3/1 morning pages

For once the first of the month doesn’t mean trying some new get up early every day and do xyz including these pages.

I’m reading a book by a person who had OCD for years and didn’t get treated til age 40. Somehow it’s boring so far. The writing is plain and kind of reporting. Do I want to get to the part where the OCD starts? I know I want to read more but I guess in a writer snobby personal I want to read something that feels like literature, fiction or non fiction, like The Book Thief. I know about OCD. I’m close to a person who has it and know others.

Maybe I just have had enough of reading people’s memoirs of mental illness for now. A good book. Such a simple phrase. Do you know a good book I should read?

And the tv show of course. This time it’s The Servant, Season 3 an episode every Friday night. I had binged seasons 1 and 2. I decided to start over watching more carefully and rewatched the pilot and second episode. Then during a session a person was talking about reading and it hit me that there are better things to do with life than rewatch a really good show.

I haven’t been to a museum in ages, or even a gallery. I don’t know any new big name artists besides the successful ones on Instagram. I don’t follow the art world at all. I ignore it. Now I’m questioning, why don’t you care who are the next hot artists? Chances are maybe a lot are people of color if the snobby art world is trying to get rid of their white people artists supremacy. They have some other nepotism supremacy and then there are artists who have the gift of selling themselves, branding themselves and making art at the same time and making a living off it. People who sell paintings for an average of $25,000 per painting. I don’t know the present price that pushes you off the edge into making some real big money from your art.

So I don’t follow anything. Crit Connection just emailed us answers to our questions. A lot of artists seem set on making their website awesome. Who looks at websites these days? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a thing. I thought you could just use Instagram and find the secret formula and sell off it or get discovered or something. I won’t be discovered or sell much because I don’t have the energy to sell myself, my stuff, etc. part of it is really ADHD not laziness. Part of it is the years have worn me down to mostly being resigned to being an artist nobody in the art world knows about. When I started paint in g at age 21 I had some dream of making money off my art and getting into the MOMA one day.

Now I don’t. Apparently focusing on Instagram is a good idea but requires work. When I read the word “gallery “ I have an automatic weird response. Gallery? What gallery? I don’t want to go to galleries and get on their lists and do whatever. Ultimately it’s a waste of time because it’s too competitive. I can’t even get a small work into an artist run gallery in Brooklyn.

I think I don’t like galleries. They are so cold and un inviting uninspiring, exclusion is their automatic pilot. They exclude almost everyone. It’s like worse than auditions. They swipe no and then swipe yes to the under 1%. Even if I’m wrong if someone statistician found the formula I can bet you wouldn’t bet on that horse. If something is not just too hard but completely out of reach it’s impossible to be motivated to reach for it. It’s like being 5ft3 inches and focusing on trying to believe I can make myself 5 foot 7.

You walk into a NYC gallery. There’s a nicely dressed person sitting behind a desk who will give you a list of works and prices. There is art on the wall, usually very large but maybe not as much these days. You walk around looking at the art and maybe you ask the minion a question and they answer concisely and precisely. That’s it. That’s the experience. If it’s in a bookstore it’s a whole different animal. But that is the gallery- the stepping stone to career success. That’s it. Done. As in Project Runway, you’re either in or you’re out and really there’s one winner. I was out and am out and not even a contender for in or out. I rolled the dice and I’m out. I’m making art to live, not using art to make a living. Art saves me from myself. It’s a freedom. When I’m making something, I’m in. That’s it. That’s my life sentence to accept or be stupid and waste time trying to grow four inches and be 5 foot 7. The trick is to be happy I’m privileged to make the art and have the studio. The studio is the thing I’ve had since starting, no matter where. The room of my own that is a place to make art and be a real artist. Is it enough? Who cares? It’s what I have and I’m lucky to have it. Being small, short, not taking up space – that’s it.