Life After Art School

Iam the born hippie child of a welfare mother who had me at age 17 in the soap opera 'general hospital'. From catalina island to humbolt county where my mother kept me home from school to cultivate marijuana so we could pay the heating bill. I ate really strong brownies at 13 and maybe never fully returned from that trip. Then swept away to Maui where i was cohort-zed by my uncle Rinzai into naked tantric bag-wan rashnish hippie parties that often lasted for days at undisclosed clandestine locales. Somewhere in the midst of all that i lived with my grandfather 'post Laguna school seascape painter' in his barely running vw hippie bus which broke down usually with beach front parking. Or often in centipede, mosquito and scorpion infested jungle camps where the heavy rainfall would strand the van on an atoll along with all the creatures until the water would recede sometimes a week later. Being the only Haole 'white person' in iao school I took many thumps from the natives and at a young age was introduced to some of the finer points of being a minority in a racial situation. From that i obtained my ability to speak pigeon english very well, which has never been of use unfortunately. I began surfing at a young age and by 17 was a surf star in the Maui High surf club and surfing big waves. Graduated and left with Paulo a.k.a the brazil nut to San Francisco where we bought a car to drive to Brazil. The car broke down in newport beach and there was big trouble in central america. So back to maui where i began plein air painting roofing and djing full moon parties with lots of psychedelic drugs and x.t.c. One of my paintings was discovered in Lahaina and after making headlines the nude 'solitude' a gross and well...... unattractive display of the female genitalia. Nelson a defunct n.y. art school grad, urged me to move to n.y. It would appear that he lives his life vicariously through me. I was able to collect various work study scholarships from the national academy and the art students league. They were not too keen on handing out tuition to a surfer dude from maui with no formal background. I did not graduate with any credits and after 4 grueling years of struggle and abuse i realized that the only way to be a successful artist after art school is to be independently wealthy. So i left n.y. in 2000 for Maui to make my fortune so i could one day return to n.y. and be truly artistically free and not have the concern of having to sell my art work to survive. Everyone knows that it is impossible to live off your art. The best art in the world was never sold until the artist was dead. I guess we do art so that we don't die in vein. And if we are good we give inspiration to others. I would surmise that about 20% of artists achieve financial success after art school. 10% through commercial or kitch. 9% through teaching and remaining in the academic realm. 1% achieve success through their true vision and are able to make it doing whatever they want. Pretty sad odds for us indeed. I like the fact that it is the most impossible thing. There is some novelty in saying iam an artist. People are like 'a starving artist'? wow that must be tough. Try pissing in the corner of a round room now that's tough!My life after art school........ well...... i don't have a dealer. I pay allot of bills, buy allot of art materials and have stacks of art piling up. I would say my life after art school is less then perfect, like a creative purgatory. Iam condemned to be faced with my own work. It's in this larva state where it never turns into a butterfly and flies away to homes or shows or becomes this effervescent fountain of wealth and contentment. Maybe that's why I continue on this path which others would consider to be wiping a dead horse...... maybe contentment bores me. -Ed V.

http://www.brooklynartproject.com/profiles/blog/show?id=668279%3ABlogPost%3A59313