Becoming and the Myth of the Hungry Caterpillar
Read more about Becoming: 30 Hotchkiss Artists
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the most treacherous book ever written.
Don’t get me wrong here – I take no offense to the practice of teaching children numbers or the names of various fruits. And I’m not saying that Eric Carle’s illustrations aren’t superb. But the story of a young bug eating everything in sight, encapsulating himself in a snuggly cocoon, and effortlessly emerging a miraculous vision of beauty… Now this is truly a deceptive tale. Those of us who have attempted to follow in the hungry caterpillar’s footsteps have found they lead only to misery, obesity and despair. Upon closer inspection I’ve discovered that even our fat friend’s story has been simplified for adolescent consumption.
Harmless inchworm, or deceitful scoundrel?
Just this spring, the third graders at my school were given caterpillars by our science teacher. In one class, only 1 of the 3 caterpillars ever made it to the butterfly stage. But due to some damage to his cocoon, he emerged a cripple. Jimi, named in honor of the song “Little Wing,” was destined never to fly.
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This post is about my part of the Tremaine Gallery’s show Becoming: 30 Hotchkiss Artists. In honor of the school’s 125th anniversary, the gallery brought together a bunch of talented alumni (apparently I’m one of those) for a group show, and asked us to write a brief statement on “Becoming” an artist.
The theme behind the show and my role in it could not be more appropriate, for though I’ve created art all my life, I’m still very much in the process of becoming a “professional” Arteest. This journey toward artistic legitimacy has its occasional “aha” moments, but they’re typically preceded by embarrassment and failure. Across many disciplines, I’ve found there are few exceptions to this rule. Just becoming human is a loud, messy, and potentially traumatizing affair.
The stories of my minor trials and mishaps that follow are not nearly as epic as the tale of The Hungry Caterpillar, but I know the world doesn’t need another sanitized story of transformation. Becoming, it turns out, is a lot harder than butterflies would have you think.
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I opened my email and blinked at my phone.
“Thank you for submitting work for Becoming. Congratulations!
We have selected the piece Headstand.”
Months had passed since I’d sent in images for the Hotchkiss show. As the days wore on, I was certain my submissions hadn’t merited a response.
Allow me to elaborate.
Like most emerging artists, I so desperately want that ever-elusive “big break” into the art world – a chance to be seen by that magical patron, that curator, or that collector who would change my world forever. One day, as the dream goes, someone will recognize my genius and I will leave my 9-5 grind behind. My amazing paintings will pay for diapers and the rent.
Considering how desperately I’ve wanted this lottery ticket to success, you’d think I’d be fully prepared in case that day ever came.
But you’d be wrong.
When I discovered that some angel liked my stuff enough to hang it alongside artists who were exhibiting in real galleries and selling their work for real money, I was caught off guard. As a new mom and full-time teacher, I was not generating loads of recent work to begin with. The vast majority of what I had made wasn’t properly documented. Almost nothing had been framed. Some of my favorite pieces, including the work that was chosen, were under my bed in a great stack which my fat cat Tigger used to dull his kitty claws.
The piece I was most excited to submit was a large pencil drawing I had worked on for months on end. But it wasn’t finished. In the hopes that I might finish it in time, I held off sending in my submissions until the last possible moment.
The deadline arrived. The drawing still wasn’t done. Perhaps, I thought, I can send a picture of it as is and let them know it will be finished in time for the opening? I went to grab my camera.
Turned the camera on – nothing. Amongst the boxes of baby onesies and miscellaneous extension chords, I searched and searched for the battery charger. No luck.
So in the end, I submitted three pictures at the last possible moment I could and only one of the three was the resolution requested. The remaining two images (one of which was again, incomplete) were grainy shots courtesy of my cell phone. Real professional, right?
But the email invite was clear – I had made it! I got picked!
Now it was time for me to butcher the next stages of my participation in this endeavor: the pricing, statement, contract and shipping arrangements.
To sell or not to sell? Every week I sell hours and hours of that precious, non-renewable resource called Time to my employer. But ask me to give up a work of art that has literally been under my bed for almost a year and you can expect nothing but moaning and groaning and indecision. The nauseating uncertainty and confusion I experience when discussing this topic deserves a blog post in its own right. But just for the record - I have and still have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. After several debates with my husband (who thinks my work is worth much more) and my own inner-critic (who thinks my work is worth nothing) I landed on some number and put it on the form.
