(from my blog Old World Swine)
Well,
life is full of surprises, ain't it? Remember a while ago, when I was
asking readers to send in their impressions of the local and personal
effects of the recession and the stock market crash? I made my own
observation at the time that I was seeing very little evidence of it,
as yet, aside from lower gas prices. Then I did make note that some
local stores would be closing (a Starbucks, Circuit City, Linens &
Things).
Now the evidence I asked about has come up and kicked me in the aft end… as of Friday I was given the official two week notice that my job is being cut. My last check will arrive in a month.
It
was a surprise, but not a deep shock. I had been aware for some time
that the amount of work they had for me to do was steadily declining.
When I started in my position, I was kept busier than a grasshopper
kicking the seeds out of a watermelon, but in recent months I had not
only begun to somewhat, shall we say, stretch the projects I
had, but had actually started to create my own projects (which has
never been in my job description). I began to create a library of stock
illustrations that (based on my experience) I thought might be useful
in the future. As this library expanded and went largely unused,
though, it began to feel very futile. I was sitting at my desk, drawing
a check and drawing (literally) whatever I thought made sense… food,
mostly. Our company had used a lot of food art in their packaging.
I had the odd hot-potato-we-must-have-this-by-Tuesday
job to break the monotony, but it began to feel like my own company was
sort of holding me on a retainer for those increasingly rare instances
when I was actually needed. I began to get frustrated and a bit
depressed, which is a horrible position for a Christian.
The
Christian should always be eager to go wherever God leads and do
whatever is needed without complaint and with sincere gratitude.
Constant thankfulness should be the default position for any
follower of Jesus. Life is just too variously and mind-bogglingly
wonderful – too "lopsidedly benevolent", as I have put it before – to
allow oneself to mope because this or that aspect of it isn't meeting
one's expectations.
So, when I began to get frustrated and
depressed at my job, I knew something was deeply wrong. I was also
feeling a more insistent desire to move ahead with my fine art, and the
day job (with its two-hour daily commute) seemed to suck the life and
energy (and creativity) out of me. But I have a family to support, and
as long as I could keep the job, I figured that was where God wanted me
to be.
So, it looks like I'll have a lot more time to devote to
the fine art and to Catholic (and other) illustration. I'll be putting
up some illustration and cartoons from time to time, as well as my
painting. There are new avenues open to me, now, in terms of getting my
art out there in front of people. As it turns out, instead of painting
this past weekend, I spent the time getting my Etsy store up and
running. Etsy is a cool, fairly new outlet for handmade goods and art,
and I've been meaning to get my online store – er, gallery – started for some time. I may even have time to begin that series of the Mysteries of the Rosary I have been wanting to do.
So, check it out. Tell your friends!
(Thats www.oldworldswine.etsy.com)
The Esty site will most likely be where I direct people from my Daily Painting blog
from now on, though I have had some early success with E-bay and may
continue to use it. I don't know. You would think I might have more
time to blog here at OWS, now, but that's not likely. I'm going to have
to hit the ground running if I want to maintain any kind of steady
income in all this, and so I'll be treating the fine art as a full-time
job (and possibly more). I'm grateful, though, that I'll be able to
make it to daily Mass.
Your prayers would be most
appreciated. At the moment I'm kind of excited at the possibilities,
and am looking at it as an adventure… Wheee! another big dip on the
roller coaster of life… but it is easy to talk that way when the
checks are still coming. We have been through some lean times before,
and the romance of such a position fades quickly. The sense of
adventure turns into a rather permanent knot in the stomach.
As Chesterton has said (and I have often quoted before);
Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of
having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he
chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve
looking after other people's property.
I have to say that, as a Distributist, I do look forward to looking after my own property.
Tim, I’m so sorry to hear about your crisis. We’ll be praying for you, and I hope you get some good news soon. Good luck with the art salin’ (FWIW, I’ve been meaning for a couple of months to stop by and think about picking something up for the upstairs hallway; now would probably be a good time).
Wow! What a crazy opportunity for you. I can only imagine the mix of emotions. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your liturgical art, though. I love the idea of the mysteries of the rosary.
I will pray for you and your family as you make this transition in income.
I love Etsy and I’ve done pretty well there, prayers that you are successful!
P.S. – I’ve added you as a favorite on Etsy, definitely looking forward to some Catholic art!
Hi Tim, so sorry to hear of your situation. I too have thought that the economic downturn was not all that bad…until I hear people around me got directly impacted by it. You are in my prayers!
Dear Tim J.
The crisis is here to stay, indeed. You and your family will be in my prayers; and I wish you many accomplishments on your core competency.
I look forward to seeing some liturgical/Catholic art.
An ex-boyfriend of mine is a painter and I have a wonderful piece of Lazarus after the resurrection. However, if my fiance ever realizes that my ex-BF used himself as the model of Lazarus, I think I’ll have to take it down!
I’m so sorry….praying!
I’m to hear the bad news, Tim, and will of course keep you and your family in my prayers.
Do you happen to have a persimmon tree?
Many of them would also look good in the dining room, SDG, so you could get one for there, also.
We don’t have a persimmon tree on our place, Hans, but there is one down the road that I visit now and then. 😉
We have a crabapple tree in the yard and oaks, hickory and dogwood on the acre behind our house. We see deer there pretty often.
Dear Tim,
Have you ever considered submitting one of your paintings to Dappled Things? We are always looking for Catholic artists to feature. We don’t pay yet, unfortunately, but it is a good way to get your name out there and contribute to the rebirth of Catholic culture. If you’ve never seen a printed edition of the magazine, send me an email with your address and I’ll send you a sample.
Dining room wall space is currently booked. We do what we can.
Dear Tim J.,
Since you have an MFA, another thing you might look into, if it interests you, is teaching art at a private school or a community college. They usually don’t pay as much as public schools or four-year colleges, but it is steady work and you get to see how young students change over time. This might help supplement things until you get established selling art.
If you had science/math skills, you could, more or less, have job security at many public schools across the country, science/math education being the abysmal thing it is, these days.
The Chicken
Tim,
Whatever happened to that stunning painting you did of Our Lady revealing her Immaculate Heart? I’d love to buy a print of that. Or maybe even the real thing if I can swing it.
Something keeps me from putting Immaculate Heart up on my Etsy page with the rest of my stuff. It seems to me to be in a different category.
I’ve sold a few prints of it before, but not enough to really justify the expense of making them. I may reconsider, at some point.
E-mail me, and we’ll tawk (timjonesart@yahoo.com). I have reduced the selling price on all my art to a mere fraction of what I had posted on my old fine art website (which was geared toward collectors and galleries).
Sorry to hear that. I can really sympathize with you. I just became unemployed a few hours ago. May God guide you and I along the paths he wants us to take.
I see. That explains a lot, Tim. It sounds like a lovely place.
Oh, and while I don’t like to be too critical of someone in your state of employment (and I know many quite recently, including two of my brothers and a sister-in-law), but surely it has occurred to you that you are making a false dichotomy between beer and food: beer is food. (In Wisconsin, as I recall, they even have the good sense to sell it [and wine?] with the other food, and not with the hard liquor.)
Dear Tim J.
I’ve just come across this article, which I think you would like to read.
At least, an unemployed man has more time available…
I find myself where you were at.it is depressing and frustrating after 23 years with the company to be moved to a place where you find yourself doing very little, just waiting for the axe to fall. Thanks for your words