Day one: The Inquest.

Yesterday I was angry. Or actually, I decided to get angry. Let me explain.

I was reading about the AAA, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Abstract_Artists, who used their constructive anger about the critical and public reaction to abstract art in America to affect positive change. I decided that my goal for the day was to become constructively angry, and to do something about it.

I then proceeded to downward spiral. I am on the tail end of a year of enormous change and growth. I am in a relationship that feeds and challenges me. I am learning to play the ukelele.  I finished my first body of paintings in 7 years. I started hiking, and if you know me, that's a big deal. I started to meditate, first through a class, and then in other settings. I'm not sure if you've tried meditation. For me, it's been one of those things that has opened me up to boundaries that I built when I wasn't looking. It can be an incredible release, but it's also like looking in the face of my fears and feeling vulnerable in a way I've never let myself be vulnerable before. 

Those things set the stage for my downward spiral. It was then magnified by the media Monday after the Super Bowl. By articles about the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffmann. By articles about the inexplicable outrage that Coke made a commercial that included people singing 'America the Beautiful' in languages other than English. I made the mistake of reading the comments. 

And then I had a meeting with a young artist. Meeting with artists is a big part of what I do for a living, and one of the most rewarding aspects of it. It took me a while to pinpoint, but that meeting set off my anger. It wasn't directed at the artist I was meeting with but with culture as a whole, and my role in perpetuating certain aspects of it. 

I am angry at the state of art and art education. 
I am angry that this practice I love so fiercely has been so disrespected and misunderstood for so many years. 
I am angry that I chose to put myself in lifelong debt in order of go get my MFA, and at the same time 
I'm angry that there is so little respect for people who choose to take that huge financial risk toward living their dreams. 
I'm angry at the way artists are treated in this country.
I'm angry that artists are not valued for the contribution of their work. In cash money. Unless they are blue chip artists.
I am angry at people who have unrealistic expectations of what teachers can and should give them. 
I am angry that I was a good writer in high school and thought that I was above learning grammar, because even now I use questionable sentence structure.

 This list of what I'm angry about could go on for a very long time. It would make me, and you, tired. So, even though there are five million blogs out there, I am going to start writing one. I am going to write every day for 365 days. I'm going to call it How to Be an Artist in 365 Days. 

A little about my background. I have been painting and making other forms of art since I was nine. I completed two AP Art portfolios and AP Art History in high school. I went to a large, career-oriented, commercially based art school for my BFA, and a small, private, conceptually based art school for my MFA. I have been a teacher, and a portfolio consultant, and a counselor. I once helped to start a school. Mostly I have been in art school admissions, for the better part of fifteen years. I have been making art that whole time. I have been a designer, an illustrator, and shown in different spaces as a fine artist. I have lived in this creative world, committed myself to it, for a long time. 

All that being said, I don't know that I will really be teaching anyone how to be an artist. I don't know what all I have to say. I want this to stay anonymous for a while, because of what I do for a living, and because that obviously influences my opinions. And because I'm angry. I also want to do this publicly, because it's what I have to say. It's mine. For now, I'm just going to start writing and see what happens. As I learned last year, a lot can change in 365 days. Thank you for listening.