Next, and even more painful – it was time to write my statement. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between writing a new artist statement or enduring natural childbirth again, I’d pick the latter.
Why is writing a statement so hard? As Edward Hopper put it, “If I could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” Whenever I sit down to write about my work, I inevitably wind up with at least one sentence, which ultimately amounts to “I make paintings about my feelings and experiences.” Yeah – and who the hell doesn’t?
The universe is loaded with bad artists statements. Most of the time it’s a genuine accident – the artist really does want to enhance their work, but many of us have been brainwashed into believing that you need to use a lot of big words to be taken seriously. And then occasionally I’ll see a statement that’s so ridiculously confusing you’d think the writer made it that way on purpose. If the work was not opaque enough as is, their words create a secondary shield of impenetrable pseudo-philosophy and flowery language.
I digress.
Because this was a serious gallery and a new audience, I needed a new statement. I also needed to write about “becoming” an artist, and writing about my own conception seemed ill-advised. I wrote close to a dozen different versions of both statements but still wasn’t satisfied enough to pull the trigger and just send them already. Again the day of the deadline came. So I scanned the contract with my pricing in nice PDF format and emailed- oh wait, no. Took photos with my phone again and attached the jpegs to an email with my statement. For whatever reason, the email got bounced back and had to be resent – now past the deadline.
On to the shipping! Since my mother’s house is close by the gallery and I was planning a visit anyway, I agreed to drop off the work in person. With my nephew, sister-in-law, and baby in tow, we left home for the weekend and I… completely forgot to drop off the work. The show was opening in just a week and they were ready for hanging.
This really got me. The night I realized my mistake, I struggled to fall asleep and kept thinking about what an incompetent and unworthy idiot I was. Sound familiar to anyone?
Luckily, the error I had made was a relatively easy fix. Just a 30 minute stop at FedEx later, my work was safely and speedily being delivered to its proper destination.
It was out of my hands now. Time to relax! Barring any wardrobe malfunctions at the reception, there was nothing left for me to screw up! Right?
To: Juliet Silveira
From: (My Mother)
Subject: Couldn’t Wait!
“Hi Princess, the exhibit is great! All the works are top notch. I’m just curious if you decided to hang your drawing this way?”
I skipped the rest of the email and scrolled down to the photos. Next to my smiling mother was my drawing, hung carefully from a most gorgeous pair of… metallic binder clips.
Not me: “Yes mother! This was a carefully pondered aesthetic decision, and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I am too scattered brained to be bothered with professional framing.”
But all was not lost. All my amateur flubs aside, my piece somehow became the lead image for all the materials for the show. Walking around the school the day before the reception, I saw a drawing that I had made on all the posters, brochures, and invitations. Unbeknownst to all the students and faculty mulling around, a young mom with no gallery representation and no studio had been chosen to represent the work of 29 artists at one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country.
Woah.
That was yesterday. Later today I will attend the opening reception in a little black dress and pretend to be a fully-fledged butterfly instead of Jimi with the little wing. I will do my very best to avoid embarrassing myself before the clock strikes midnight and my toddler rips off my Cinderella costume to breastfeed again.
But I wanted to write this post because I think there’s something to be said for authenticity, for letting others see past the costume instead of constantly striving to live the "fake it 'til you make it" mantra. Lately there are a lot of consumers out there interested in hearing about successful people’s failures – but only after they’re already successful. We seek out the stories of our heroes and hope their remarkability will rub off on us somehow, but in the process we often bypass the chance to hear the ideas of the next great designer or scientist. We also starve budding talent of the opportunities they need most; if you’re not already doing your craft full-time, you’ll often be overlooked for most publishing, grant, or showing opportunities.
So don’t assume that the artist still working behind the counter at Dick Blick's and facing rejection daily isn’t as brilliant as the one in the museum. The reality is that no one’s path is straight or smooth. When you find yourself screwing up, you either adapt to the road you’re on or hunt for greener pastures. One of the greatest things about being human is our versatility. Just like you can learn to run or swim, climb or box, you can learn to set an email reminder to ship your work on time and write a less-terrible artist statement. But if you want to be a butterfly, one thing you have to do is accept that transformation comes with growing pains.
That’s what Becoming is all about.
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[1] Definition taken from Dictionary.com