The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I was chatting it up with a couple of fellow artists down at the South End Galleria this week, comparing notes on aesthetic strategies, bizness practices, encounters with philistines and other assorted moral hazards of the art trade. The sculptor among us avowed how he chose to eschew my public art avenue and regaled us with tales of clients and looky loos, folks who might suggest that rather than pay full price they could check Ebay or Etsy for fabulous deals, as if that original stone carving might be had from WalMart for hefty discounts.

We artists love displaying our wounds and scars from the Culture Wars. I mentioned how I lacked bizness acumen and so public art took me out of those sorts of encounters … to which our gallery owner mentioned being a finalist three times for public art commissions only to lose. ‘No prizes for runner-up,’ I said. ‘No Miss Congeniality either.’ Afterwards I started adding up my own losses over the years, something around a dozen. You get a small stipend for a design, maquettes, plane fare, motel, car rental, etc., usually less than what you spend and zero for your work. It’s a tough racket and after a couple of second place finishes, plenty of artists quit throwing their hats in the ring. Me, I got plenty of hats.

My first loss, a fire station entry against a famous Seattle glass artist with a buddy on the jury who gave him helpful hints at our site visit, left me feeling like the game was rigged. But instead of quitting I took my 4 foot by 3 foot glass model, cut a hole in my shop wall and installed it in front of my work table, a wound I could salt every damn day, a reminder that I needed to up my game.

What I’ve learned over a few decades of competition is that it isn’t always fair, it is sometimes rigged, the juries are occasionally a sham, an opponent may actually be better than you and lose … or vice versa. Art in the public arena is a bloodsport. I try to accept the losses and thank my lucky stars for the commissions I win. Mostly I’m glad I stuck it out. And best of all, nobody’s going on Ebay and finding a cheap substitute. Yet.

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Check out the dude chillin in the LAX airport. Got his feet up on his suitcase, shoes off, got his hat tilted down over his eyes, got this little notebook and a pen. Goin home, goin home on the next flight out, finished with pitching his proposal for the biggest sheriff station in America, nice fat art budget, no telling if he won or lost.

You think he’s stressin, you’d be guessin. But you’d be wrong. The dude isn’t stressin, the dude is chillin, glad to leave sunny Southern California and its 10 lane freeways crawling 5 mph for 50 miles the day before. Which IS stress inducing when the dude wants to catch that next plane home with little room for delays at the car rental or the shuttle bus or the TSA line, any one of which would make him miss that flight with none until the following day.

What Joe Cool here knows — and you don’t — is these competitions are always crapshoots. The deck is stacked with jokers in hidden cards. A project you think you’ve won hands down goes to some dark horse. One you’re certain you lost lands in your lap. Joe’s been to this rodeo before. Joe doesn’t even mind mixing metaphors the way a blind bartender mixes drinks. Joe’s just glad to be chillin. Goin home. Getting the hell out.

If he wins the commission, swell. If he loses it, another will come along. The days when it seemed like life and death, succeed or get a minimum wage job, win or lose the farm, those are just memories gladly forgotten.

Oh, a small part of Joe Cool misses the tension, the excitement, the hunt. He misses the thrill of competing all-out. And he misses the elation of winning, but not the agony of defeat. He misses those but only a little. This is a blood sport, competing against other artists, some nationally known, but now he doesn’t bleed. He doesn’t even carry band-aids, not with ice water in those veins. Check him out, he’s chillin. He’s goin home. Later on he’ll find out if he’s a Loser…. But not right now.

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