overwhelmed with life- what should I be doing?
April 29, 2015 1:58 PM   Subscribe

I have a BA in Fine Arts and I graduated December of 2012. I've been working full-time at a Chinese restaurant since graduating. However, I feel stuck. Being the assistant manager of a restaurant isn't what I want to be doing at all. I've been looking at different programs to teach English in another country, but it somewhat feels like running away from career decisions. I don't want to be a teacher in the long run. I've never left the country, let alone been on a plane. Is it worth it? I've thought about grad school but with a lump sum of current student loans it seems like another way to kill a few years and resume finding a solid career in my field. I do illustration and abstract impressionist painting...I feel hopeless in the job hunt. I make fair wages to survive comfortably but my passion for art has become considerably numbed. I don't have much guidance as for being an artist from peers nor family, so any advice would be a huge help. Thanks
posted by elk23 to Media & Arts (13 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Are you interested in trying to make a living as a fine artist or illustrator, or are you open to learning related but more marketable skills in something like graphic design? I do know some successful artists and illustrators, but it's a much harder slog. Whereas graphic design (or maybe web development) has a lot of opportunities, and could probably make better use of your skills, so it would be a little more satisfying.
posted by three_red_balloons at 2:06 PM on April 29, 2015


It is so completely worth it to spend time outside of your comfort zone. Your 20s is a great time to take a leap like this -- temporary, exciting, scary, refreshing. It'll give you new perspective and you'll return with greater life experience and possibly better direction. Don't rush into a career decision. That is unhappiness waiting to happen. And don't be the person who reaches their 40s or 50s and thinks, "Oh if only I'd done xyz while I was young!"
posted by janey47 at 2:12 PM on April 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm going to recommend to you what I recommend to some of my clients, please download and take a look at Hans Johansen's "What Do You Want To Do With Your Life?".

It's a free PDF workbook and it might open you up to even MORE alternatives to what you're doing now.
Is art your true passion?
Is painting where your heart sings?

I believe that it would do a world of good to really find out the answers to these questions and move forward confidently in the direction of your new life.

Here is a direct link to the PDF.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 2:16 PM on April 29, 2015 [8 favorites]


Unless you see clear career decision paths you're deliberately not taking, I say try this stuff that you haven't tried yet and are thinking is maybe too scary/not-career-directed. Specifically try teaching in another country. Yes, it's worth it. My friend's kid is teaching in China right now and the pictures she sends back are glorious. Not to mention, it's lucrative. And it makes you better at all things involving communicating with other humans--so when you do know what you want to do long-term, you'll be better prepared to go after it. Besides, teaching itself is just great. If you haven't tried it, you probably don't know whether you want to do it or not, really. I know I didn't want to. I was adamant I didn't want to get stuck in it because "those who can't teach" and all that. Then I had to. And now I don't have to but I do because I love it. It's especially good if you're in a passion-numbed state because teaching makes you passionate--about everything, the students, the stuff you're trying to teach them, learning yourself.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:22 PM on April 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have lived this experience and I feel for you.

Here are some random thoughts:

• Let go of career expectations. Fine art has always been more of a calling anyway, like being a shaman or a prophet or a wandering minstrel. The bad news is there really is no career ladder to speak of. The good news is nobody can stop you from doing it.

• The people who make it look comfortable and easy (or at least orderly) usually started the game with a lot of money, property, family connections, etc. Don't compare yourself to them.

• Is travel compatible with the kind of art you make? Can you make art about your travels? Write and illustrate a book about it? If so, teaching English abroad sounds great to me.

• If you don't want to travel, my short-to-mid term advice would be to rent a tiny shared studio with a few other creative people even if it's just a little hole in the wall. Move your stuff in and hang out there every day. Schedule open studio exhibitions every six months and then work like a manic idiot till you have something to show. Apply for every residency and competition you can think of. Look into graduate programs maybe, but be skeptical about cost.

• Keep making friends. Be curious about what other people are up to. Don't think about it transactionally or compare yourself to them, just reach out. See what you can do for other people and don't worry about how it'll reflect back on you.

• A flexible day job is actually a beautiful thing. Jobs in the art world are over-rated. In fact, a lot of design jobs are too. Keep your eye out for good opportunities, but don't fall prey to the belief that grown-ups have office jobs.

• Think twice about co-habitative romantic partnerships. If it's the real thing, awesome, but don't make too many compromises.

And if you can follow this advice, maybe I can too! Good luck.
posted by ducky l'orange at 2:23 PM on April 29, 2015 [8 favorites]


After completing my undergrad I taught English in a foreign country for a few years. My reasoning was because I knew I'd be doing more school after that, and then lots of work, so some kind of paid vacation was in order. A lot of people who were teaching were in similar situations to you, for the most part they used their time abroad to pay off debts and do some travelling before returning back "home" to get back into the job hunting grind. If your long-term goal is to do something in the arts then I don't know if being the assistant manager of a restaurant is any better than being an English teacher. At least if you are living abroad you have the opportunity to immerse yourself into a different art culture. I think a good number used the time abroad to get out of their everyday context and really see what they wanted to do with their lives, if you're in your home town it can be too easy to just keep on doing what you're doing. Looking at my facebook feed, some of my former co-workers are now a chef, photographer, flight attendant and dentist.

