a sold artist

When I was little I wanted to be an artist.  I was pretty good, I even had the drive necessary to make that career happen.

I had no vision for what my life as an artist should look like.  I had no vision of myself or how I would live or act.  I didn’t imagine myself living in New York attending my latest art opening wearing a beret and a black turtle neck.  I knew only that my love for making art was pure and that I was happy while doing it.

In elementary school I was always the best artist in class and I milked my role as such, acting humble sometime rejecting compliments with “No, I’m not that good.”  When I got to high school I began to notice that in terms of artistic growth my peers were surpassing me.

I’d become lazy and impatient with the process.  I knew the basics, that everything in its most pure form is just simple geometric shapes, how to place light and create proper shadows, and how to use perspective to create depth.  I knew how to implement these concepts I just didn’t have the patience to take the necessary steps.  It was apparent that if I could make those essentials work for me I could be good, without them my work was off.  Out of embarrassment I stopped making art.

I replaced my desire for visual art with the desire  to be a rock star.  I could fully envision 

what my life as a hard edged tortured rock star would look like; ripped jeans, flannel shirts, a sweaty audience begging me to play my hit song before I smash my guitar into a thousand splinters expressing my anguish.  Eventually this died too as again I grew impatient with the guitar and refused to practice chords or scales.

After my dream of being a rock star faded I put my efforts into being an actor.  Again I fully envisioned my life on stage; speaking the words of Shakespeare, Chekov, Pinter, and Albee.  I eventually went to college to continue to pursue this ambition only to realize as a junior that I was too lazy to practice my skills necessary to grow.  Not only that but the day to day life of an actor seemed severely disappointing.  After turning down a role to hold a spear in a production of Hamlet I officially retired.

I have always loved writing but before college I had never thought of it as a legitimate career choice.  After I stopped acting I put all my efforts into writing.  For the first time I found that I enjoyed the process just as much as I reveled in the product.

Like my visual art aspirations, I had no idea what my life as a writer should look like.  I knew only that I was happy while doing it from start to finish.  I found that no matter how great the struggles, no matter how disappointing the rejection I still wanted to write.  

This was why I found what happened last October to be rather ironic.

My senior year of college I copied a picture of Audrey Hepburn that I’d seen at IKEA for Jaime.  This awakened a desire in me to begin painting again, not for a living but just for fun.  In the next few years I amassed more paintings than I could fit on my limited wall space so quite canvases a few ended up in the back of a closet. 

Last October as we prepared to move from Los Angeles to Seattle we held a yard sale.  It was more like a Fire Sale, as we were selling off just about everything but the essentials.  This included four paintings I’d done that I was ready to get rid of rather then haul back north.  My expectations were that someone looking for a cheap canvas to paint over would buy them.

When one woman picked up a black and white painting and asked how much, I was about to say $2 when Jaime grabbed my arm and spoke up.  “$5!” She said, the girl looked enthused and bought it.  Later I watched as a car made a sudden stop in the middle of the road, reversed and then a woman got out of the car to buy a specific pastel drawing.  Once again I sold this one for just $5 and she was thrilled with the new canvas she had to hang in her home.

By the end of the day I’d sold all but one painting.  Drunk with success I insisted the last canvas go for $5 and no less, the little Mexican man offered me $2 but I turned him down.  I can’t go around selling Brian Snider originals for $2, it would destroy the market.

It was then that I realized that I had done it.  My childhood goal was complete, I’d become a sold artist.  There were three of my paintings hanging in three separate southern LA homes.  I imagined that they would invite guests over for dinner and while sitting on the couch they would ask their hosts, “I love that painting.  Where did you get it?”  With pride they would reply “Oh, thats just a little thing I picked up at a garage sale in Los Feliz.”

this painting is unfinished

I did some mental math and taking in the cost of the canvas and supplies I figured that I’d made a negative $60 profit.  Not much but it was a start.  Now if only I could get someone to pay me, even if just $5, for my writing.

posted by: brian snider

giving and receiving

check this record out you won't regret it

    I haven't had a new favorite band in quite some time, well really since Nirvana.  So it's been about eighteen years since there was a band in my life that had me impatiently waiting for their next album release.  It's been an equally long amount of time since I found a band so enjoyable to listen to an entire album from start to finish in one sitting as a pure singular experience for just enjoying.

