Art food

 

New York Diner Suite; Actually pencil drawing from about 1985, but I didn't have a crumpet drawing....so close enough.

I have just finished a crumpet, crunchy outside and soft inside, butter dripping from all its little holes. The model for the American "English muffin," crumpets are the ultimate comfort food to me. Today, I needed comfort food.

Why? Well, because, assuming I might have 15 more years of active working life, I need to get a move on and frankly, the pains that have dogged my life for three years were particularly gruesome this morning. A morning Simon had to take my head shot for my Irish passport renewal. A morning when I had to package two Giclee prints to send, one to Canada and one to the US. A morning after I signed up for a very expensive website on GoDaddy. It's probably the 10th art website I've had...but it is going to be the one that finally pushes me to sell my artwork as avidly as I sold my writing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah that little voice in my head is saying. And with some reason to be believed.

Profession 1: Writing

When I decided it would be better for me to be a journalist than to teach English Lit., my desire to spend my life in a classroom being on a par with my desire to break out in permanent itchy scabs, I switched departments, went to work on a Masters in Journalism, took the core courses I thought I needed, and got out of there when my major professor told me to. She knew I didn't WANT to teach, not even journalism, so I didn't need a master's degree, never mind a doctorate; I wanted to go to NYC--home--and write. So I did. 
 

One of my riding teachers, Peter Krukoski, used a commissioned painting I did in the 90s of one of his students as teh cover for the year's show program. I'm quite proud of that!

Profession 2: Showing horses and teaching riding

The day I decided I wanted to learn to ride and jump horses, I signed up for weekly lessons. A month later it was two lessons a week. Then three. Then I went to "horse college"--literally--and within five years or so, having trained my own horse, won ribbons, etc., I was teaching the sport. (Apparently, teaching horsemanship is OK with my personality, and god knows it is more interesting than being cooped up indoors with reluctant students. People who take riding lessons are avid, the opposite of reluctant.)

So why did I abandon the pursuit between the journalism I studied in my 20s, the riding in my 40s? Why did the study of my 30s--art--get no respect? After all, I chose a very find professional school, the Art Students League of NY, with its great teachers: Robert Beverly Hale (anatomy and drawing), Tom Fogarty (oil painting), Gregory d'Alessio (watercolours), all passed on now. And I was elected to membership in due course, a sign that one is at least a competent artist.

It might be about caring. Too much, perhaps. I care, wildly, about journalism. I am appalled at the level to which it has sunk the past two decades and the past two years...well, just don't get me started. And horses. I love horses, but I also love the sport of hunter-jumper riding, both athletic and artistic inherently.

Profession 3: Artist

But perhaps I really do care too much. I knew from the start that I was a good journalist; same with riding. But art? Well, I shied away from even studying it for YEARS when an early teacher looked at me cross-eyed. Later--years of no art later--Mr. Hale, on assessing my portfolio, said only, "These are very delicate." I took that to mean they sucked. BUT...and considering the times I had flown that coop before...I persisted. And then there was Tom Fogarty.

I had not yet bought the kit for oil painting by the first day of class, so I took my newsprint pad and Conte crayons and did a portrait of the model as a study for an eventual painting. As he passed through the room, Mr. Fogarty pulled up a stool near mine, looked at my work in progress, and said, "I really admire that."

The drawing Tom Fogarty liked, the drawing that convinced me I was an OK artist.

It was enough. I decided that if Tom Fogarty liked my work, then it would be good enough. So I continued.

But it was fits and starts. I'd work at art for a while, and sell a few things while writing and/or showing horses and teaching. I'm good at trompe l'oeil, and several of my commissions have been for that. But I've sold oil paintings and watercolours, too. Just not consistently and not with any forethought. Because then I'd have to produce....and I'd have to sell. As with my freelance writing work. 

And that scares the crap out of me. Selling writing was easy. Art? Not so much.  I think.  Maybe I'm wrong....

But I'm in now for more than a penny and more than a pound, so needs must. Or maybe I'm just reluctant because I know it will be my last professional pursuit during this term at the Earth School. If I don't start, I can't finish, right? And then I'll be immortal.

I guess I'll just have to risk it, and take up the challenge.

Shit.

Copyright 2019 by Laura Harrison McBride