Living Proof

Packard

I realized the other day that I have been living more or less hand to mouth for 18 years. I was supporting myself and paying for undergrad at San Francisco State in 1990. I have worked some pretty crazy jobs since that time.

]]> I've been an illustrator, a carpenter, a sign shop employee, a preparator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a window designer, a graduate student, and often broke. It can cause some anxiety and be difficult, but purposely not having regular work has allowed me to make art my primary focus. It can be a brutal career choice, but it also can be the most rewarding work imaginable.

In 1996 I fished for salmon in Alaska with a captain who was a nice grandpa type, but occasionally he would transform, telling me about some guy who pissed him off. Before I knew it, he would snap and be swearing at me as if I were that guy, leaning into me, his face bulging and red, "I told that cock-sucker, listen here you son of a bitch…." Am I allowed to swear? There's good money in fishing - but all the captains are bat-shit crazy.

In 1997 I got an illustration job off of the CCAC job board. It was for greeting cards. This guy gave me a layout of the card he wanted illustrated. It said: "Son? There's something you need to know? Man didn't come from woman? But woman came from man?" The drawing was of him with a hooker standing in front of his son in the kitchen. I asked what was going on with the punctuation and he said the question marks looked nice. True. The inside said: "Every time daddy bring home a pretty lady, he always leave me a slab of ribs." He sold them to his church group. The nearest I could figure it was a religious justification for misogyny.

I went to graduate school at Alfred University in 1998 - tuition free. Those two years were a welcome break from the financial scramble.

I had a job in 2003 drawing for a children's book series, also found on the CCAC job board. I drew in the style of the previous illustrator who had come up with the characters - sort of a Scooby-do talking dog and his kid buddy. My boss was kind of a trip. He was always wound up - seemed like a cokehead. He claimed to have invented mountain biking. It was an odd environment, but he paid me $25 an hour to draw on a part-time basis. One day he asked if I had seen a pack of blue folders. I hadn't. He then accused me of taking them, saying "I just wish you would tell me you did it." I didn't. Right after that he offered me a steak in the company. Was that some kind of business strategy? I didn't go back after that day.

Over the years I have mostly supported myself through carpentry. I got into it in the early 90's and, in addition to a bunch of independent small jobs, I have been on a couple of legitimate crews doing start to finish home building. It is good work and the pay is decent. It is a nice counter to all the solo/cerebral art making. I enjoy working with my hands and it is very satisfying to make a place for people to live.

For the last two years I have made about 80% of my living directly from art through residencies, grants and sales. I still run into rough patches. I've been trying to get a large project funded. I think I'm getting warm. I might actually make a living at this some day.

Hank

LP: When you were in school (undergrad) what was your idea of what life as an artist would be when you got out of school?

Hank: When I was in school I imagined that being an artist was a commitment to being broke (in a totally romantic and noble way).

]]> -What were some of the first jobs you had once you were out of school?

I was a photographer's assistant and a production assistant. I worked on shoots for a bunch of magazines, but my claims to fame were guarding the back door at a Victoria's Secret commercial and being Delroy Lindo's personal assistant on the Cider House Rules (which lead to knitting place-mats with Charlize Theron).

-Did you receive advice from professors/ peers/ mentors/ family as to how you should approach making a living as an artist?

I have the unique situation where my mom joined the faculty of my department 3 years after I graduated, so it is pretty unclear for me what I learned from faculty and what I learned from mom via osmosis. But an aunt once told me, "I've known you for some time and you will never take a job you don't like," which I took to mean I should do whatever I wanted - which led me to trying to build a career about communicating my ideas in a visual format.

-What is one of the most unusual things you have done to make money?

Sold art. Seriously.

-What has been the trajectory of your sustainability as an artist? (i.e. has it gotten progressively easier over the years or more of a constant fluctuation)

By the time i even realized that I had a career, I had been working on it for seven years. And I really felt like I had no choice. I was just trying to figure some things out, and other people (thank god) took interest in it and gave me the confidence to believe in my creative process. That encouragement keeps me applying for grants and residencies and showing my work whenever and wherever I can. I don't know if a non-teaching art career is ever that sustainable because most of your money goes back into your work anyway. But my curiosity sustains my interest in making work, and hopefully will help sustain an audience. I have also managed to keep rent low by doing lots of residencies.

