I’m currently in a cellar office in Malmö, looking at a large blank wall that I’m meant to be painting on, but am so far just drawing a blank about. It’s really interesting being here, working as an artist rather than an illustrator, being given the space freely with faith that I’ll do something interesting and worthwhile with it, but the process is giving me time to reflect on where I’m at with my work and where I want to go from here with it all.
Well, it’s not just work, but life stuff in general is piling up a bit – waiting to hear if I got a job at a gallery, but probably won’t get it, having surgery on my arm on Friday where I’m having a chunk taken out of my arm, just moved flat and have no money of my own to speak of.
Drawings wise, I’m painfully aware of how naive I am in this field and how I’m still tentatively finding my own voice and too worried about pleasing other people or proving that I can actually produce worthwhile art. It’s hard to get away from a pecuniary sense of worth when all the success I felt at selling out of the first two print runs of my new comic can be undone by a financially unsuccessful con like Bristol.
Bristol was great for networking, was silly and funny, but lost me quite a lot of money that I can’t afford to miss out on at the moment just because visitor numbers aren’t as good as had been hoped.
I got an email this morning from a publisher saying they like the pterodactyl book I’ve pitched to them, but that they can’t afford to put out the books that are already in the can and ready to go out, so they can’t take on anything new right now.
It’s heartening to know that if times were better then they might have been interested in taking the project on, but it’s cold comfort at best when I can’t pay my bills without help. I know there’s no intrinsic shame in that, but I used to be well off when I was interpreting and even with the op on Friday I can’t really risk going back to doing that kind of work regularly in case my arms fuck up again and I’m left with another eighteen months of agony like I’ve had the past year and a half.
I know I’ll manage and I know I’ll adapt and survive pretty much anything that life cares to throw at me, but I’m sick of trying to backflip each time I feel like the rug’s pulled out from underneath me. I love the comics I’ve made in the past year and I’m enormously proud of them and delighted at how they’ve touched the people who’ve read them, so I’m not about to give up on creating work like that, I just need to think realistically about whether I would have been better off as a plumber than as an artist. No great surprise there, it’s part of the deal with the creative industries.
So, I’m here in a cellar in another country, facing a blank wall and trying to make the leap of faith to make a lasting mark on the wall and the world. Disheartened, afraid and desperately hoping to make something I’m going to be proud of and that others will sense the same thing in it in a time when the market for art is a quagmire of fear and insecurity.
This is where my head’s at. Pencil in hand, I’m turning to the wall. Wish me luck.
