If you want to be an artist after you graduate, in any discipline, you've already heard the scary tropes: success is not guaranteed. It takes luck as well as talent. Your Uncle Richard wanted to be an artist and well, look at your Uncle Richard and his 1,000 cats.
Those little epigrams do contain nuggets of truth, but they miss out on some of the less obvious but more important worries - for instance, things that you'll worry about. Questions like, What Am I Doing With My Life?
Because sometimes, you'll wonder. For instance: There might be some days when you will be wearing a large foam costume and walking the streets of some major metropolitan area, shilling for a brand of soda, or a new flavor of gum. "Hey! Free sample!" you will say to strangers who will look at you as if you are handing them pieces of poison. Or maybe they aren't strangers. Maybe it's your high school Spanish teacher and when you say "Free Sample" she will say "En Espanol, Senorita."
There might be days when you will be temping in a large corporation. Filing. Xeroxing. Sorting mail. People will stand right next to your sparse cubicle and say "Hey, has anyone seen the temp?" And you might interject "I'm the temp." And they will reply "But where is the temp?"
And if these people ever find out you went to Harvard they will begin to back away slowly, under the marked impression that you are mentally ill, or else why wouldn't you be a consultantdoctorlawyerbankerperson? And, if you went to Harvard, how come you can't figure out how to turn on the fax machine? And you will tell them the truth: this is your day job. You want to be an artist.
An actor. A writer. A musician. A painter. A sculptor. A filmmaker. In some ways, you're lucky: You know exactly what you want. Better than many of your peers. And sure, there are times when you have your doubts about the artistic life, but you want it. And you are willing to endure some small amount of uncertainty in order to support yourself and pursue your dream.
Good. Because it's not always easy, but it doesn't have to be tragically hard, or involve lots of debt and pain and ramen. You might not be rich or appreciated immediately, but you do not have to starve while attempting to make your mark on the world.
I am going to tell you about me, not because I am a superlative example, but because I've been doing this for a little bit and I've had good and bad experiences and I have some words of advice that are probably more applicable to people entering the entertainment/theatre world, but are also general enough to perhaps help others.
I graduated from college in 2001 knowing exactly what I wanted: I wanted to move to Chicago, work at the famous satirical theatre, Second City, and then, like my professional idols before me, move to SNL.
My plan was to come to Chicago and start taking improv classes at Second City and Improv Olympic theatres. I knew this was an infamous "comedy track". So, I had my professional goals for the first couple years established. Finish the classes. Start performing in Chicago and auditioning.
I knew that I needed two more things: a place to live and a job.
Luckily, I am from Chicago, so I could live at home. Unfortunately, I am from Chicago so I could live at home.
A brief word about parents: Parents are great but they are given a mission - by God, by genetics, by society - to never ever stop worrying about you. In the best way possible: they want you to be happy and healthy and to make the most out of your intellect and charm. And going into the arts makes them worry. Some will worry a little and keep it to themselves. Some, like mine, will be rendered physically incapable of talking about anything that is not health insurance.
If you live at home, live there as long as you need to get on your feet, but if the dinner table conversation starts to look like this:
you: So, then I went and got a bus pass and the guy at the bus place was like -
your parent: PLEASE PASS THE MED SCHOOL.
Then it might be time to move. What parents sometimes fail to realize is that you have probably internalized all their fears and hopes. You'll be just fine giving yourself lectures. You don't need extra help.
It took me a while to get work. So, I lived at home and walked the dog. I pretended I ran a dog-walking business. And I walked just one dog. My dog. After a lot of fruitless combing of want ads, I called my cousin who helped me get an internship at a television production company that made documentaries about unsolved murders. In addition to my clerical duties, I was occasionally in charge of writing thank you notes to the participants in the documentary. "Dear Mrs. X, Thank you for providing the photographs for Bloodbath, Wisconsin. You are right - your son does not look like the kind of guy who would strangle, shoot, poison and burn 54 women. Good luck with the appeal." At the end of the internship they asked me to stay on, unpaid. I love to feel wanted. I needed to get paid.