-What kinds of jobs have you found to be the most suitable for maintaining an art practice?

I loved PAing on films. You work long hours, but you get to learn how to hustle and don't spend any money on shooting days. I used to work 6 months and kick it for six months because I could save up so much money. But pretty much anything freelance helps find the time to make work if you don't get burnt out.

-Has selling art been a significant source of income? What percentage of your income comes from the sale of art?

Yes. Sales - 65%, Commissions - 10%, Grants - 35%

-Are there ways that you have shaped your lifestyle that come directly from your pursuits as an artist?

I keep the Bay Area as my base, but use every excuse I can to travel for months on end to meet people. Mostly through residencies.

-What are your next steps as an artist and what kinds of support will you need to take those steps?

My next step is to learn how to tame the email and administrative beast and concentrate more on making work and developing the concepts and materials I'm currently focusing on in my work.

Marisa

When I finished my undergrad program at Berkeley I worked as a 'waitress to support my job as a muralist to support my work as an artist.' I chose the restaurant because (a) they were hiring someone to start that day (b) they were near where I lived in the Mission (c) it was Asian fusion themed, and so am I (half Chinese, half Ecuadorian).

]]> I lied my way into the job and was doing terribly: dropping rice in people's drinks, apologizing profusely, giving them free dessert – I ended up with wonderful tips bordering at 30% because the people felt so sorry for my bumbling antics. I quit before they could fire me, and got a job working as a human resource manager for a dot-comesque company.

Once I answered a job posting to wash someone's cement driveway in Moraga. I had just enough money to buy the gas to get out there but not enough to drive back. My plan was to get paid in cash, drive to the gas station and fill up and use the remaining $50 to buy groceries. But the guy who had hired me gave really bad directions and I had to keep pulling over to use the pay phone to call him. He was kind of an asshole about my getting lost, and I decided that since I was running out of gas and might never arrive to his house to get more cash, I should just turn back. So in the end I never ended up washing his pavement.

Later, to reduce our expenses running a gallery in the Mission, Steve (my partner at the time) and I lived in the four foot crawl space in the gallery. There were no windows, and it was difficult to clean. It was rather stuffy and really dark. At that time I worked for Steve's business making kitchen cabinets and furniture. There was a moment when Steve tried to convince me to learn the skills to become an industrial finish sprayer, painting cars and furniture and stuff. There was good and consistent money in spray-finishing, and we knew a lot of carpenters. Thankfully I ended up teaching art to teens and lil tykes instead, which I rather preferred.

Now I work on curatorial and education projects with various non-profits and collaborators, and spend the rest of the time making art. In other words, I could use some extra income - I may try my luck with an illicit racket of some kind. Co-conspirators, anyone?

Josh

As I was finishing up college in Indiana I decided I would move to Seattle. I had never been there before, nor did I know anyone in the city or much about it. I suppose I just wanted to try a new place and a place that was largely unfamiliar to me. I did not give much thought to how I would support myself.

]]> It turned out that my mom's cousin was married to a guy whose family had a few restaurants in Seattle. Through this connection I landed a busboy job at one of their busier joints. I worked quite a bit, often working lunch and dinner. I remember hoarding my cash in a toiletry kit. It was thrilling to amass a bunch of money, say a thousand dollars or so, count it several times and ultimately deposit it in the bank.

After about four months of bussing tables I told my manager that I wanted to be considered for a waiter position. He responded with an analogy about a seed that needs to germinate. It was quite poetic. He said I could do a try out and wait on him and another manager. I passed the test and was on my way to what now seems like a career of waitering.

While my waitering career was evolving I came upon art-making by way of a roommate who was an artist, as well as the inheritance of a camera. Things moved rather swiftly as my roommate and I set up a darkroom. I took a few classes, learned to work with wood and metal and continued my own self-education as well. All the while, I was supporting myself working nights as a waiter. It seemed like a pretty good approach: I made decent money and I had my days free to do my own work.

