by some sorcery, to maintain a prolific studio life alongside teaching stellar classes (no worry about how you, also, managed to pay your bills or sustain human relationships, mind you)?
The truth is, the “life of my dreams” turned into a living hell for me. Maybe a life coach or a career counselor would say, “You were just thinking about it all wrong…” Numerous people near and dear to me have said (and still say), “What about just focusing on teaching art? Surely there is a way to do just that successfully (like, say, K-12)?” I cannot fully explain or justify my response to these questions – particularly the latter. I can only confess that, right now, an attempt to answer either question fills my head with visions of the hell I have just described (and have lived), and fills my stomach with a sensation akin to sandpaper and Velveeta cheese being slowly churned by the off-kilter blade of a blender.
My experience has been that, to land a college art teaching job, one must produce work prolifically in her studio, get that work into national and regional exhibitions, and teach substantially at the college level for three or more years. The toll that striving to hit these marks took on me was dramatic. I started out – during and just after grad school – feeling so capable, so full of fight and fire and ready for anything. I felt the people I respected and trusted most truly believed in my odds for success in this field that I felt chose me, as much as I chose it. But the balancing act this pursuit demanded became too much for me to bear.
Pardon my French, but it is fucking expensive to make ceramic art, let alone ship it. It is difficult to sell ceramic sculpture, and God help you if it’s not small ceramic sculpture you’re hoping to sell, or show. God help you if that ceramic sculpture is not easy for someone on the other end to pop out of a box and plop on a pedestal. Because then that means you have to be there to install your work yourself, and that is simply out of the financial and temporal question.
Speaking of time, making ceramic sculpture takes soooo much time. There are so many layers of process. Clay is a living thing, a diva, sensitive to the slightest change in temperature or humidity. And then there is the firing process – most pieces must travel twice through a kiln (at least), and for most of us, that kiln is one we’re sharing with other people’s work, one whose firing schedule we may not have absolute control over. To anyone who makes ceramic art (and perhaps to others alike), this is all super-obvious, mind-numbing belly-aching. But after years of striving to make ceramic art while also striving to forge a career teaching art while also trying to scrape by financially and also not have a nervous breakdown, I have come to believe these “obvious” details are worth itemizing and carefully considering.
Perhaps my biggest wake-up call in pursuit of my “dream” of a career making and teaching art, was the college job search. Oh boy howdy. Thinking back to the three years and roughly 120 applications I submitted in my quest for a full-time college teaching job lands me just about 45 seconds away from a serious case of dry heaves. I can say with confidence, and with humility, that I am a really good teacher. I am at my best when I am leading a classroom of college kids or adults through a creative exercise, a PowerPoint presentation, a discussion, or a critique. I love the anarchy of the creative process, how it wakes us up to life and to the magic of discovery within ourselves and within the world we share. I love helping a student unlock and tease out his or her own voice, and guiding – and, at times, pushing – students past their known limits. I am good at this. It is in my blood.
But what I found was that this meant very little – almost nothing – in the face of college art departments’ bigger concerns like, how many big shows have you had in the past 3 years, and, how many important art people do you know? The closer I got to actually landing one of these fervently-desired full time jobs, the more clearly I saw the reality I would be signing on for should I clinch one. First, I’d be taking on the work of 2-3 people. That’s just the way it is now in college art departments, as they downsize and as art budgets get slashed. Second, while teaching four to six courses a semester (some on evenings and weekends, and at different campuses), I’d be expected to maintain a thriving studio practice, pumping out brilliant sculptures and, of course, getting them into loads of regional, national, and international shows. It goes without saying that I’d simultaneously be maintaining the college’s ceramics, and possibly sculpture, facilities, including being a studio monitor after hours. Plus, of course, I’d be finding time to recruit high school students for our undergrad program, recruiting undergrads for our grad program, and raising the national profile of our ceramics department to boot. I’d also be expected to serve on academic committees and to help write grants for departmental funding in my spare time. Oh, and did I mention all of this would be done to the tune of, say, 32,000 or maybe 38,000 dollars? If I’m lucky and drive a hard bargain?
