The Exhausting Love of Art as a Career
Goodness what a couple of months it has been! It has been a bit since I wrote a Moonchat blog and I thought now was a good time. For those who are new here, first off, a loving lunar welcome! I appreciate you more than you can know! Moonchats are blogs I write now and then about topics I feel might be relevant or relatable to this creative community! <3
An awkward "family photo" of some of the amazing artists and their equally amazing assistants I frequently travel with at our stay in Utah
The last couple of months have brought many long hours of car traveling, sights, experiences, moments of pleasure, tough lessons and realizations. I can genuinely say my fascination with art as a career grows with almost every show and as stressful, overwhelming and even scary as this job can feel, I still love it so much.
Some of the scenery on my drive from Utah to Arizona after the con.
As Lana Del Rey's most recent album Norman Fucking Rockwell frequently made itself heard on my Spotify while driving through the beautiful red rocked landscapes of Utah on my way to Arizona after FanX , I was struck by an intoxicating sense of joy and found myself singing with an uncontrollable smile as it all hit me. The red cliffs cradling the road, the rose gold late Summer sunset and my car filled to the brim with the essentials that make up my art life, left me feeling so incredibly grateful. And so right. The overwhelming joy of the moment totally washed away the stress of the days previous and I once again was reminded of how much I am completely in love with this unstable lifestyle.
The dusty, tick covered puppy I found on a highway in Arizona. She was a huge reminder of how much little setbacks can lead to amazing discoveries as my GPS changed the course I had hoped for and led me right to her.
As you probably know, not only can a creative career be a little shaky at times, but life as well has a way of being unpredictable. When the two collide, it gets...interesting. The beginning of my trip was a bit of a struggle. My car alternator died the day before I left for FanX and was replaced with a faulty one that also began to go out on my drive leaving me wondering if I would make it to the con at all. At the same time, a very worrying situation was occurring with someone I care about that greatly affected my partner and me and it was difficult not to have answers, and not being able to be near each other during that time. It seemed that so much was spiraling downward that I was a bit of a silent wreck during the first couple of days of the con. In addition, the con itself was not a particularly strong one for myself and many others sadly which made it harder to stay out of my head. All that being said, the cloudy veil began to lift toward the end and I had such a lovely time with my wonderful artist family. I feel like some of the much-needed lessons in my life began to snap into place and make sense during that weekend thus leaving me with an oddly peaceful feeling when it was through.
Telephone lines have always been a strange mix of magical and ugly to me. A little like this career.
This was by far not the first time everything was seemingly going wrong during event. Indeed I have had quite a lot of that lately and while I cannot exactly explain what it is that makes me feel better when times are a little tough, I believe being surrounded by such positive people makes a huge difference. I know I frequently repeat this point but having negative presences in my life affected me more than I ever realized until I began to get away from them. It seemed that the more I was willing to recognize that the discouraging forces in my life did not reflect who I was as a person, the more I was able to distance myself from them and accept the positive ones. I also realize that even with all the stresses, this career has given me so many treasures as well. That beautiful drive through Utah, the moments of meditation I have gotten to have in coffee shops across the country, and the insightful talks I have had the pleasure of having with people about their own successes, struggles, failures and personal conflicts are also aspects of this lifestyle I cherish. None of this was born over night of course, but the last couple of months have been an excellent reminder of the changes that have occurred both in my career and life that have left me more open to appreciating the beauty and not being overly discouraged amidst chaos.
Taking everything from the last few weeks in on my returning drive back to Colorado.
Failures and disappointments are a normal part of life in general. And while it is okay to be sad about those that count, it is important to recognize the lessons that can be found within them. I may not share every little thing that goes wrong in my career, but enough setbacks have occurred over time that have led to a few close people in my world frequently telling me I must be prone to bad luck. I absolutely do not see myself as being unlucky in my career. Everything that happens to us can improve our tenacity, or thicken our skin, or make us more clever. It is not always easy to see it that way and I am sure I have failed to on many occasions, but learning to see failure as a mentor and be truly grateful for the moments of victory, must be one of the greatest steps we can take in climbing toward success. I want to live a life where failure is a teacher made of tough love and where the good grades I receive from them, however small, are something I truly appreciate. Waiting for a massive victory would be an absolute time waste for me because things seldom happen all at once like that. For most of us, they are made of thousands of setbacks, discouragements, beatings, small moments of pleasure and little successes that build our individual foundations, which we can either climb atop or hide beneath.
~Aria
