Q: What is an appropriate amount of time to stay at your friend’s art show if you’re not interested in the social aspect of that kind of thing? I’m all about showing up to support people, but I find the conversations at these events so tedious and performative. And I hate who these events make me become: I find myself trying to fit in, while also judging my friends, who are all of a sudden talking differently and putting on airs. Should I just suffer through them?
JD
Los Angeles, CA
A: I went to college in a small town where we had to make our own fun. Lots of what we did was reimagine and emulate big-city functions like art openings, musicals, and fashion shows. Our events were scrappy, shambolic, and wonderful. They worked because we intentionally aimed for gilded and saw no value in actual gold. But when there’s a lack of self-awareness, these gatherings can feel performative and contrived. That being said, I now live in a medium-sized city, and the last time I attended one of these events, and felt my skin begin to crawl when confronted with a mid-Atlantic accent and Truman Capote cosplay, I started to think that maybe everyone—even in New York or Paris or London—is simply acting out an idea of what it means to be a partygoer or an art aficionado or an intellectual. So what is the appropriate amount of time to stay at your friend’s art show? However long you can stand to pretend along with the other fakers.
Q: I’ve gone on a number of art museum dates, but I’m not sure how good of an idea they are. They’re starting to feel like screening tests that invariably detect a problem. On one occasion, I was with someone I seemed to have a lot in common with, but we ended up clashing over most of the canvases—he saw laziness where I saw fleeting beauty; he saw bold defiance where I saw petulant rebellion. It got so tense that we ended up leaving early.
Another time, my date paused at nearly every painting to say something like “This painting is so me!” She projected herself onto everything, from portraits to landscapes, relating each one back to herself. Her constant self-comparison gave me the ick, and I decided to call things off.
These experiences have me wondering if the art museum brings out the worst in my dates, or in me. Should I stop taking future dates there, or is this actually a good way to gauge someone’s character?
Jess
Chicago, IL
A: Clashing over art should not be a deal-breaker, as long as there is mutual respect in both delivery and intent, a willingness to entertain opposing views, and perhaps the concession that a right or wrong interpretation is beside the point. On the other hand, “This painting is so me!” is an absolute deal-breaker and your reaction was entirely appropriate. (At the very least, you’ve spared yourself from ever having to hear the words “This breakup is so me!”)
As to your question, I do wonder if museum-going is best left for further along in a potential relationship. While gently sparring over a painting or sculpture can be stimulating, it can be irksome too. Also irritating, I would think, is the constant affirmation and parroting of our own views. Plus, you need to be wary of the mutual desire to establish common interests early on, often while obfuscating more nuanced or even contrary predilections. And while you posit museum-going as a test of character, perhaps you’re simply struggling with the age-old quandary of whether opposites attract or if shared interests prevail. Or, to be less trite, maybe you deem yourself someone with good taste and are thus looking for someone else with good (i.e., your own) taste. No shame there! I probably wouldn’t date anyone who’d never heard of Poly Styrene or Elaine May.
So might I suggest a deeper examination of what you’re looking for when you say “character.” My hunch is you could replace “museum” with just about any context, and face the same conundrum: finding a romantic partner, someone who really sees you and loves you for who you are, is really, really hard. It’s often easier to look for faults and reasons not to try. Therefore, maybe gauging good character is less about how a date responds to David Wojnarowicz and more about how vulnerable, silly, sexy, gross, smart, and just plain stupid you can be with someone, and finding someone who can be those same things around you. No judgment, no ridicule. A person you can trust not only with your excellent taste in culture, but with your heart. If art matters to you, witness it with someone who matters to you as well. Sigh. This answer is so me! (I’ll show myself out.)
Q: I’m a painter who specializes in abstract art. I started taking on pet portrait commissions for extra cash, and it’s become a successful and time-consuming hustle. For the first time ever, I’m close to making a living solely off my art. But I’m sick of transferring images of grimacing pugs onto canvas, and I have so little energy now for trying to create meaningful work. And I can’t help but wonder: Can people even take my art seriously anymore? Where do I go from here?