In November 2001 I had one of my first big disappointments. Second City was having their Touring Company auditions - the first small rung on the steps to performing there. I was so nervous and excited: this would be it! I would get the spot, I would quit my internship, I would move out of the house, I would meet the man of my dreams, I would live eighty-five more years and die in my sleep, wealthy and beloved by America. No - the world! Yes! And I would end poverty when I was not accepting Lifetime Achievement Awards!
I went. I auditioned. It went terribly. I went home and curled up on my bed, convinced that I had destroyed my career.
I hadn't, but in my urge to establish myself artistically - an urge compounded by the general insecurity of being out of college, my own ambition, an urge to get these pesky fears about what to do out of the way - I'd forgotten to be patient. I'd forgotten that I was, in some senses, a freshman again.
There's also that small problem of having the benefit and the burden of graduating from a great school. Lots of people will be asking you about your plans and your career in a way that might imply "um, and when you're done with this silly thing, what are you really going to do?" Because they see Harvard as a Success Machine - success in very conventional ways: money, power, prestige, fame.
But no one ever walks up to a new graduate that majored in government and asks them when that President of The United States job is going to go through. Because they know a career in politics is something that gets created over a lifetime. And aspiring doctors aren't expected to cure cancer in medical school. For some reason, however, it is expected of you to be the very best right away. For me, it was also a self-imposed pressure. I wanted to justify, as fast as possible, to my parents and everyone else, why I wasn't doing something more conventional.
With the cult of the celebrity and the emphasis on youth for a lot of the people in the entertainment industries and even publishing -(ie, "the hot young novelist" ) it's easy to forget that the arts are also a place you have build a career. Some young bucks are overnight phenomenons. But there are lots and lots of people who have been working on what you have since they graduated from college. And some of them are full-time artists. And some of them are teachers of art. And some of them are still waiters on the side.
Because for most of us "it" won't happen in an instant. And it took me a while to learn that. And sometimes I forget it. But life is certainly more enjoyable when I'm not depressed because I haven't kept up with the Harvard Graduate's To-Do List Of Life.
I finally got a job in advertising - also through a connection. (I am firmly convinced there is no such thing as a job without a connection. When your parents nag you to call your Aunt's old college roommate's step-daughter and ask about a job, they are right. Aunt's roommates' step-daughters are where it's at.) I was a copywriter. I didn't want to be in advertising. But it had benefits. I learned a lot about the industry basics. I became a better writer. I got an apartment. I got a paycheck: money to pay for classes and rehearsal space and headshots and mailings.
The best thing I did when I graduated was to have a plan for what I was going to do artistically. A small plan, and perhaps naïve, but it was enough of a plan to give me some structure. I knew I was going to Chicago. I knew what I would do there. I knew I'd need a job.
And being in Chicago is incredible. No matter what your field is, there are people and places that will give you support and guidance for the first couple years out of college. These people will be awesome resources and mentors because they know things: How to get grants, or where to do your work or how to put up a concert or a show. And they will also be your friends.
It's almost three years here now. I'm not in advertising anymore. And I've achieved some of my goals and done things that were never on my "to-do" list. And I've run into a lot of high school teachers while doing something really stupid looking for money.
I still think about a Plan B - what would happen if someday I need a career that is a little more consistent. And on the bad days, I think about it a lot and feel very anxious and neurotic and probably act a lot more like the stereotypical artist than my personality belies - all scowly and cynical. On the good days it hardly crosses my mind. But I've used this year to get different kinds of jobs and part-time work to help me figure out what that Plan B might be someday. Do I have any idea? No. No idea. I'm trying, though.
It sounds mundane, doesn't it? That there is a practical angle to the great adventure of the artist's life? It's true, but it doesn't exclude the fact that sometimes when you go to work, you're a giant foam banana for a day or two.
And though you may be a banana, under that banana peel there's a lot going on that the people taking your smoothie coupons will never know about.
Or, maybe, someday they will.