I saw Amy Stein speak about her work at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland on August 1st, 2009. I love her work, especially the series currently on display at Blue Sky and it was a real treat to hear her speak. I find a great deal of similarities in our work but I was even more stricken with similarities in our lives. And that’s why this post isn’t really about Amy, it’s about me. But it’s very true that everything you do is a self portrait? Who said that anyway? Hmm, must have been me (harr harr).

I wanted to talk to Amy after the lecture but I sort of felt a little bit like I might start crying. And yeah, that would have been embarrassing. I’ve just got too much on my mind and I’m not keeping my hands and thoughts busy enough with productive projects these days. I feel a little lost at sea and most of the time I can’t even remember where I was trying to swim to.

I’ve been grappling with decisions about my life. Decisions that are a bit out of my control. Decisions I shouldn’t think about beyond just acting on momentary impulses and hoping for the best in the long run. I’m 38, I want to get my MFA, we want to have kids before my ovaries totally dry up, we’d like to buy a house, I’d like to not be in debt for the rest of my life. These are the things I think about every waking moment of the day, I even dream about them when I’m not awake. I’m at a crossroads and I’m just sitting there, looking at all my choices like a tree full of ripe figs. I torture myself about this stuff all the time, with gusto. Sometimes my thoughts are calm, other times I feel like crawling out of my skin. Again and again I seem to come back to this paragraph from the Bell Jar:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.  From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.  I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.  ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

This paragraph has hit home so hard, at so many different points in my own life, that I should probably just go out and get a fig tattooed to my ass.

So, why did I feel like crying at Amy Stein’s lecture? Amy is about the same age as me. Amy was laid off from a dotcom job. Amy decided to go back to school after some time of self discovery after being laid off. Amy graduated with her MFA in 2006. Amy now teaches and travels and has shows in galleries. I can’t help but draw connections to my own path. I became disgruntled around the time of the dot com crash and decided to quit and go find some balance in my life. I discovered contemporary art and decided to go back to school and finally finished my BFA. Now that I am graduated from CCA, I want an MFA. I want to keep going, I don’t want to be a web developer forever. I don’t want to loose momentum. I would like to eventually teach and have an art practice.

I keep my job because I can afford to pay off my student loans pretty quickly. It is pretty flexible. Most of the time I can find time for making art. Everyone needs a job. Mine is ok, it’s just lonely and uncreative. This period in my life is helping me get to my long term goals. I really shouldn’t beat myself up so much. I just yearn for the next stage. But I know it could be years from now. This scares me. If we have kids, all this goes on hold. But I can’t plan my life around things that haven’t happened yet. Tom said this weekend that people waste too much time thinking about what has all ready been or what has not yet happened when they should focus on right now. Yes, I want so badly to experience two solid years of making work. I want a thesis, I want to be part of an artist community here in Portland. Wanting doesn’t get you anything. I must just keep trying to do things. I must pick and eat those figs.

Deadlines for applications to the PNCA MFA program are January. I will have a portfolio ready. Then I will let fate guide me.