When/if you do come back to look for a job it is at least something you can talk about at an interview. Especially if you make headway with whatever the local language was.

When I was teaching we had 29.5 hour work weeks, which meant there was a lot of free time. Some people used this to take additional work and make more money, others used it to develop skills/hobbies, and others just lazed around.

As an example, the author David Mitchell, started writing while he was teaching English in Japan.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:23 PM on April 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


Most artists have jobs or careers that support their art, rather than art that supports them. That is just reality.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:26 PM on April 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


I teach art at the university level. There are absolutely jobs out there in the field, however, there are very very very few jobs that will pay you to make your own artwork - just like most writers don't get paid to write their own novels and need to write copy/on assignment and most cooks have to make what's on menu. You can continue to paint and illustrate for yourself and show in galleries, but very few people make a livable salary solely off of gallery sales.

There are technical/medical illustration positions with the military, medical publishing, engineering firms, etc., as well as positions in graphic design/web, printmaking studios, photography studios, advertising/marketing with some graphic design, tattoo parlors, sign companies, galleries/museums, scene design, faux-finishing/mural work in collaboration with interior designers, running CAD systems, staging store window displays, and so on. You could also decide to make your job the art festival circuit and make small, affordable, high-profit pieces to sell and then travel to all the regional art festivals. There are also art teaching positions at K-12 private schools (public typically requires additional certification beyond what you have), teaching adults at those "Painting and Pinot" type night/weekend classes, and giving private art lessons. With more education, more options open up like art therapy as well.

You may also want to try doing an internship (or if you're interested in the tattoo artist option, an apprenticeship) if you feel like your skills are rusty/not quite aligned/if your resume needs the boost. My students are all required to take an internship to graduate and about 30% get paid internships. The paid ones are more likely to result in a job offer at the end of the internship.

And you should be willing to relocate for a position. Careers in the arts are competitive and are also more likely to exist in more urban areas; if you're unwilling to relocate then you're restricting your options pretty significantly. If you're considering relocating internationally, don't be afraid to apply for a job a state or two over. You should be applying to any and every job that pops up on Indeed/USAJobs.gov/Craigslist/Idealist that you may be qualified/interested in; around 40 applications should net you an interview or two if your paperwork is up to par.

You also don't have to work in the art field if you don't want to - teaching English abroad is fun (I did it in a very low-key way as a side job while studying abroad, myself) and there are other paths out there that may well suit you better than an art career. But there are many types of art careers and the viable ones for the majority of artists are not solely the results of your own private studio practice.
posted by vegartanipla at 3:29 PM on April 29, 2015 [4 favorites]


It can cost money to travel overseas - plane ticket, startup expenses and so on. If you have outstanding student loans you will have to be careful.

If you're an assistant manager at a restaurant maybe you can transfer to management in the arts sector. Or transfer over to event planning or something. Banquet sales at a hotel.

Life is a series of incremental changes. You're going to have to be engaged and entrepreneurial.

And your career and your art seem like two different things.
posted by Nevin at 4:33 PM on April 29, 2015


If you have never been on a plane or out of the country, please go teach English somewhere for a while. Go to Japan. The art and aesthetics are amazing, and the people are very friendly to temporary Western visitors and teachers. It will expand your art and your world.
posted by cyndigo at 5:19 PM on April 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: This has all been really helpful. Thanks everyone!
posted by elk23 at 7:47 PM on April 29, 2015


I was you! I also have a BFA. You're getting great advice above. I taught in Japan for a year and it was excellent - if you want details MeMail me. I think it's an excellent idea. Save up for the plane ticket + a little extra and put your loans on hold or IBR. The school I worked for would advance teachers (after a 2 week training) 1k to help you set up and get comfy, and deduct it out of your paychecks for a few months after. Huge help.

Don't knock having a day job. I work in an office and I LIKE my job. One of the things I like is the paycheck and wandering into an art store and buying whatever I want ;) And making whatever I want (not what sells). The trick to a day job is that it needs to leave you with the time, energy, and resources to live a full life - and you have to follow through with that. This is discussed at length in Flow by Mihaly C. which I can't recommend highly enough. Also, if you Google "why doing what you love is not good advice" you'll find some interesting articles. And this Salon article on the correlation between artistic success and sponsorship.
posted by jrobin276 at 8:22 PM on April 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


Get an art studio to work in. Make it comfortable to spend time there, tea service, fridge, coat rack. You need an MFA to teach in a college, and a track record making art. I know a lot of happy people who do this, and they enjoy their art milieu. If you can take your art making overseas with you, then teaching English is a good means.
posted by Oyéah at 9:22 PM on April 29, 2015


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