#7: 🎧 Wide open spaces
Why I'm yearning for more studio space and how a public art project begins
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Good morning!
The birds are chirping, pollen is piling up on every street corner, and Philly just had its first fool's summer. I present May's newsletter feeling a bit sweaty and grumpy, but determined. Let's get right into it!
Between the Trees
In March I completed my most recent mural, "Between the Trees," for a group show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art! The show is called "Metamorphosis" and includes murals by 11 local artists, many of whom are involved in educational programming at the museum. I am not… yet. Wink! The exhibition also welcomes visitors to a new and spacious Learning and Engagement Center for free public programs and family events. I want to tell you what it was like getting this commission and share some details you wouldn't know if you paid the show a visit from now until November, when it closes.
Two thoughts immediately came to my mind when I got the email for this project: YAY! and – oh shit. The scope and theme sounded delightful, but an obvious problem arose: how in the hell would I fit an 8-foot tall plywood panel in my studio? The ceilings of my Philadelphia trinity just scrape that height – a little higher on one floor, a little lower on another. The spiral staircase alone would have rendered this project impossible were it not for the generosity of my amazing artist community. I gave some friends who rent studio space at Bok a call and breathed a giant sigh of relief when they agreed to welcome me into their studio to complete the project. I spent a week painting away, soaking up their studio's natural light and wandering around the building to chat with other inspiring makers and fabricators during the week I completed it. The experience fed a deeper yearning I've had since late last year.
When I'm working from my home studio and a deadline isn't looming over my head, I fill the time answering emails, searching for and filling out applications, mixing paint colors, and scrolling anxiously on my phone (that last one always takes more time than I realize, of course). Back in my full-time employee days, I could check off Asana tasks and fulfill specific project milestones that made my "productivity" measurable. As an artist, measurability feels less clear. A lot of my unpaid work makes me wonder if it's time well-spent. And sometimes it is – I gave my website a much-needed refresh before sending out an application, and many people have kindly gone out of their way to tell me how much they like it. I penned a dream curriculum for a diary comics workshop in January that I've now led twice to sold out groups this spring. I toyed with a new design for my business cards that I ended up sending right to print when I realized I cleared out my stash a week before a conference. In retrospect, I'm happy I directed my energy to these ideas, but in the moment - and in the isolation of my studio - I often feel crises of faith. This business can be isolating, and it's hard to loosen away from the idea that time is money.
At Bok, it was insightful watching how artists I respect and admire spend their time. They grouted mosaics, reorganized their workspace, asked for advice on how to price artwork, or popped in for just a couple of hours to take a call before heading back home. These snapshots of their lives were the validation I needed that I am not performing the life of a full-time artist "wrong." Everyone is trying to set priorities outside of active client projects. That might look like taking a risk on developing an art collection, or doing monotonous life errands because it's impossible to be productive every moment of the day without burning out. So often I feel like I've constructed a career out of thin air, and the ease I felt hearing other artists share that same sentiment was palpable.
Sharing the space also reaffirmed how much I want (need?) to invest in renting a larger studio, preferably in a building with a robust art community, as I continue to grow my business. It feels scary thinking about an additional cost to my already exorbitant overhead; I don't feel like people talk enough about the costs associated with even digital illustration (software, hardware, insurance) let alone producing murals, selling at art fairs, and teaching workshops around town. I still think it would be a worthwhile investment for my mental health and to open up the types of projects I can take on without hesitation. We'll see!
Until then, here's a project I'd love to tell you about that I will likely be working on in the Philly trinity:
A Mural With NYC Health + Hospitals
My next project is at Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem this month, in collaboration with the Arts in Medicine Department at NYC Health + Hospitals. The project's press release says best what this amazing project will entail, so here's a quick snippet:
The artists will design the murals through focus groups with hospital staff and the community, followed by “paint parties” to create the mural. The Community Mural Project is believed to be the country’s largest public hospital mural program since the 1930s, when the depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned murals in public buildings, including virtually every hospital in New York City’s public healthcare system.
I first learned about WPA murals many years before I ever thought I'd be the one with the paint brush. While studying art history in undergrad, I wrote a paper about the impact of Mexican muralists like David Alfaro Siqueiros on US-based artists who were making murals through the WPA's Public Works of Art Project. It's an incredible full-circle experience for me to now be a part of that legacy. It also inspired me to excavate that paper from the dredges of my college email inbox, and my god is it brutal to read your own writing! Cringing aside, it was interesting to read what I wrote about public art’s responsibility. I talked about how the Federal Art Program's founder, George Biddle, wanted the WPA murals to incentivize folks back to work, while institutions like Public Art Fund focus more on bringing contemporary art to the public for free. I'll always be a student of art, but it's interesting thinking about public art's role as someone who creates it, too.
By the time you're reading this, I've just had my first focus group meeting with the team at Metropolitan Hospital. We are at the gathering information stage of the process, which means I have absolutely no idea yet what I'm going to paint. I find this part daunting because I love having certainty and direction, and the early steps require losing my internal agenda to actually hear what stakeholders are telling me. I also find the pressure and possibility of what I will make exciting but deeply nerve wracking. Even though I know I cannot worry my way through completing a project, I still tossed and turned in bed the night after the meeting, imagining the hospital corridor on replay and thinking, 'how am I going to fill these walls?''
The hospital staff is incredibly busy and phones buzzed a lot during our one-hour session, so I kept my presentation brief and to the point. No long, meandering explanations about the art movements that inspire my work. This isn't an art history seminar. What these folks want to know is how I take what I learn from early conversations and apply it to the art that they'll see everyday. I explained my process in non-jargony terms and shared quick grabs of photos and concepts from my archives. Then it was time to absorb as much as I could from the focus group portion of our meeting. We asked things like, who walks through the halls? Where are they coming from, and how are they feeling? What does it mean for a space to feel welcome? These questions and many more were on my roster for the meeting. I digested the conversation over a post-meeting dinner alone at Dig on the Upper East Side, leaving voice memos for myself in public because frankly no one really cares what you're doing in NYC. Most people were immersed in their phones anyway!
Coincidentally I had another info-gathering meeting the day before for a different exciting project, but I really need to wrap this up so I can get to sketching. If you've made it this far, I'm considering another e-blast this season because so much is going on. I enjoy doing a quarterly newsletter cadence, but sometimes it means I don't know what to write during slow seasons and I have too much to talk about during the busy ones. Let's play the next one by ear!
As always, thank you for reading this. It always means a lot to me when you leave a comment or share my newsletter with others.
I hope you have a beautiful rest of your spring, and chat soon!
Cindy