Chase
Philadelphia, PA
A: Would it help if I told you I am writing this answer beneath a framed oil portrait of my first dog, Tobey, a German wirehaired pointer mix with black-and-white ticking, a regal snout, and a bristly beard? In the painting, he’s in profile under a gray, cloudy sky, surveying the landscape, a pause before the pursuit. After Tobey died at the age of fifteen, I commissioned the portrait from an artist in England whom I found on Etsy. Whenever I look at the painting, which I do daily (unlike other artworks in my home), I am aware of how Tobey is both near and far, just as in life he was unabashedly domestic and alarmingly wild, unwilling to sacrifice either. He was mine but never really mine. And, Chase, there is more: I have gifted no fewer than five pet portraits to friends and family, all from different artists, the most recent a birthday present to my father for his eightieth birthday. Unfortunately, a portrait requires a photo, and for the life of him, my dad can’t take a decent picture of his two dogs. So I imagine the portrait will end up being a pair of dark, amorphous blobs atop a comfy chair. Still, they are his pet blobs and he adores them. Suffice to say, we’d all save these paintings in a fire.
As to where to go from here: If you feel uninspired by the pet portraits, it’s worth striking a balance between commissioned and self-generated work. Perhaps set limits for yourself on the number of commissions per month and how much time you spend on them per week. Dedicate certain days for your own pieces, and during those hours work with the same diligence you employ when working for others, even if it’s not generating income. It’s easy to fall into the trap of romanticizing the art we’re not creating and deriding the art we are, yet both require labor, the actual making and doing. Tend to all of it: from that caretaking comes the seriousness.
Last, please remember that in the end we don’t determine what work of ours will be meaningful to others. We can make art with the best of intentions, with years of learned and practiced skill, with all sorts of high-minded, theoretical, and intellectual goals in mind, yet we cannot predict which of our deeds and endeavors will matter or last, if any. I hope you take some solace in knowing that while you might wrestle with your own definition of what it means to be a serious artist who makes meaningful work, no one hanging your painting of their beloved pug on their wall has any doubt.
Q: I’ve taken up watercolor painting in the past year, and the practice has become a nightly routine. It’s been a way to privately process thoughts, feelings, and events through a medium that is new to me, adding color and dimension to my reflections that journaling could never capture. I’ve built up a portfolio of work that, unlike my mortifying journal entries, I’m proud of and feel eager to share with my artist friends. But I struggle with the idea of sharing something imbued with so much personal meaning that could be completely lost on others—not to mention my sensitivity to the fact that the watercolor medium is considered inferior in serious art circles. Do you have any advice for working up the courage to share my (amateurish) art with those around me?
Shy Watercolorist
New Hope, PA
A: Congratulations on being one of the few remaining people with quandaries or reservations about sharing! I quit Instagram after seeing a woman’s video of her husband enjoying a glass of her breast milk with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Anyhow, your restraint and thoughtfulness bode well for weathering your artistic debut. While I know your art is personal and that you want it—and yourself—to be understood, the first thing you’ll need to let go of is the desire to prescribe interpretation. Impossible! Instead, remind yourself that putting art—amateurish or not—into the world is an act of expansion and susceptibility; it’s about letting go, being vulnerable, and exploring rather than explaining the mystery that is you. It’s connection and communication, which I sense you’re up for. Yes, it takes courage, but you’ve already done the hardest part, which is dedicating yourself to a creative nightly routine and sticking with it. There is nothing inferior about that!
contributor
contributor
Carrie Brownstein is a musician and a writer/director in film and television. She was the cocreator and costar of the Emmy and Peabody Award–winning comedy series Portlandia. Brownstein has directed television shows for HBO, HBO Max, NBC, Comedy Central, and Hulu. She also directed a short film for KENZO starring Mahershala Ali and Natasha Lyonne. Brownstein is a founding member of the seminal punk-rock band Sleater-Kinney and author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