After about four years in Seattle I migrated southward to San Francisco. The waitering continued through graduate school and beyond up until a point a few years ago when I decided that I needed to find another way to make a living. I wanted a job that was stimulating and kept normal people's hours. I ended up taking a job as an editor at a local magazine. It was strange - I was 31 years old and I had never had a desk job. I felt like a fish out of water. The hours passed slowly and I put on at least ten pounds. I spent a couple of years at the magazine and quit when my girlfriend got into grad school across the country.

With a thin writing resume I returned to my roots and started waiting tables again. I now work in restaurants that represent the top of the field in terms of income. There are things that I enjoy about this kind of work, but I am again coming to that place where I question how long I can continue in this field. I am in the midst of trying to figure out another way to make a living.

Maria

When I got out of graduate school (University of Chicago) I moved to California to follow a long and rather tragic relationship to the bitter end (which came pretty quickly) and simply decided to stay put and try to figure out what came next. I worked for a builder for about a year, which was very interesting but hard on me physically. I tried to make money making ceramics and selling them and found that to be unrealistic.

]]> I figured out that if i was just making, or just decorating, it might work. So I started a little craft business making and selling hand-painted tile. (I bought bisque tile by the box, decorated, glazed, packed, shipped, etc.) It was an interesting venture. I always felt like I was a visitor in the craft world and no one around me knew it - something like a secret agent. Several years into this a friend and neighbor (I lived in a warehouse mostly occupied by artists) started writing criticism. I was thinking about it already but she goaded me into it and thus my career as a writer began. I have always been able to write and to draw, so I never took either skill very seriously, since I assumed that if I could do these things then everyone could. (In those early years just out of grad school I wrote poetry pretty seriously and published, hung out with poets, etc. But that too was sort of a distraction from my real path in life. Read on.)

I started writing magazine pieces - spending more and more time in galleries - and as I did interviews with famous painters and sculptors I realized that they were just people like me. It struck me that I could either blow my life feeling sorry for myself or I could try to be what I was always meant to be, an artist and a writer. So I started making work again (objects, that is - I'd been drawing all along, but not in a focused way) and at the same time I started making real money writing. How? Scripts for audio tours for museum exhibitions; Catalogue essays for galleries and museums; Articles, columns, and reviews for magazines, etc. Around the late 1980's I started showing work and decided that I needed to take better long-term care of myself. (A disastrous string of relationships suggested that no one else was going to do it.) I had the money for a down-payment on a cheap house and there was one neighborhood left that didn't scare me here in East Oakland. I bought a house and moved. I closed the tile business and started selling art. I also started teaching a little bit, here and there, though that didn't really get rolling until a decade later.

Since then I have made my living writing, selling work and teaching, in varying percentages from year to year. I did a big public art project and actually made good money from it. Since I had my daughters, I have been teaching and writing more, making work less (I wanted to focus on them - I had them very late in life and they will be my first, last and only children) but now I am getting back to my work and will have a solo show again soon.

This juggling act is very hard once you have kids. it has almost killed me at various moments in the last five years. I find that I can do three things but not four, and since raising kids is not something I can take or leave - and to some extent the other things are - I've chosen to back away from teaching. I'm lucky that i can - writing is actually better paying - but I have gotten a lot from being with students. You don't always get to do everything you want, life isn't long enough for that. But I have never had to do work I hated, or even disliked. Life isn't long enough for that either. I always tell students to try to find work that feels worthwhile and that they enjoy. And that if they want kids not to wait as long as I did. Twins at 47 is pretty damn rigorous. If i didn't have a husband who gets good benefits through his job, which also provides a regular paycheck (he started looking for this kind of work when we found out it was going to be twins) it would be pretty tough. I feel very lucky and hope to live to be very old so I can keep on doing all those things I want to be doing and maybe even get to see grandchildren.

Alison

I started making art in a "serious" way while I was in college, studying psychology and working in research labs. Trying to write this, I found that I had to look at my resume to remember all the jobs I had during and after school. Everything sort of blurs together into a mostly grey and indistinct working past.

