If you want to marry my daughter, you’re going to have to find the ring I’ve dropped into the middle of the Red Sea. If she is your heart’s desire, you will have to find the secret place where she goes to dance each night. You must beat her in a race, even though she plays dirty. You must eat 300 oxen -- skin, bones and all -- and then drink 100 casks of wine in one night. If you fail in this, I will cut off your head. But if you succeed, the kingdom and the most beautiful bride will be yours.
The Grimm brothers recorded more than a few of these deadly trials. The common fairytale trope works to prove the strength and dedication (love never seems to factor in) of the competitor to the one in possession of his object of desire. It also impresses upon our protagonist the weight of what he’s getting himself into. And it’s not all boys slaying dragons (although it’s a lot of boys slaying dragons). If you happen to be a girl, you can line up outside the castle to present yourself as the most beautiful maiden in the land. If you win, the kingdom is yours. But if you are outshined, you will be drowned in the lake.
Brutal, right? Trial by fire with the highest of stakes. But isn’t it preferable to sitting at home and mailing letters into the void, checking the horizon for a horse-backed messenger every morning for months, not even sure if your courier was waylaid by bandits or delayed in a tavern of ill repute? Isn’t it better than biting your nails down to and past the quick and venting to anyone that will listen that if you could just see the princess, just for a moment, if you could entertain her with stories about your travels to the East and play her that new song on the lute and if she could just see the way this season’s harvest has made your body strong and tan then she would choose you above all the others? Instead of cursing the advantage of men whose fathers are close with the King and can bypass all that red tape, wouldn’t it be better to have the chance to win or lose her on your own merit?
I thought about this a lot when I returned from the Vermont Studio Center to my parents’ house in Connecticut this November. I spent a few days converting the basement into a studio space and then dove headlong into a stream of job applications. (A one-way stream, which carries time and effort and carefully crafted sentences away from you at a very fast pace and returns nothing but new waters.) There has been a lot written lately about how hard it is for us young folk to find jobs, especially in creative fields. The market, especially in New York, is saturated with academically decorated, creative minds and there’s just not that much money in the arts to go around.
After a week of sending out email after email into the web abyss, I spent a day in North Hampton with an artist friend. I was walking his dog, which looked like a tiny, toy luckdragon, down a bustling street and I was afraid someone was going to step on it. Its bones as delicate as a bird’s. “I wish I could just fight a dragon,” I said.
“Huh?” Don said.
“Sometimes I wish I could just fight a dragon or find some really far away herb or walk through a burning forest in some epic, bloody trial to get a job. And if I didn’t make it, fine. But at least I would have a chance to fight for what I want instead of sending out all of these faceless emails.”
“I think you’d be good at fighting a dragon,” he said.
“Thanks. Can I use you as a reference?”
Anyway, “Be careful what you wish for,” etc. etc. I got a call soon after from an artist’s studio. I’ve been a huge fan of this woman’s work and philosophy for years. They asked me to come in and work with a team of assistants to fabricate a large-scale installation. It was pitched as a trial period for a permanent position. I made it sound like I was already in NY, so when they asked if I could start the next morning, I said “Sure!”
In progress installation.
It was already dinnertime, but I called a true friend in Brooklyn (“Can I move in with you tonight and stay with you for an unknown length of time?”), packed in an hour and a half, and worked a seven-day week. It turned out when I got there that the permanent positions were already full. But, long story short, there have been many challenges, obstacles, puzzles and riddles to work through as an assistant. I am still at the studio and, although I don’t know how long it will last, it’s good to know that I’ve had the chance to prove my mettle.
Weaving gold tinsel.
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