I grew up in a world where art was a hobby and everyone was told to go get a "real" job. And that's what I did. I had a whole bunch of real jobs, some cool, many of which kinda sucked. From my early 20's on, after unexpected success in the BMX bike industry, I was still struggling with personal issues. You know, all those wonderful (ahem) mental blocks, negative feedback loops, and emotional baggage that come with growing up in a family that's more dysfunctional than most, less dysfunctional than some. In other words, I stumbled into a couple of dream jobs, and was still miserable. I had shit to work out.
So rather than focus on going to college a few years later than most, my aim was to work through my shyness and other issues. I didn't really give a damn about a traditional career path. I worked a whole series of odd jobs through the 1990's, from a crew guy on the hit TV show American Gladiators, to bummed out telemarketing guy, and many in between. It's a long story, but this, and an injury, led to taxi driving in 1999, and through much of the 2000's.
What I didn't plan on was new technology destroying the taxi industry, even before Uber and Lyft came along. The switch from CB radio dispatching to computer dispatching changed the whole game, and forced us all to work 7 days a week. That led to living in my taxi for about four years, working 14 to 18 hours most days, gaining over 150 pounds, and three bouts of leg infections that nearly killed me. The declining business and my poor health led to the point where I could no longer make the $600 a week to pay for my taxi, and the $300 a week to pay for gas. I walked into the taxi office the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2007, dropped off the keys, and walked out onto the streets of Orange County California with about $15 in my pocket. My health was so bad, I assumed I would die within a few weeks. Obviously, I didn't.
After a year on the streets, panhandling to survive, and unable to find any way to earn living again, I called my parents. They'd offered to fly me to North Carolina, where they, and my sister and brother-in-law, had wound up living. We're from Ohio originally. I never wanted to go to NC. But I just couldn't get things going again in SoCal, so I accepted their offer. I flew into Raleigh, and they drove me to Kernersville, in the Piedmont Triad area, near Greensboro, in Central NC. That was mid-November 2008. You know, back when the entire world economy was collapsing. There were no jobs to be had. In fact, except for another year of taxi driving, I never did find ANY "real" job in NC. My dad died in 2012, I moved back in with my mom, who I'd never gotten along with. By the time November 2015 rolled around, I knew I had to do something to start creating my own job.
We were living off my mom's Social Security, which is actually a decent amount. But handling money is not my mom's strong suit, to put it mildly. She got her check, I drove her on a couple of all day shopping expeditions, and then we were in financial crisis mode for the next 27 days. Same thing, month after month. The only thing I did that made me any money was my weird Sharpie artwork. I drew pictures of kids' names in their favorite colors for $20-$25. So I decided to focus on that, and work to turn it into a business.
My first step was to take stock of what I had to start with. I had a small bedroom in a quiet apartment. It was a completely toxic environment, but it was free. "Free" meaning I chauffeured my mom around to stores, and an endless list of doctor's appointments. I paid a huge emotional price getting berated all day, every day. But I didn't pay money for rent. So that was good. Kind of.
I had a bunch of Sharpies, a cheap, 12" X 18" art pad, and a card table in my room to work on. I didn't have a cell phone, much less a smart phone. To communicate with the outside world, where I would have to sell my most of my artwork, I had a refurbished (like $60) HP laptop, still running Microsft XP in late 2015. Perhaps most important, I'd built a small, but fairly hardcore following online, blogging about my days in the BMX freestyle industry when it was just getting going in the 1980's. I got depressed and deleted my three best blogs shortly after my dad died, but I'd re-started one of them. So I had a small, but legit, audience online. Most had become Facebook friends as well.
What I didn't have was money. I LITERALLY did not have a dime. In my mom's apartment, if I had any money she knew of, a "crisis" would arise that needed all that money. If I made $20 for a drawing, and spent $4 on some Ben and Jerry's ice cream to celebrate, a crisis would erupt that needed $16. If I had $1.43 to my name, my mom would have a crisis, usually involving chocolate, that needed $1.43. So I started without a dime.
My first step was to sit down one night and ask myself what I thought was a simple, but smart question.
"What could I draw that I'd actually want to put on my own wall?"
I sat down at my mom's computer, which was faster than mine, and looked at all kinds of art. When I was homeless in 2007-08, I discovered Banksy and became a big fan of Street Art. Graffiti, from the collage-like look of layers of tagged walls, to huge, colorful bombing pieces, was another huge influence throughout my life. I also like M.C. Escher as a kid, and the wildlife painter Bev Doolittle (Google her "Doubled Back," I loved that as a kid), and Russian Surrealist Vladimir Kush, who i met at a show. I looked at the western art of Frederick Remington, and the "masters" we're all supposed to like. But I kept coming back to stenciled street art, like Banksy, Shephard Fairey, and others worldwide.
I found a simple stencil of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee. He was my first hero as a kid, and a guy that got more and more interesting the more I learned about him. So I printed it out. I borrowed a couple of bucks from my mom, and blew it up on a copy machine, and transferred the simple image onto my art paper. I colored it in with my Sharpie "scribble style" that I'd developed years earlier while actually living in an indie art gallery in California. I put words in the background, quotes from Bruce Lee. It came out cool, I actually did tape it up on my wall, and I knew I was on the right track.
So while I grew up in a world where everyone told me that art was "OK as a hobby," but that I needed to get a "real job," that had changed by 2015. I still couldn't find ANY "real job." So I took to art to begin to earn a living when regular work just couldn't be found. My world had reversed itself.
In the next art post, I'll talk about HOW I started selling drawings with no money and just an old laptop to reach the rest of the world.
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