This project began for me on September 6, 2011. I had 2 days earlier, thrown my hands in the air and begged God to tell me what He wanted me to do to make a living – for the highest good of all concerned??? And then I had left it alone.
Praying is not new to me – I do it all the time – Intuitive thought has become a key element in my problem solving and prayer and meditation are common practice for me. However, sometimes I am more surrendered than at other times and often I need to have my will worn down. I guess my will, regarding trying to find a job, was worn down on Sept 6.
It was actually a month past exactly 3 years ago that I finished my last real job as adjunct professor of Drawing for the summer session at Red Rocks Community College, and just 5 months later that I ran out of money and had to move from my 1 bedroom apartment to a room in someone’s house. I had lived in that room until August 2009 when I had been unable to pay September’s rent and had desperately accepted a job caretaking a lady with down syndrome and living with her sister in Cherry Creek.
I had had a few other jobs in there, including canvassing door-to-door for a roofing company, for which I was paid $200 for every closed appointment. The project managers didn’t close all their appointments.
I had taken the care-taking job hastily and without legal considerations and had promptly gotten pneumonia upon moving in, so I had forgotten to get a written agreement. Too bad. My mistake. In November of 2009, after an extravagant trip to New York, that job had gone south, leaving me with no where to go.
I had to find a free place for my 15-year old dog to live and the couch surfing began. Friends advised me to take my dog to be euthenized. I could not do it! She had a lot of life left in her, so through a series of Craigslist Ads I found her places to stay till I got to the Wheat Ridge house, where I could have her back. She died in May 2010.
A 3-month stint on my friend’s floor in Englewood was my first stop on this tour. I had had a data entry position for a little while making $8 per hour cash, but had lost it when I refused to sign a non-compete agreement stating I would not sell on ebay.
From December 1, 2009 till the present I have been technically homeless and jobless getting by this way and that, selling art, selling vintage clothing on ebay, one way or another – from October 2010 – May 2011, I made grilled cheese sandwiches on the 16th St mall for my friend Steve, who was starting a food cart business, and from February 2010, I have been on Food Stamps. I have been through Workforce Development Classes twice, stayed in Wheat Ridge a friend’s house for 9 months, house-sat in Harvey Park for 6 months and am now painting a friend’s house in southeast Denver in exchange for a place to live since March 2011. In January 2011, I moved my stuff to my friend’s basement in Kiowa.
Let me add that, until September 6, I had sent out resumes every day. I had spent hours looking for work. I had talked to friends about jobs and had gone to networking parties and gatherings – was willing to do anything legal. I had gone to every chain – Starbucks, Whole Foods, Sunflower Market, Vitamin Cottage, Radio Shack, etc and had been told to “apply online”. I had applied online many times over.
I had tried to start an Intuitive Painting teaching business, getting a writing teacher and a yoga teacher to teach with me, calling it Creative Renewal. The plan was to teach in the mountains for a week once per year and to teach 3 times per month for a weekend in Denver. I scheduled a new series of workshops at Colorado Free University for 2 evenings a month to whet people’s appetites and I had cleaned the basement of the house I am living in, hung up tarps, bought new paint and paper, and done a free weekend for potential co-teachers.
I had made a page on Facebook and got a bunch of new “Denver” friends, put up flyers and networked the class around – but when the scheduled event happened, not one student signed up.
In March 2011, I taught a painting workshop at the Jungian Society of Pueblo which was a great success and I thought I was launching the business…and accepted a workshop position for April of 2012 teaching in Tuscany, Italy.
In addition to this, I had been applying for teaching jobs around the country for 3 years – each application required an enormous amount of work to prepare, including getting my former schools to send transcripts, cd’s of my work, pages and pages of written materials, each tailored specifically to each school. I rarely even got a rejection letter and never got an interview.
Not only was I doing this, but I was also applying for public art projects in Denver. Denver has an enormous budget for public art and they encourage new artists to apply. Each application requires a site visit to the location, and then a letter of interest and submission. I have been actively applying for public art commissions monthly for 3 years. I have never gotten one.
