artWORK

I chose to pass out ART WORK at my local coffee shop. I live in Nopa on the Panhandle and my neighborhood is filled with thirty-somethings with young children and designer prams as well as a sprinkling of hipsters in their twenties who breathe flannel and have their fixed gear bikes practically grafted to their bodies.

I struck up a conversation with one of late twenty-somethings: a young woman with a pixie hair cut, large brown eyes and a red sweatshirt covered with Scottie dogs. She was drinking herbal tea and munching on toast with hummus. She explained to me that she studied art at UC Berkeley and struggled with finding a steady job for years. Not having gone to graduate school she wondered if that would make a difference on her resume, but after getting engaged and a few years later having a child, the thought of spending money on grad school was out of the question.

She asked me what I was studying and I told her I was currently studying design to pursue a career in advertising or package design. “That’s the ticket,” she said. “In this capitalist economy the only way to have a solid career in art is to do something which pleases the corporations, like selling their product. But don’t worry,” she said hastily, “I’m not saying you’re selling out. It’s intelligent.” She lifted up ART WORK off the table to show me what she had been reading before I brought the paper. Real Estate License Exams for Dummies – complete with dogeared pages and a crinkled spine lay on the table.

“I have to pay the bills! My son, Harrison, is four and I don’t want to worry about money. I still paint at home; now that Harrison is older I don’t have to watch him every second of the day. It’s been fun lately, too, to do art with him. It’s not the life path I thought I would be on ten years ago, but I’m happy. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t think that artists need more governmental backing though. If I could help support my family without studying this damn real estate book it would be a dream come true. My sister is at Berkeley now and my parents are stretching their wallets thin to try to make ends meet after the fee hikes. It’s ridiculous. Art students pay as much – sometimes more – than other majors to attend college and we get the shaft. I don’t know how to change it but I wish someone would. The businessmen who run the country have to decorate their penthouses with something, right?”