July 2024

Retirement and Overthinking

Several years ago, I had a show that did not sell well. Aside from one piece, the rest of that show is currently in storage. I would sell it by the pound, like beef, if the price were right. When the work from the show was returned to my studio, I had one simple thought, “Screw this.” Roughly two decades into this career, while I looked good on paper, things were not going well. I opened my calendar app, scrolled to my 50th birthday years ahead, and entered an event - “Retire.” I told my wife, “I just want you to know that I am going to retire from art when I turn 50. Also, I don’t know what that means.” After winding down that bit of post-show depression, I forgot about it.

I turned 50 last month. A calendar event popped up on my phone - “Retire.” As you might imagine, I forgot I did this. Old Rob had challenged present-day Rob to make a decision. Present-day Rob has looked at that word a few times over the month. It looks nice. Really nice. But what does it mean? I would still be teaching in an adjunct capacity. Some people retire, hoping to spend more time making art. What do artists retire to? “I was an artist. Now, I make art as a hobby.” At least, that sounds honest. Maybe, like Duchamp, I will take up chess.

I powered through that moment of doubt. This would not be retirement. It would be quitting. I will continue as I have for the past 25 years. One thing I have learned about myself is that I am miserable if I am not making something.

Art students spend class time in 4-hour critiques that devolve into discussions of white cubes, identity crises, rudderless group therapy, and whatever whim their instructor is subjecting them to. Here is something to consider teaching them instead of Foucault or navel-gazing:

Prepare young artists how to be the middle-aged version of what they want to be. Being a middle-aged artist is a grind. Being middle-aged anything is a grind, but if you want your students to turn into good artists, they are going to need at least one talk about how difficult it is to reach their 40s and keep going. This is not pop music. They will not peak at the age of 28. If they quit making art before they turn 35, they will not make some of their best work. They will miss being old enough not to care what other people think of them and to make work from that perspective. When you no longer feel you have anything to prove, you get down to real work.

They will have every reason to quit. Most of your MFA candidates will not get tenured positions at research institutions. A number of them will start families. They will find a career outside the arts, initially to pay the bills, but then time will take its toll. A month will go by without being in the studio. Then, a year. Then never. It is like not using a treadmill for exercise and slowly turning into a clothes rack. Their old work will stare at them from storage (unless they put a curtain in front of it like I do). They will need something in the back of their heads to push through the ever-present “Why am I still doing this?” refrain. Like I said, I powered through my recent “retirement” moment of doubt. There is another moment like that just down the road. And another. And another. Maybe people should quit. Do we need this many artists?

At least two other events in my calendar will eventually surprise me. One is the day I cross the Brimley/Cocoon Line. This day marks when a person is older than Wilford Brimley was on the day that the movie Cocoon was released. The other calendar event will mark when I have spent more days in the 21st century than in the 20th century. If I am teaching that day, it will be the first time in about 20 years of teaching that I will call in sick. There is no way for me to be recorded in history as a 20th-century artist, but it is my wish. My first gallery show was in the late 1990s, but that is not enough.

The studio abides, but the desire to work in a grid is giving me a headache. I have made six paintings, but I only like two. This idea is in its infancy. There are studies of studies. The square format probably will not last. I could wake up and abandon the idea completely. I painted apples the other day. Anything is possible. The correct thing to do would be to make more ink drawings.

Apple Music counted down the 100 Best Albums of all time. It was meant to reboot the concept of a “greatest” list—a new approach that does not push everything new to the bottom and allows acts like The Beatles or Marvin Gaye to stay at the top forever. The problem with Apple’s list is trying to convince me there are 53 albums better than John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. These lists are bait for customers so they feel hip and keep subscribing. In that respect, I am sure the mission was accomplished.

The list was doled out ten albums per day. It became an event for my son and me to check the latest entries. He then asked what my favorite albums were. I told him I would think about it. I narrowed it down to a little more than 400 albums—probably not what he was looking for. That includes albums I recognize as great alongside sentimental favorites that I know are not “great,” but they are a part of my development.

I am sure most people have heard or read that people’s favorite music is the music of their teenage years. I did not assume I was different but wanted to visualize it through a bar graph. I eliminated all classical compositions and plotted the rest by year to see what would happen. What emerged was the most predictable bar graph in music history. If you squint, you can see what day I got my driver’s license. A more accurate graph would be albums arranged by the year I heard them. You could take about half of the albums released before 1988 and fold them into the years of the late 80s and early 90s because that is when I heard them and collected them. There are also no albums for 2021, which reflects my mental state during the pandemic more than anything else.

Undeterred by the tidal wave of information that hit him, my son asked me to consider my favorite songs. I narrowed it down to a tight 2,400 songs. He will never ask me for a list like this again.

Any new album I have heard that I like is something that will sound better in the autumn, except Guided By Voices’ Strut of Kings. A middle-aged man needs to rock in the summer:

Skee Mask - Resort

Dirty Three - Love Changes Everything

Bruce Liu - Waves

I listened to Amanda Montell’s The Year of Magical Overthinking. It is a collection of essays addressing different cognitive biases and how to combat those biases with greater self-awareness and a more rational approach to life. There is a lot to consider in the book. It was also good for me to read about these ideas from someone much younger than me. I know I carry a hammer, and everything is a nail, but it felt like too much of the book focused on these biases within the digital realm. But how can they not? We did not have organized versions of these problems 20 years ago. Well, maybe we did, but it wasn't easy to measure or spread globally.

That is all. Enjoy your July. I will be figuring out the grid and making paintings of eggs or something similar.