Well, I see it's been several months since I last wrote anything. The fact of the matter is that I haven't exactly felt like writing much of anything. Plus I haven't had much time, either.
Sometime this summer, it became apparent to me that this making a living at art was burning me out on art, not producing the income I need (in the next year or so), and not likely to improve at anytime in the future. So, I decided, gulp, to give up on being a full-time artist and go be a math teacher. Yep, math. I do have that degree in math/stat and I have taught before (at college level) and they need math teachers, so it fit. It also will give me the freedom to do my art for at least 3 months in the summer.
The bad part of this math idea is that I had to review 4 years of math in 2-3 months so that I could take competency exams. This is college level math with such fun topics as calculus, abstract algebra, and number theory. I will admit it, I haven't had some of the topics and I haven't thought about math in years, so this was a shock to my brain. While I was always good at math, trying to learning abstract algebra on my own after 15 years of not thinking about math as ... well, interesting. Anyway, since about August, I have done 5-10 hours a day of math.
This didn't leave any time or energy to do art, so I ended up refunding commissions and closing my eBay store. Both of these things were difficult to do because I had to admit that my life as an artist (only) was over. I know I'm not suppose to say this, but I felt (and still do) like I failed at 'art'. In my more rational moments (i.e., when I'm not wallowing in self-pity), I understand that I was good at the 'doing art' part, but because of my stubbornness, lack of knowledge, and lack of luck, I failed at the 'selling art' part. (I'll write more on this in a later post.)
Lately, things have calmed down a bit and I'm thinking about painting a bit. (I've passed the hardest exam, feel confident I passed the second exam, and now just waiting for results so I can fill out the actually paperwork to get an internship.) I'm also working on finishing up a couple of stone sculptures -- just so I can have more things to dust in my house!!!
Oh, and in all this mess, Emily, my cranking old cat, is dying from chronic renal failure. Some days she acts fine, and some days I think it's time to make the final trip to the vet. Today has been a good day so far.
Someone recently said to me the Universe doesn't give you more than you can handle. I sometimes wonder about that -- then again, I am still here and it is been fun reviewing/learning all that math, so I guess it's true.
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