I didn’t even balk at this avalanche of responsibilities and commensurably paltry compensation, though. No – what got me was this: my willingness to attempt to do all of these things – to live up to this superhuman fantasy of what any self-respecting college art teacher should be able to chalk up to a “good day’s work” –, coupled with my genuine skill and experience as a teacher, and with my innovation as an artist, was still not enough. There was always some impossible (for me) combination of skills and experience required, on top of the above laundry-lists of “musts”, in the face of which I never failed to fall short. You can sort of weld and more or less man a woodshop, and pretty much fix an electric kiln, and you can teach drawing and composition and mixed media and figure sculpture, in addition to Level 1, 2 and 3 ceramics courses?? Wellll, can you also operate the latest 3D printing software and throw Yixing teapots and saggar fire with dog food and banana peels as your fuel with consistent results every time, and also teach analog “Intro to Photography” as needed? No?! Well, never you mind, li’l missie; you simply don’t cut the mustard in this art department.
In all fairness, this is what it felt like. What it looked like, in practice, was this (an example of an actual, current college art job posting):
Duties/Expectations:
· Teach a wide range of courses, typically regular sections of studio courses, including two- and three-dimensional design, drawing, digital design/photography, and painting, as well as art history survey courses.
· Monitor and effectively manage the campus art gallery, curating exhibits, hosting visiting artists, collaborating with the So-And-So Arts Council and making other important connections to increase our campus visibility and enhance our profile in the community
· Demonstrate continued commitment to scholarly activity in the discipline and/or the scholarship of teaching and learning.
· Participate in campus, institutional and community service, in the shared governance structure.
· Participate in the recruitment and advising of students into the Art program consistent with the goal to build and sustain the program.
· Commit to flexible scheduling of classes to meet the needs of varied student populations.
· Support and coordinate, with the So-And-So Foundation and the Office of Marketing & Communications, fundraising efforts, as necessary, to grow the Art Department.
· Maintain campus art equipment and facilities while ensuring safety in their use and operation.
What I’m saying is, for me, there was always some elusive one or two extra skills that I simply could not fudge my way around – things I simply didn’t have in my arsenal. Whether it was sophisticated wheel throwing, 3D printing, knowing how to teach conventional painting, or digital arts, I always came up short. And while I tried for a while there to brush up on skills I felt were, in some small way, within my reach, I could never really find time to develop these ancillary skills, what with teaching 4 classes, working 2 extra part time jobs to make ends meet, trying to eke out studio time, working on job and show applications, and, of course, trying to occasionally devote time to exercise, sleep, and those luxuries known as personal relationships. I simply could not fathom how I would ever be “enough” for this professional world I had chosen. I was an overachiever, but not in the right ways. I cared too much about my lesson plans and the quality of the feedback I gave my students. The art I was making just wasn’t consistent or compelling enough to garner national attention. Making it began to feel like a chore, and a losing battle. And I guess my age and the psychological toll of so many years of burning the candle at all ends and living in pursuit of a better tomorrow had rendered my today an empty, exhausted mess.
I see quite a number of people succeeding at the life I sought, and quite a few who continue to struggle in pursuit of it – or who have given it up in pursuit of new goals (family, peace of mind, spare time, financial stability). I know success in that vein is possible, but maybe not for me, and at least, not via my previous approach. I basically snapped under the weight of “not enough; never enough”. I couldn’t stand to live in the light of this judgment anymore. It was exhausting. I gave up both by virtue of circumstance, and by necessity. I saw 55,000 dollars in student loan debt staring cold and hard at me in the distance, with a smile of reckoning on its grey-green, lumpy face, and I decided there had to be a more sustainable way.
