1
Hazel
The desire to create is supposed to be the deepest yearning of the human soul. At least that was what one of my professors at my horrifyingly expensive private arts college would tell us. His name was Gustav, and he was from the Netherlands. Gustav also spent most of the class time that we were paying thousands of dollars for screaming at his agent on the phone about why his paintings weren't selling.
I think that might have been when I started to give up on art, if I'm being honest. Unfortunately, back then I ignored the little voice in my head that said,Switch to accounting. You would do well in accounting.
No, I told that voice,I want to be a cool artist. I had grand visions of owning a chic studio in Brooklyn with all-white walls and glass garage doors. A billionaire art investor would walk in, see my paintings, and buy every single one. It would catapult me into the art-world stratosphere, making me the next Fang Fei. I would be asked to sit on the Art Zurich board. I would travel around, giving talks. My paintings would fetch millions of dollars at auction…
The dream never materialized after I graduated. Did I then listen to the voice in my head telling me to go get a job, for the love of God,any job? No. No I did not. For the next three years, I scraped around in New York City. Instead of getting a chic art studio, I interned for free at snooty galleries and worked nights as a chef for pop-up restaurants. I sublet an illegal apartment that was really a windowless walk-in closet. My roommate was a guy named Melvin who had moved to New York City to live his best gay life. That included bringing random men home to the closet. Ironic right? Melvin seemed to think so. He would remind me of this fact loudly at three in the morning. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes this revelation would be accompanied by Melvin and his hookupdu nuitsinging that Alanis Morissette song drunkenly off-key.
My life post art college was sad and lonely. The onlySex in the CityI got was whatever I experienced vicariously through Melvin. My unpaid internships did nothing to put a dent in the massive student loans I had racked up. I had to face the cold hard truth that, though I may love art, it did not love me back. All it did was make me poor and miserable. So I packed up my paintbrushes and said goodbye to the closet. By that point I was living in it all by myself. Melvin had found a rich guy, adopted a bunch of kids, and moved to Seattle. Meanwhile, I was fast approaching thirty and had nothing to show for myself.
In a delusional fit of third-time's-the-charm, I took out even more debt and bought a historic building on Main Street in my small hometown of Harrogate. I had grand visions, (anyone see a pattern here???) of turning it into the hip Art Café where there would be painting, themed alcoholic drinks, and tasty food. I had the restaurant background and the art background. How could it possibly go wrong?
"Where did it all go wrong?" I wailed to my friend Jemma. We were sitting in the Art Café. We were the only ones there. This was a usual occurrence and the reason I had a minor panic attack every time the mail carrier showed up with a stack of late notices. "Why did I buy this building?"
Jemma sipped on her Michelangelo mojito. "It was so cheap! You're lucky you bought it before the Svenssons snapped it up."
"It's not cheap enough to pay the mortgage." I set down my paintbrush and picked at the bowl of Jackson Pollock popcorn. It had truffle butter and parmesan on it. Usually it was one of my favorite snacks I made at the café, but not tonight.
"It was busy yesterday," Jemma consoled me.
"Because Ida brought all of the seniors over after bingo night," I said, wiping my hands then adding touches of light-green oil paint to the eyes of a baby in a vegetable patch I was painting for an Etsy commission.
"Maybe you could cater more toward that demographic," Jemma suggested, grabbing a handful of popcorn.
"I already have the art retreat," I complained. "If I start hosting canasta evening, this place is basically going to be an old folks' home."
"Hey, if they pay!" Jemma said with a laugh.
"I should have quit a long time ago and found a real job," I said. I looked around at my artwork that hung on the café walls. "I know I'm supposed to suffer for my art, but when does it end?"
Jemma gestured to one of the paintings. Instead of the avant-garde paintings we were trained to make in art school, I now made what I considered to be inspiration porn. Paintings of shoes, purses, and women in suits and high heels with quotes like,I know I changed, darling. That was the point!andSlip on the Louboutins and get dat money!I desperately wanted to be the next It artist, like Fang Fei, and sell my paintings for millions. Instead I was lucky to make a hundred fifty dollars off a painting.
"Your sister could find you a job in the city government," Jemma said.
"Then I'd have to move back home. I'm on the wrong side of twenty-five. I cannot move back into my childhood bedroom."
"You might win that Art Zurich grant," Jemma said, trying to fish a piece of booze-soaked watermelon out of her drink.
"I only win it if Harrogate wins the Art Zurich Biennial Expo," I reminded her. "And to make this place into an international art city would cost more money than what the Harrogate Trust budgeted."
I looked up at the inspiration porn painting in front of me. It was the biggest painting in the café, and the colorful pink-and-gold swirls taunted me with the thought that I simply wasn't trying hard enough.
"Wasn't Fang Fei discovered by a billionaire?" Jemma asked, taking another handful of popcorn.
"She was lucky," I grumbled.
"On the off chance that a famous art investor walks in and discovers you, you should at least put up some of your nicer paintings," Jemma said.
"Collages are very much the style right now," I sniffed. "Fang Fei just sold one similar to this for three million dollars."
"Really?" Jemma asked skeptically. "Fang Fei sold a painting that said, 'May your day be as flawless as your makeup' in pink curly letters over a selection of vintage advertisements?"
"Well, not exactly, but motivational artwork is very popular. I've sold two of these paintings in the last month. Also I get Instagram likes off of it."
"Instagram likes don't pay bills," Jemma said.
