“What are you doing here?” they say. Often.
“I don’t know!” I say brightly when I don’t feel like going into it. They laugh. I laugh. The subject is abruptly changed.
When I’m feeling particularly chatty, I will respond that I’m taking a German class and working on a project about German mythology. “I’m an artist,” I say. Their baffled looks are warranted. Certainly it’s not as clear-cut as, “I’m an orthopedic surgeon.” Especially coming from someone who doesn’t have a gallery, isn’t working at one and isn’t in school. I am not here on a grant and I don’t have a solid grasp of the German language. So what the bloody hell am I doing here?
It sounds somewhat fanciful, but the best answer I have is that I’m here because I want to find out what it means to be an artist. It’s possible that I could have gone anywhere as long as I had some degree of anonymity, distance from the art-dialogue I was used to and a new cultural and physical landscape to explore. Specific things drew me to Germany (my heritage, its painting history, certain stories, etc.), but the important thing is that being in a new place has allowed me to take my blinders off. When you are too comfortable in a culture and location, it is easy to become oblivious to the absurdities and wonders of it. It becomes difficult to keep a critical and analytical perspective.
Stepping back and into the role of an outsider forces you to constantly question and learn just to get by. It also allows you to carry some of that curious energy back with you and see your home base with fresh eyes. At least for a little while.
As opposed to being in school, where I’ve been stationed for all but one of my post-kindergarten years, there is no model to follow on how to structure my time making art or what to focus on. Even sitting in this café writing a blog post feels somewhat arbitrary. (Don’t get me wrong – I love it. My writing muscles were stiff after two years of visual art school and writing feels like when I went to yoga for the first time last week and the Germans kicked my ass and then covered me in a blanket and gave me a scented-oil neck massage.) I have to battle the I’m Wasting Money, I Should be Working Constantly, Art is Self Indulgent and Art is Useless demons and I’d rather do it in a place where other people’s ways of thinking don’t sway me, especially those whose opinions I respect and who value stability above the rest. I am trying to make my decisions based on constant growth. Lovely in theory. Anxiety-ridden in practice.
So – best-case scenario – I use this time to build my own model of artist-ness, from what I can gather via intuition, serendipity, trial and error. Hopefully, as I find the spaces, times and voices that fit, it will start to feel more and more purposeful to wake up and move some colored oil around.
I am savoring this period between grad school and when very soon much of my time will be dedicated to financially supporting my art-habit. It is comforting to know that I am not alone in using this city as Purgatory. It’s is a hot-spot for people trying to navigate their vices and desires and work their way toward some personal “True North.” I guess it’s fitting that my expat painter friend from Brooklyn has taken to calling me Dante. He claims the role of Virgil in this whole ordeal. I’m not sure I agree with the casting, but that’s another story.
A new roommate moved in yesterday. A student from the outskirts of Paris who is here doing an internship with the French-German theater. We introduced ourselves. “Are you working or in school?” she asked me.
I hesitated.
Another roommate overheard. He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s a tough one,” he said.
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