I am reflecting on my day-to-day activities as a working artist for this article. Not my meal planning, sleep schedule, fitness routine, therapy, self-care routine, etc. No, that’s all the work that supports my day-to-day. I am talking about emails, calls, submissions, meetings, and client management. Additionally, training/rehearsal, memorization (lines, choreography), tapings, resumes, marketing, branding, invoices, taxes, etc. I’m talking about the work you do for yourself before you even arrive to do the job. Of course, that’s if you get to show up and do the job.
The Bain of the Working Artist
“What are you currently working on next?”
This phrase haunts us artists and follows us wherever we go. We steel-trap our nervous systems with potential answers. Because we know they will spring out at us around every corner. Note that I am hyper-sensitive about this question around the holidays because it comes at you full tilt. When only 1% of our industry is working professionally at any given moment, getting the job is the job.
This past fall, I was working as Fight Director for an Off-Broadway play. The lead actor (who has worked professionally for 40 years and just closed a Broadway show) gave this advice: “The work is being ready for when the opportunity arrives and then having the knowledge and skill to keep it.” The majority of my creative work comes from word-of-mouth and referrals. If I am not actively in front of people pushing myself and my current projects, then I am a fallen tree alone in the middle of the woods. Essentially, no one is around to experience me.
What do I do for a Living as a Working Artist?
“I hustle.” This is always my answer. Since I was fourteen, I have worked and brought in some kind of income. I have worked so many different types of jobs to create the life I want for myself. Being able-bodied, I am grateful I could rely heavily on labor jobs at times. It isn’t easy, and rarely is it great. I am a Blue Collar Artist. When the Pandemic occurred, the Arts were hit hard, and it was on the artists who had to adapt.
The arts teach you problem-solving and transferable skills. I work as an Actor, Teacher, Choreographer, Creative Director, Writer, and Model. I have worked on stage, film, amusement parks, motion capture, and body paint. It didn’t happen overnight. It has taken 20+ years of education, training, successes, rejections, and monetizing my skills. Perseverance. I am going after projects that reflect my values and support my communities. By being a problem solver in the rooms where I have the most skills. Not to mention getting myself into rooms where I am the student.
Reflection on December as a Working Artist
So, reflecting on December and preparing for the slow season of the industry when production resumes the second week of January, I tracked my creative endeavors. In a nutshell: I Flew to Dallas to assist at the Lone Star Smash stage combat workshop and renew my Unarmed certification with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD).
I participated in The Drama League’s Directing for TV/Film Zoom Workshop with Jude Weng – a prerequisite for a two-day in-person Directing for TV/Film intensive workshop with Jude Weng, happening in February (opportunities I get to take advantage of because I pay to live where there are opportunities).
I applied to be accepted at the Mentoring Advanced Combatants workshop in May (since writing this, I was not accepted – you don’t get to do everything). Edited an acting reel of myself and submitted it to be considered for a staged reading of a new play happening in January (did not book). Booked travel for a high school theatre festival happening in Pennsylvania. I traveled to Pennsylvania and taught for two days at a high school theatre festival. Figure modeling for the School of Visual Arts. Invoiced the School of Visual Arts. Booked more sessions with the School of Visual Arts (it is a great way to supplement income, collaborate with artists, and work with casting).
Combat, in all its Forms
I was in attendance at Brooklyn College, where I assisted in Fall Stage Combat courses. Skills Proficiency Tests: Separate from their grade, students perform a scene of acting and choreographed violence in front of a Fight Master from the SAFD and receive a masterclass in the style of weaponry they are working in. Attended Ensemble Studio Theatre’s holiday Party, where, in true fashion, I wore my Skeledeer Christmas sweater, thanked the producers, ran into a former teacher who is on the board, and stood around boisterously chatting with the Stage Management, Lighting, and Technical Designers. Pretty slow month.
As the few remaining days of the year lingered, I mostly used that downtime to follow up with people: Cinematographers based in California and Australia working in Virtual Production, whom I met at a Live Design International conference. Wrote an article for Adorama featuring the new Garmin Fenix 8 watch. I am always submitting for Arts Administration jobs because stability and being paid are a pipe dream.
I emailed about a free tuition opportunity I received for a Los Angeles workshop in January and then worked out in my mind if it is even feasible/affordable (“Who do I know that lives there?”). Reviewed photos of a college production called Clown Bar (a clown noir play), in which I did fights and firearm work with the students. Emailed photographers about the photoshoot we did. Emailing about payments that I have invoiced and am still waiting on (this never ends).
It is the Holidays Afterall
And eventually, because it is the holidays, I try to make plans to see friends and family because, more often than not, the people you see on the day-to-day are the people you’re working with on this current project. Does watching a month’s worth of holiday movies count as research? Because it does for me.
So, What Does it take to “Make it” as a Working Artist in this Country Today?
Not long after finishing my own Master of Fine Arts degree, a very famous New York newspaper published an article about a young college graduate, let’s call her Abby. Abby, fresh from her undergraduate liberal arts college somewhere in the Midwest, was excited to be moving to the big city and begin her career in Stage Management. This newspaper article, reflecting the “Times,” cataloged Abby and her parents’ journey to find her a safe, suitable place for Abby to live close to the Broadway theaters where she’d soon be working.
Though the surrounding areas seemed a little ‘rough’ for Abby’s parents, they still settled and agreed to pay for her studio apartment in an up-and-coming neighborhood called Hell’s Kitchen for $2,500 a month ($3,200 adjusting for today’s inflation, but not reflecting the NY housing crisis). The newspaper article was a fluff piece intent on featuring “affordable” New York real estate. The irony was not lost on many, who live paycheck to paycheck working multiple jobs, live in borderline squalor, commute, and whose parents do not bankroll their art careers.
You can have it easy, or you can be someone of strong character; you can’t have both.
The hoarding and privatization of education and learning during the Middle Ages gave birth to the Renaissance. The artists who thrived were more than just specialists in their field; they were educated thinkers, philosophers, mathematicians, inventors, writers, painters, sculptors, and humanists. They shed the old unscrupulous ideas of the past that they saw no longer served humankind and offered the public new ideas and works to uplift and educate their society for the betterment. I believe as we stand on this precipice of the “Wild West” of technology, we are entering a new era. This NeoRenaissance will require citizens, not just artists, to be educated and trained for the tasks ahead or be left behind. Survival means being adaptable, and quality means being able to distinguish original thought and works from the clutter of generated content.
