The Work Behind the Work

Festival Acadiens was wonderful, and I came home Sunday evening exhausted, happy, and fairly certain that I had personally relocated a small warehouse over the course of the weekend.

For three days, I was surrounded by wonderful music, interesting people, and the kind of joyful atmosphere that reminds me why I love living in Louisiana. People stopped by my booth to look at the artwork, laugh at the Unbelongings, browse through my books, and occasionally take one of my strange little creatures home with them. It was a lovely weekend, and I am grateful to everyone who helped make it that way.

I am also grateful that I don't have to carry another folding table today.

There is a peculiar disconnect between what a creative career looks like from the outside and what it actually requires of the person doing the creating. When people visit an art market, they see an attractive booth full of artwork, perhaps with an artist sitting behind a table looking reasonably cheerful. They don't necessarily see the days spent preparing inventory, cutting mats, framing prints, packing boxes, loading vehicles, and trying to remember which indispensable piece of equipment they left sitting on the kitchen counter.

And that's before anyone arrives at the festival.

I sometimes wonder whether people realize how physically demanding an artist's life can be, particularly for those of us who travel to markets and festivals. Setting up a booth involves a surprising amount of lifting, hauling, bending, stretching, and occasionally persuading an uncooperative piece of equipment to behave itself. By the time everything is arranged and ready for customers, I've generally already put in a respectable day's work.

Then, of course, I get to spend the day doing the part I actually love.

One of the great pleasures of selling my artwork in person is watching people respond to it. The Unbelongings have such peculiar personalities that it's fascinating to see which ones catch someone's attention. People laugh, point things out to their companions, and sometimes come back after wandering around the festival because a particular creature has apparently taken up residence in their imagination.

I love watching those connections happen. When you spend so much of your creative life working alone, it's enormously satisfying to see that something which began as an idea in your own head has found its way into someone else's.

Of course, once the festival closes, all those carefully arranged displays have to be dismantled, packed away, and carried back to the car. After three days of this, I was developing a rather intimate relationship with muscles I had forgotten I possessed.

The whole experience got me thinking about how much of a creative life consists of work that has very little to do with creativity itself.

We tend to celebrate the finished painting, the published book, the opening night, or the successful performance, and understandably so. Those are the moments when all the effort becomes visible. But beneath every one of them is an enormous accumulation of ordinary tasks, many of which are tedious, repetitive, or physically exhausting.

I think this is particularly important to remember when we talk about pursuing creative dreams later in life. There is a lovely romantic notion that we might finally reach an age when we can spend our days doing exactly what we want. And perhaps we can, although apparently what I want involves spending three days on my feet and repeatedly carrying heavy objects across parking lots.

At 56, I am certainly more aware of the physical demands than I might have been twenty years ago. I'm also more conscious of how I spend my energy, which has become a rather valuable commodity. I want to continue doing markets and festivals for years to come, and that means paying attention to the practical side of this life, including finding ways to make the work a little easier on myself.

There is also something wonderfully satisfying about seeing the results of all that effort. Festival Acadiens was a successful weekend, and quite a few Unbelongings have gone off to begin new lives in other people's homes. Every sale represents a little more than the exchange of money for artwork. It means that someone saw something I created and decided they wanted to live with it, which is still a rather marvelous thing to contemplate.

Naturally, selling a great many prints creates another problem, because now I have to replace them.

This coming Sunday, I'll be at Makers Market and Spellbound on the Bayou, which means the next several days will involve making new prints, filling frames, reorganizing inventory, and getting everything ready to do it all over again. My current business model appears to involve recovering from a festival by preparing for another festival, although I suspect there are worse ways to spend a week.

If there is a lesson in all of this, I think it's that a creative life requires a willingness to embrace the entire process, including the parts that will never appear in a photograph or inspire anyone to write a romantic essay about the artistic temperament.

Every beautiful market booth represents hours of preparation. Every independent book represents months or years of writing, editing, formatting, and promotion. Every successful performance requires rehearsal, practice, and the occasional willingness to look absolutely ridiculous in front of strangers.

The magic is real enough, but somebody still has to load the car.

So thank you to everyone who came out to Festival Acadiens, supported local musicians and artists, stopped by to chat, bought a book, or adopted an Unbelonging. Your enthusiasm makes the hard work worthwhile, and I genuinely love being part of this wonderful creative community.

If you're out and about next Sunday, I hope you'll come see me at Makers Market or Spellbound on the Bayou.

I'll be the one surrounded by strange little creatures, pretending my back doesn't hurt.