It’s been a year since I quit my job!

I’m still me

Hi all,

It’s been a year since I quit my corporate massage job to focus on art! I have written a handful of versions of this posts because there is so much to cover. So instead of covering it all, I am going to make this brief and focused. Oh, you mean we aren’t going to get a riveting conversation between Sara and Sally where they slowly realize that they are, in fact, the same person!? Sorry, not today. And we’re not going to get a very off topic Nicholson Baker style essay on the inner workings of a massage therapist? Again, no. Ok, what about musings on painting ancestral spirits? Some other time, most definitely.

Today, I stay grounded.

Boring!

I know, it’s so hard!

Ok…let’s talk about taxes.

No, no, no!!!! No! No! No! No! NO!!!

That was my general sentiment this past year. Having always been an employee, I got to live in ignorant “bliss” about taxes. I’d fill out the W-whatever and hope enough money was taken out, then bitch when it wasn’t. I am realizing now that ignorant “bliss” is actually holding me back. I didn’t make any attempt at selling art this year (thanks to those who bought even though my salesmanship what dismal!). I know that part of it was general artist’s feelings (insecurity, security, etc…) but really I was like, “Uhhh, if I sell, don’t I have to pay taxes? What the? How the? No thanks!”

Well, dear friends and well wishers, I realized that to make money I need to sell art. What an epiphany! I had logistically given myself this past year to live in a bubble made of saved money and Pilates teaching, but I know this bubble has to burst. I will also be 46 next month which slopes towards 50 and seems like an actual “you should know about taxes by now” adult age.

So I signed up for Tax Bootcamp. Have I started it yet? No. Will I soon? Uhhhh…Please, if you see me ask me about it. Hold me accountable! Please!

I attended a Zoom information session last week with the owner, Hannah Cole. She is an artist who became an accountant because she couldn’t get taxes-in-relation-to-being-an-artist info she was looking for. She talked about her clients with such care and often her eyes watered when talking about their accomplishments in their creative businesses. Let me be honest, she made me want to succeed. I felt like if I talked to her she’d see through all of my excuses and be like, “Listen, I have a BFA and an MFA, do you think I wanted to be an accountant? The least you can do is learn to do your own taxes.” I found her very inspiring.

Sadly, she is located in Asheville and lost her life’s work when her studio flooded a few days after the Zoom meeting. My heart breaks for her and all of the Asheville area. I lived in Asheville from 2002-2005 and seeing pictures of the River Arts District destruction guts me. Kris and I were just there in June. I marveled at how much had changed in 20 years. There were some art studios back then, but it was nothing like what it became. I wondered if I would have stayed longer had that community been more thriving.

Honestly, I know the answer is no. In general, things just weren’t even keel for me then. I did go to massage school, but I also bashed my head into the ground in an intoxicated bicycle accident, not on purpose, but not not on purpose. I had no sense of who I was and definitely would not have been able to be a part of the community. My roommates were poets and started a small press. I’d try to participate but didn’t know how to make myself an insider. I know I would have felt that way in the greater community as well.

Which gets me to this past year. The remodeling of the warehouse space my studio is in finished and I got new tenant neighbors, and also a stray cat who was won over by our food gifts. It’s a great little corner in east Austin. In a city where we lament not just gentrification, but generification, I share a space with some people holding on to growingly obscure trades and crafts. First off, there is Kris, my husband, at Harvest Lumber Company. He’s saving trees from becoming mulch and kiln drying and selling the slabs. Then we’ve got a chain stitcher, a screen printer , aboot maker and an herb shop. There is also a graphic designer and an architect, but they hide in the opposite end of the building so I don’t see them much.

And there’s Flitch Coffee. I love that my studio is at Flitch (Pueblo Viejo taco truck is also there but I don’t eat there cuz I’m a picky vegan 🤟 and I don’t loooooove tacos). If I need a little “get out of my brain” time I can go people watch. I am currently in the, “Am I really older than most of these adults?” phase of my life. So, I watch the 20 and 30 something’s and think about how they are just this decades version of some person I knew when I was their age. I’ll be lost in thought about a 23 year old from 2002 when I hear “Hey Sara!” and I pretend to be a person who can converse. If it’s someone I haven’t seen in a while I will say, “Fancy seeing you here!” And I will tell them about my studio and that if they are lucky they will get to meet the cat. If it’s a friend who is Flitch regular I will say, “Fancy seeing you here!” And we will talk about the weather and I will ask if they’ve seen the cat. If it’s another tenant we just cut to the chase, “I saw the cat earlier!”

Even if feline focused conversation is tops in my book, I am also learning a lot from my neighbors. They inspire me to grow the fuck up and take responsibility for my career. Do they love being business owners? I’ll let them answer that, but they are doing it. This year has basically been me floating around the space, coming and going as I please, while every one else is there for bonafide work. Actually, a Flitch employee just last week learned that I am there because of my studio. I guess he never asked and I never thought to tell him. I said to Kris, “I wonder what he thought I was doing here.” “The book keeper for Harvest?” Which made me laugh and pass out from boredom at entertaining the idea.

Anyhow, I often reflect on how far I have come just based on the fact that I can stroll around in an artistic haze amongst my peers. I often think about how if this were even a few years ago, I would not have been able to talk to any of these other creative folks. (Hi! If you’re reading this.) I would have put them on the pedestal of “artist who tries”, and I would have been some lowly failure. They’d probably have said, “You’re so hard on yourself” within moments of meeting me, then avoided future interactions. And now look at us, bonding over a cat, while the fact that we’re artists is just kinda whatever.

This is all just to say how grateful I am for the Shop on Tillery community. Being in this community is why seeing the River Arts District devastation hurts so badly. We are all just people trying to live out a creative vision in a Capitalist society that rarely benefits small business owners, especially creatives. Everyone is working so hard to add a little something different into the mix. These are the places that city’s need.

Please stop by and say hi and torture me with questions about taxes.

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If you are looking to donate to people in Asheville, but want to make a direct impact Hannah Cole of Sunlight Tax, is accepting donations which she get’s directly into the hands of people in need. I couldn’t link directly to an IG post but it’s on there.

Oh, also part of why I signed up for the Tax Bootcamp was because I applied to be in a class that the city offers for artists to learn business. I was supposed to hear back at the beginning of September but didn’t. I assumed I wasn’t accepted since it starts next week. Well, I found out today I was accepted, so my tax brain is going to be in full effect!