]]> During school I usually worked at least 30 hours a week at a variety of full and part-time, temporary and permanent jobs. Some of them were great and I learned a lot; others were "day jobs" in every sense. An incomplete list of jobs I held during and after college: server, dishwasher, and cook at a café; visitor services staff at a contemporary art museum; afterschool art teacher; events coordinator; degree clearance liaison; resident advocate in a home for the mentally ill; legal secretary; roving temp worker; music club manager; receptionist; night manager at a residence hall; wedding photographer; personal assistant.

After finishing school I worked less and less at steady jobs as grants, stipends, residencies, and teaching started to work out. Some months I make enough money to support myself without working at what I call "job-jobs," some months I don't. Lately I have been doing translation work, some editing and proofreading, and some light journalism. These sorts of things bring in a little extra money every month, and I can schedule them in when it suits me.

Three years ago I moved to Sweden from the United States, and it was part of a big shift in how I deal with money and with art-making. I moved here with my partner; we live together and share our money. He is an artist and musician and we are at about the same point in our careers; we both scratch together money wherever we can, and because some months I do well and other months he does well we are usually fine. We bought an inexpensive apartment and we try to keep our basic costs of living very low.

We had a baby about a year ago and while that has changed things, it hasn't changed much financially. We have juggled our schedules quite a bit this year to be able to take care of him full-time, so neither of us has been able to work on art as much as we would have liked, but we wanted to save our parental leave money for later – for example, when one of us has a residency, the other comes along and uses parental leave to have some income. Our son will be allowed to start day care when he turns one, and because fees are on a sliding scale in Sweden with a very low ceiling even full-time private care will be quite cheap. He is still so small that he doesn't really involve too many expenses; he flies for free and he hasn't asked for any expensive art materials or sports equipment yet. When he gets older we will need a bit more money every month, but for now we are doing fine.

For me, living in Sweden took a lot of pressure off. I have much less spending money here (next to none, really), but basic necessities are paid for through taxes. I have access to good health care, good public transit, good daycares and schools. Seeing so much of my income go to taxes feels all right, even though I can't eat out very often. We plan to be based in Sweden at least for the next few years. I plan to keep going. In my experience, if I just keep going, everything works out all right. Perhaps in the future I will teach more, or I will begin to sell work. In the nearest months and years I will travel a good deal; maybe when my son is older and less portable I will have to find more local solutions. I think it will work out.

Mike

I had my first art related job during high school and junior college at Aaron Brothers Art Mart where I was a runt and spent lots of time pranking my coworkers to pass the time. We would play UNO, launch yard sticks with those big rubber bands and roll around on the office chairs playing tag - touching the floor was illegal.

]]> Then for some reason, they let me start framing pictures where I would make fake spiders out of framing supplies to scare my arachnophobic co-worker. I was also a gallery design intern of sorts and I taught students how to hang artwork the wrongway... without knowing of course. I moved to SF to go to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. I continued framing pictures at a high-end shop where I learned advanced woodworking skills. Having access to a shop during my transition from flat work to sculpture was incredibly valuable.

Eventually, I became a preparator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) where I improved on my woodworking, carpentry, art handling, packing, lighting, and signage skills. I even learned how to drive a lift. I worked with a lot of talented Bay Area artists and we inspired and challenged each other. It was an amazing time. I did freelance install work for galleries and other museums between YBCA installs so I would be able to sustain living off of part-time temporary work.

Now I work for a wonderful sign company called Priority Graphics (just a little plug). I install signage all over the Bay Area. I've learned how to dig post holes, core drill, hammer drill, jack hammer, glue stuff, and laser engrave and I have the added advantage of borrowing their truck for personal use once in a while. I've had the chance to drive a couple of lifts too... sometimes big ones. Oh yeah, and I started teaching at CCA for the first time this fall.

Zefrey

I first started making art while I was working in a cafeteria at the University of Oregon. I was studying philosophy and had minimal interest in art, other than the fact that a girl I had a huge crush on said she was an oil painter. I thought the stuff was strictly for the birds and was much more interested in the punk rock band I was in at the time.