I got one interview from a craigslist ad I answered in June – to be a house-cleaner for a green cleaning company – and when I went to them to fill out some paperwork for Food Stamps, they fired me.
I guess that early in September, several days after being yelled at by an interim spiritual advisor – “just go get a job - I think you are afraid to work!” I was done. I was spiritually, mentally and physically exhausted…
He didn’t know about my 3 job counselors. I had one at a non-profit job counseling center who told me that I should “sell my art” – Wow!!! Really?? I should have thought of that. I had one at the Coalition for the Homeless who told me to redesign my resume to be a therapist. I had one at the Workforce Development Center who told me me to go back to being a tattoo artist!!!
So, when I threw up my hands in desperation, I was hopeless and helpless and utterly surrendered. And I had drawn some conclusions about art.
I had decided, from my experience, that I am an artist, but that I am not an art seller. I will always make art but I will not try to sell it anymore. Trying to sell art depletes my creative well. It makes me cynical and very unhappy. It messes up my interactions with people because I am always thinking about what I am going to get from them rather than what I can give. In addition, I do not want to spend my time interacting with the rich.
In addition, it feels very self-serving to me to be an artist trying to sell art in this economy. I also decided that although art is of vital importance in our communities, in the schools, etc., this economy seems to be calling for something else to be put in place first. I felt that there was something else that I am called to do with this creative gift that I have been given.
In other cultures, the artists were the Shamans. Artists actually had a purpose in Native American and African Cultures. Artists were exalted and given special priviledges in less “civilized” cultures – because, being intuitive and very right brain thinkers, they knew what was coming around the corner and they prepared the rest of the tribe for it through Vision Quests and ceremonies and other mechanisms. Even Daniel Pink, NY Times Bestseller said that the MFA is the new MBA.
It is only in this culture that “visual art” has become commodified. And it is commidified in the most hideous way. In Europe, art is for the common man. Or at least it was until the Industrial Revolution. Now “art” is shit. Even Donald Kuspit agrees with me on that one.
I began to ask myself, if I was a Shaman with a vision for the future, what would it be? The interesting thing for me having had this experience regarding not being able to find work was that I have friends who are working and I have friends who are homeless. I could see that my working friends really had no idea about what was going on with the rest of us. I saw them judging us a lot of the time – as if we were lazy or complacent or something – until they lost a job or graduated from school and tried to find one.
Then they would realize the situation. I knew that we are in another Great Depression really and that this time it is much worse because it is hidden. And it is also worse because it was caused by illegal actions by people on Wall St. who are now working in the current Administration. These people stole hundreds of billions of dollars from the working people of this country, and have not been brought to justice.
It is hidden through Food Stamps because without them the public would see all the people waiting on food lines. It is hidden by the numbers because the government says 9% unemployment but that number is not including all those who’s benefits have run out or all those who don’t have benefits and don’t qualify for benefits. Really, it’s more like 25%, just like the Great Depression.
I started to examine the act of making art and asking myself what it is that I actually do and how could I apply it to something more productive to the community…
Good thing too, because the best things show up when I am completely beaten down and don’t know what to do.
A few days later, I came upon this article and this project began.
I ran an ad on Craigslist in the gigs section and found the first group of people who would start with me in this process. In addition, I met RMEOC referred to me by the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives in San Francisco, and the Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union.
I am still not working – I am still getting by on a wing and a prayer, but today I know that what I am doing is right and I don’t feel that tug on my heart that I am doing something against God’s wishes for me. Today is Christmas day and I am sitting here in my pajamas on the computer writing this blog. I don’t feel like I should be someone else, somewhere else doing something else. I know that God made me, for this time, for this reason. A solution to this situation we find ourselves in economically is learning how to work together and help each other. Worker Cooperatives are one way to accomplish this.
We have learned a lot and I have kept a diary. (see Archives)
