Ah, paid work. The great leveller.
There’s no time to be pondering about high falutin stuff like bourgeois models of art and social praxis and get your head around Glissant and rhizomes when you’ve got to feed a team of lairy Norwegian footballers (“give me more bacon”) a group of surly posh schoolgirls (” aren’t the rooms en-suite?”) and assorted other customers who just want stuff, like, now. And then you get ridiculed by workmates when you mention your exhibition (“Do you have to stand in front of your art work? So you get a Blue Peter badge?”)
You need to have a pretty robust sense of humour for this, which I have to admit, I had in short supply today. I have a part time job as a catering manager at a well known UK hostelling chain. The money is pretty terrible, so much is expected, and its mundane. I often have to put up with rudeness from customers, who seem to think because you are in kitchen whites you don’t need a please or a thank you. I periodically vow to leave the job and find something with more money, more status, and which is more interesting.
I have days like today when I want to scream. WHY DO I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS. I SHOULDN’T BE DOING THIS. And other such toys-out-the-pram stuff.
But, in honesty, the truth is, this job has worked for me. I only work 24 hours a week, the rest of the time is mine. My husband also works there, the same hours, its a 5 minute walk away, and most of our work colleagues are friends. In short, this crappy job gives me time for my art practice, the most important thing to me. MY work. The mundanity is actually good because I can switch my brain off and its fresh for when I get back home to think about, and do work.
I’ve resisted getting a ‘proper’ job for some years because I don’t want the stress and to have my head space occupied by an organisation or institution. By choice I’ve scaled down my teaching and community art projects within the last two years because I’ve found that facilitating other peoples creativity comes at the detriment of my own and I’ve become too selfish with my creative energies.
Yeah, so what am I moaning about? It would be a stretch to say its character building but a job like this one is maybe good for me. I’m not in a rarefied art world, divorced from realities of life. Doing mundane, practical, very physical work is a good antidote to sitting in the studio for hours making work, reading or thinking, I meet all kinds of people from all over the world (including the rude ones) and I don’t get to take myself too seriously.
And now I get to have some days from being a kitchen drudge to go Liverpool for the ‘Inhospitable’ show at the Independents Biennial and BE AN ARTIST. YESS. And I shouldn’t mump about my job too much because I get freebie accomodation at the hostel in Liverpool.
So thank you, crappy job, rude customers, and see you on the other side of the Biennal. I’m off to drink some wine to celebrate. Happy Saturday everyone.