So, am I happier now? Sort of. I have a lot more time on my hands. It fills up all too easily, of course, but I continue to recognize this “free time” as a privilege and a powerful resource. Do I know where the h-e-double-hockey-sticks this train is headed? Not really. I am working on sharpening skill sets that sat semi-latent for years, rediscovering strengths and potentialities beyond those I touted explicitly in my attempt to sell myself into a full time college art teaching job. I know I have value. I know there are a lot of things I can contribute to this world.
What’s hard is pouring so many years into one track, working harder than many, and still coming up short. What is also hard and what sucks slimy boulders, quite frankly, is being deemed both over- and under-qualified by a mystifying job market that wants you to be hyper-specialized, but then only lets a chosen few in through that narrow gate. In my attempts to either augment part-time teaching work to pay the bills, or, to dive headlong (back) into lines of work in which I do have experience but have not focused solely for the last 15 years, I have been punished for having too much education and too specialized a skill set.
Just two years ago, I sat in a small, sterile, dimly-lit room across an awkwardly low table from a cocky 23 year old who represented a tutoring firm where I had applied for a 10-hours-a-week job. Flanked by a mute forty-something administrative assistant, this young man entered the room with a vaguely suspicious and pitying look, and proceeded to lecture me on my shortcomings on an extensive math test the firm required all applicants to take (even though I made clear from the start that English, rather than math, was my high-school-tutoring strong suit). This green-eared upstart - no more than a year or two, at most, from his most recent encounter with algebra or pre-cal, took pedantic delight in explaining to my 35-year-old ass how I had failed to use this process of elimination or that jot of reasoning to solve a series of math problems, even if the numbers themselves had eluded me. You made mistakes, he implied, rubbing my nose in it, that a high school student would have easily avoided.
He then went on to preach fanatically about the brilliant and innovative founder of the tutoring firm, who had "unlocked the real secret to learning." The subtext of this fresh-faced boy’s sermon was that I didn’t have the mental chops to hack it as one of this genius-founder’s tutoring disciples. I wanted to reach across the table and punch the peach fuzz off this kid’s smug, jutting-jawed countenance. I wanted to shake him by the shoulders and list for him all my achievements, my degrees with honors, describe my glowing letters of recommendation and praise from students young and old. I wanted to quiz him on complicated ceramic processes until he stuttered and turned red and bit his tongue. But instead, I sat quietly, my mouth set in a hopelessly menacing “poker-face” horizon line, and gritted my teeth and pushed down the nausea that sprang from my belly to my throat, and waited for him to say his last condescending word to me, and then dismiss me with a mix of thinly-veiled disgust and ridicule. I wanted to invite him into the parking lot and run him over with my red Toyota Corolla, like they do in cartoons, where the bad guy pops up and re-inflates afterward – no real harm done.
This was only one of a series of withering experiences I had and will likely continue to have in the name of a “job search”. My master’s degree in art has without doubt been a handicap in many cases, and in others, it is simply not enough. My new goal – out of spiritual and psychological necessity – is to find a role in which all that I am and all that I have to offer is enough, and, moreover, is desired (at least some of it), and rewarded. The catch is, the path I choose has to jive with my temperament. It has to be sustainable work that allows me to also have a life. That seemed like too much to ask in my previous pursuit, so I gave up. I don’t consider this a failure, really. I consider it a concession to my humanity – to my limited-ness.
At the start of my life’s path, I vowed fiercely (to myself, to the Universe) to find my own way, and shuddered to think of falling into the trap of retracing another’s footsteps. In point of fact, my pursuit of an art teaching career became just that: a desperate attempt to stuff myself into someone else’s mold – to become “enough” by someone else’ measure, on someone else’s terms. I think what’s happening now is a meta-process of individuation. Time to throw out the maps (O.K. – they were burned in spite of my desperate clinging) and set out into a new wilderness, but with far less romantic goals than those with which I began two decades ago. Peace, sustainability, and an inner, subtler species of fulfillment are my new North Stars. Rather than live a life I can write home about, I now simply seek one I can abide day in, day out.