]]> After I finished scrubbing huge industrial pots and pans I would bike over to her house and sit in the garage filled with fumes while she labored away on some gothic icon or other and I would write self-absorbed lyrics about how shitty everything was. I remember the day I picked up one of her brushes and did a painting on an old toilet seat cover and thought, "This is the coolest fucking thing in the entire world!" The band broke up, the girl and I split up, and I moved to Portland, Oregon. I was dead broke and I mean flat-fucking broke. I needed money that day for rent and I had no job to speak of. I was filing out applications for these convenience stores called "Plaid Pantry" (Oregon's 7-11) and was on my way home, hang-headed, and wanting to get drunk, when I passed a sign for a place hiring called American Dream Pizza. I thought to myself, "How cheeky is that!?" Little did I know I would spend the next 7 years of my life darkening that doorstep. So I slung the sausage, peeled the pepperoni, tossed the tomatoes, and ran a privately owned greasy pizza joint for 7 years. The owner treated me like a king and would give me time off for my shows and even bought some of my paintings.

I then moved to San Francisco and lo and behold, I moved without a goddamn dime to my name yet again! My ex-wife and I moved into a place on 25th & Mission and when we were done paying the rent and deposit, we had $12.87 to live off of in one of the most expensive city's in the world. I scoured the town and came up with a job at a place called Shooting Stars. It was a photography company that took glam-shots of kids playing sports. Soccer, baseball, you name it. I've taken thousands of pictures of kids sitting on their parent's knee, telling them to say, "1,2,3...say spaghetti!!!!"

This job wasn't enough to cover things, so I got a job as a customs broker in downtown San Francisco as well. I was working 7 days a week for months and months. My art production had dropped to zero and I was noticeably more of an asshole. I finally quit taking the glam-shots of rich children in tights, allowing more time for making art, but I have stayed on at the customs house for the time being. Painting has begun to pay out, but not enough for full monthly support. Soon.... soon.....

Steve

Throughout my undergrad education I worked at a motorcycle shop. By the time I was done with school I had made my way into a management position and was thoroughly tired with the whole thing. I desperately wanted out and that became incredibly motivating for my art practice.

]]> A full year before the deadline, I decided to apply for a California Arts Council residency grant. Every morning I got up before work and spent 2 hours in my studio (I'm not a morning person) and every night I worked more, chiseling away at the application. Halfway through the year I got a job as a national dealer rep at a motorcycle importer, slightly more interesting work than before that paid better. About 6 months into that job I heard back from the CAC that I'd won the grant. I quit my day job.It's been about 5 years now. Since then I have survived through grants, teaching, and the occasional odd job. The CAC residency led to a teaching job, and I subsequently received a Creative Work Fund grant and a stipend/scholarship to get through grad school. It hasn't all been glamorous. I've done some landscaping, sold t-shirts I made, and taken other odd jobs in order to make ends meet when grants and teaching opportunities are slow.

I think there are 2 ways to go for artists - and I have done both. One is to find a job completely unrelated to your art practice that doesn't interfere mentally and keeps you motivated to make your own work. The other is working jobs related to your practice, at the risk of those jobs replacing your practice. I enjoy teaching because I learn from it and the work feels satisfying. I'm glad I've done both, but I plan to avoid going back to an unrelated job. Ultimately what sustains me is a faith that it will all work out. My parents ran their own struggling furniture business until I was 22, so I grew up around financial instability. It's familiar. I take comfort in the fact that I am young(er), healthy, and have a diverse set of skills (developed through art making) that I can fall back on in a worst case scenario. I also try to keep my goals loose and adjustable, headed in a direction rather than a specific place. I try not to make my happiness contingent on narrow goals like owning a house, getting a show in a certain gallery, or having a certain job. Having more broad goals leaves me with a better overall sense of well being.

Suzanne

Three days after I obtained my MFA in France in 2000, I moved to CA. My new-age roommate convinced me that after getting an intensive massage therapist training, I could make a lot of money. Wanting to be able to support my art practice without having to work a lot, I did the training and became a massage therapist for 2 years.

]]> I was very good and very popular, and yes, i do think it relates to my sculpture practice. The hands have memory and knowledge that surpass the brain. I also taught art in after-school programs. Then, tired of the Bay Area, I was a teacher in China for a year. I taught English and French. My work in China was very documentary based, and some of it was direct interviews with my teenage students. Back from China, I realized that I would never live off my art and I should find a day-job that I love.

