Handmade Pottery + Ceramic Jewelry

Journey Collage 2005

I had a moment this weekend when I alternately considered getting a 9-5 job or going back to school come fall or spring.  I’ll be the first to admit that this happened on Saturday afternoon, when I was still tired mentally and physically after teaching a kid’s art camp the week before which was probably not the best time to be thinking about such a life changing venture.

Saturday evening, my husband and I had a rare evening alone because my daughter was at a friend’s house for a sleepover.  I was looking forward to the evening since I wanted to talk to him about everything that had been floating around in my head all day but I found it hard to organize my thoughts coherently.  Slowly the discussion turned to finances and I realized that I get stressed out about money.  A lot – and the summer is a time of the year where I don’t earn much in the way of an income.

I always thought I didn’t care about money, but I do, especially when I have to watch every single penny – which is something we’ve had to do ever since I left my job with United Airlines in 2002.  We always had a double income up until that date.  Yes, I make an income (albeit sporadic), but it’s probably less than half if not more, of what I made at UAL.

While left to my own devices that afternoon, I started thinking about how the notion of being an artist is so incredibly self indulgent.  (Oh yes, it get’s worse!) Do I think artists are valuable?  Hell yes!  What would we do without art in our lives??  But, this didn’t quiet my mind.  I wondered if I was chasing pure folly, bored or maybe just frustrated?

I asked my husband what he would do if money were no object.  We both agreed that a person has to do something with their time and it might as well be fulfilling.  Certainly life’s too short to do something that doesn’t give a person any satisfaction.  When I started mourning my UAL job, I realized that I missed the income and all the benefits – but definitely not the job.  I hadn’t liked my job for at least 5-10 years leading up my resignation.  No, I miss the financial security and routine.

I perused Craigslist Denver, The Denver Post, Monster Jobs and all the other job websites out there.  Nothing looked appealing to me.  Then, I started looking at education programs.  What do I actually enjoy doing?  I could have majored in Computer Science when I was younger – but when I checked the degree program, I realized that I would have to take entirely too much math before I could even start the program in order to take the first year math for CS majors.  I looked at digital art programs and found one at University of Colorado that looked interesting and offered a few different paths.  I checked out some MFA programs in ceramics.  But, unless, I could get into University of Colorado at Boulder, my family would have to relocate.  I returned to look at the MLA program that I dropped out of in 2005 at the University of Colorado at Denver.

I often joke that I will be reincarnated as a landscape architect.  I enjoyed the program, but found that it took quite a toll on my role as a mom to my then 7 year old child.  I remember one day, when I picked her up late from school and she asked if I could do something with her when we got home, I told her, “No, mommy has to study.”  She replied, “I wish you weren’t in school, you never have any time for me!”  It hit me like  ton of bricks and I vowed to put her first from then on.

Then, on top of it all, I started to feel sorry for myself.  For crying out loud, I’m a 42 year old woman and I should know what I want to be when I grow up!  Hell, I should already be grown up by now.

So, now, even I am asking myself, “What about clay? Can’t you just apply yourself and work harder?”  Here’s my inner most insecure voice answering, “Yeah, but it’s so hard…..”

My husband listened to me moan & whine, we talked and we have sort of come up with a plan that will alleviate the financial stress for both of us.  The sad thing is that when we did the math, we make way more than the average American family of 3.  I’m not sure how other people earning less do it – no wonder our economy is such a mess.  A moneyless, barter type community is sure starting to look good to me right now.  I should probably tell you that we have no credit card bills, no car payment – only a mortgage payment and our monthly utility/food/insurance bills, etc.  The mortgage payment is probably a little bigger than it should be (it’s not outrageous), but we pay for the area we live in.  People, we really are fine financially – maybe all the dire economic news is just starting to get to me.

Anyway, we agreed that I should not make any decisions about returning to school before allowing some time and my momentary ennui to pass.  I did find out that I could return to the MLA program at UCD – I simply have to apply to the school again, but not the program.  I dread compiling recommendation letters, transcripts and writing the dreaded essay all over again.

So, where does that leave clay and ceramics?  I think I know from where my artistic doubts are coming.  I haven’t kept a regular studio schedule since I started preparing for my kid’s camps.  My energy has been so concentrated on these camps the past month and since it’s the first summer I’ve taught at the Art Student’s League or Anderson Ranch, I have been hyper focused because I want to do a good great job and make a good impression.  My work has been sidelined for the time being and I have become clay neutered!

Meanwhile, I have actually been thinking about new work I’d like to make (it’s coming to me slowly), and it’s not all functional.  When I started thinking about possible new work, that little nagging voice crept inside and admonished the artist in me for not having a series or some kind of a problem, statement etc. that I’m expressing/working on.  (Yes, I’ve been trying to write an artist’s statement.)  I worry that by confessing all of this that anyone reading will be turned off.  People like confident people and don’t necessarily want to hear about someone else’s insecurities.

A funny thing happened after I unloaded all those thoughts that had been building onto my unsuspecting husband Saturday night; I started feeling better.  Maybe I just needed to voice my fears and frustrations out loud, instead of letting them ruminate and gain strength silently inside my head.  He then challenged me to a game of scrabble – and guess what?  I won 3 out of 3.  I normally lose at least one, but I was on fire.  Do we know how to party on a Saturday night or what?

Trancept detail for my final landscape architecture final 2005 (ink on mylar 1/4″ scale)

Switching gears ever so slightly…  Yesterday, I was planning for my printmaking + clay kid’s art camp and stumbled upon several of my landscape projects from school.  It was bizarre timing if you ask me given my recent mental gymnastics.  This is section of my final project and shows a frontal, side and top view of a series of arches that I designed for a corridor of Denver that we were looking at.  Mine had a decidedly contemporary minimalist feel to it and when I look at the drawing, which is a type of drawing that’s very mechanical, I feel sort of ambivalent.  I can’t even tell you how many hours I spent on this project and my jury wasn’t terribly impressed with it either.  I think I got a B on my final and an A- overall for the studio.  I know, you say a B is nothing to sneeze at, but not if you’re used to getting As.  The comments I received at the crit pissed me off just a tad – the project was critiqued as a public art program in disguise.  I guess I didn’t defend myself very well that day.

My final L/A project boards that I had to present and defend in 2005

The funny thing, is that in retrospect, it’s a horrible project, albeit nicely packaged.  In real life, it would receive a lot of criticism and is rather sterile compared to my mid-term project.    While some students cried after jury, I never did.  In fact, after this one, I tracked down and talked to almost every single juror (who were all outside L/A professionals) for more clarification.  I think part of my problem was that I was so married to this piece that I couldn’t think straight when it finally came time to present it. After awhile, time constraints force a person to choose a theme/design and make it work regardless of whether it has merit or not.

If I were to return to L/A school, I would definitely push the limits of some outlandish concepts and I started thinking about some of those ideas this past weekend.  As humans, we push our notions of beauty, conformity, utility, landscape, design etc. on our personal landscapes.  And, by landscape I mean our environment and culture – literally and figuratively.  Everything is packaged and judged by its outward appearance.  Can ugly be beautiful/popular?  Can nothing be useful?  Where does comfort come into play?

I’ve started thinking about clay again.

~Cynthia