My art had been botanical, critical of environmentally unfriendly behaviors. I carried the heavy guilt of making objects out of un-biodegradable materials. Having wanted to learn about the relation between art and the landscape, I read an incredible French book from Barridon called 'Les Jardins', a history of gardens through litterature. I always loved contemporary gardens so I enrolled in Landscape Horticulture Design school, where I've been full time for 3 years. I practice landscape design, I draft for designers, design and garden. I love having to think of plant material, know the names and requirements of all the plants that surround us, to always learn about more plants. I love that my designs, unlike my installations, are going to be lived in and make people happy (fragrances, colors...). I love that by being mindful of the materials I use (organics, natives) I have more political integrity. I'm now taking a break from my art practice. I want to design more. I love that people ask me for designs and I don't have to submit 20 slides to do one.

Stephanie

While I was getting my undergraduate degree in Fine Art (1991-95) I wound up doing many different jobs to stay afloat. I worked 30-40 hours a week, most of it for minimum (or near minimum) wage. I was a sculpture studio monitor and computer center tutor (2 years); counter server at a bagel deli (5 years); graphic design intern at the Exploratorium Museum (2 years); artist assistant in New York (for Dennis Oppenheim) for a few months, as well as an intern at White Columns gallery.

]]> When I got out of school I got a full time job as a graphic designer at the Exploratorium, working on everything from museum graphics to annual reports, and wound up spending most of my nights and weekends squeezing in time to make artwork. Also, I took as much advantage as possible of the woodshop and computer facilities at work, which was a lifesaver in terms of having access to art facilities after school. Five years later I left that job after getting a $28,000 grant that allowed me to take a year off to make artwork, as well as do a year-long artist residency at the Headlands. I got lucky in that during the next few years I received several other grants which finally convinced me to leave my job.

After that I worked as a freelance designer for museums and nonprofit organizations, but also got income from doing lectures, panel discussions, and was on juries for other grants, which all paid an OK amount when added up--little bits here and there. I went back to graduate school in 2005 when I got a full scholarship with stipend.

I sold vintage clothes on Ebay for almost 2 years during grad school, buying stuff at thrift stores and taking photos of them. That wasn't so lucrative but I could do it on off hours. I started sewing clothes from recycled materials and selling them online and in DIY consignment shops and now earn enough to survive, surprisingly! I now teach one or 2 classes a semester at art schools and somehow manage to get by--I love teaching but it's really energy-draining. I still have major problems trying to juggle all my responsibilities and there never seems to be enough time.

Helena

While I was in art school I held a smattering of odd jobs, childcare for a professor (3 years), food service in a Mediterranean deli and a Caribbean restaurant, and work-study in the bookstore and student services office. Since graduating from art school with a BFA in 2000 I have supported myself in a variety of ways, mostly as a teacher.

]]> I started out as a volunteer at an after-school tutoring program where I eventually developed arts programing for elementary age students. This lead to teaching workshops at a contemporary art center and 'studio classes' at a Waldorf inspired high school in my neighborhood. Teaching in this capacity allowed me a lot of freedom to invent classes and introduce students to contemporary ideas about art. Two years out of school I received my first grant - a $3,000 installation commission. I was getting paid to make art and teach art! In 2003 I received additional grants for education projects and my own artwork, allowing me to spend more time focused on making and exhibiting work.

When I moved to San Francisco in October 2003, I started from the beginning, first as a barista in a coffee shop near my home in Potrero Hill, then as a gallery assistant, an education programs director at a non-profit, an art teacher at a public charter school in Ingelside, and finally - my current money-making occupation - as a waitress. I also teach an occasional 'refashioning' class at Stitch, a sewing workshop and will be leading a textile printing workshop at Creativity Explored in May and June, 2006. It has been a struggle to find work that (a) pays the bills - (especially in the Bay Area), (b) leaves me time and energy to make work and (c) is fulfilling. Right now working in a restaurant is giving me lots of 'a' and 'b' but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep going with so very little 'c'.