LAKE was born (like so many bands on the k-records label) along the I-5 corridor but known mostly as an Olympia band.  Though I would not say that it is glaringly obvious there is no mistaking that their sound is a product of the region.  To date they have four records easily available on Amazon.com and itunes.  Their most recent release Giving and Receiving was released on Tuesday by k-records and was well worth the wait.

I am not a record reviewer and have nothing similar that would even qualify me as such, in writing this post I wanted only to share an incredible band and an incredible record with my fellow internauts.
I don't know if this is the right term to use but it seems to fit, LAKE is indie pop at its absolute best.  Not intending to turn anyone off if you either love or loathe, but picture them as what the Mamas and the Papas would have sounded like if they were from Olympia.

Giving and Receiving does not quite live up to their first K release Oh, the places we'll go but it is unquestionably better than anything else I've heard in the last eighteen years.  Hip swinging bass lines, simple and soft guitar riffs, subtle brass that fades in and out, foot tapping drum beats, and an omnipresent keyboard that swirls from 80's electronic synthesizer to an early 70's jazz organ to piano.  Their lyrics are soft and beautiful, the album is split between male and female voices occasionally both together.

The sounds form less of an urban sound scape than that of something natural, it belongs in the wilderness.  This is probably why they so strongly remind me of my second apartment in Los Angeles, warm summer evenings in Griffith park with my wife and dog.  If I was to create a camping playlist this would be it.

    I can't urge you strongly enough to check them out.  Their easy to find on itunes and amazon there are two spectacular songs available for free download at rcrdlbl.com.  If you find that you love them as much as I do then you may want to see them live, they are currently touring for the release of Giving and Receiving and if you live in the Seattle area they will be performing at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard on May 15th.  I'll be there for what is sure to be a truly memorable experience.

what do you do?

this penguin wants to know what I do for a living

There is a question that I absolutely loathe, one that I can easily see coming, one that I hate to answer.  “What do you do for a living?”  I suspect that many artists and even some non artists hate this question as well.  I will focus specifically on artists because we have chosen a profession that often requires us to hold a day job.  In answering that question we have to make a choice between how we actually pay our bills and what is our career.

For me the answer is complicated, and usually it goes like this, “Well, I make my money as a ________, but the rest of the time I am a writer.”  This is just too much information, with more layers than the questioner was expecting.  The first part says that I make my money doing one thing, but I don’t really care about it.  The second part says that there is this other thing I do care about, but I don’t actually make any money at that and I want you to know that is what defines me and not what I do to make money (holy shit).

That is what the question really comes down to, what defines you?  People assume that how you make your money is something you went to school for, something you love, something that they can draw conclusions from, about who you are.  That doesn’t really apply to me and all the rest of us who have a day job to support our ultimate career goals.  I don’t really care about the various ways I’ve made money and aside from the fact that they employ me, I am not defined by those jobs.  I fear that if I leave out how I eventually want to make money the questioner will get the wrong impression of me.

Just the other night this question was asked of me.  I was prepared to give my standard answer when I paused, in a split second decision I said something else.  “I’m a freelance writer,” I answered confidently.  This wasn’t exactly false, but not totally true either.  In my fantasy life this is how I make a living.  It’s not like I said I was a lawyer or a computer software designer.  I know a lot about being a writer and can hold a meaningful intelligent conversation on the subject.

Does it really matter that technically this is not true?  I was more engaged in the conversation because I could discuss the art of writing and not, HVAC or pharmaceuticals.  I wasn’t being interviewed for a newspaper article and I wasn’t asked to sign an affidavit.  So what is the harm?

From now on in conversations and all non legally binding documents I am a freelance writer.  I won’t shy away from the fact that this is not how I make my money should they inquire further.  But why would they?  Wouldn’t they rather hear what I’m passionate about and not something that I just do because I have to?

I suggest everyone try this out, artists and non artists alike.  Don’t just lie, but if you’re a practicing writer, actor, director, dancer, painter, designer, or musician it shouldn’t matter that this isn’t how you make your money.  Perhaps one day you will.  After all is saying that you’re any one of these things different than the thousands of twenty one year olds out there claiming to work for ad agencies or law firms, when really they’re just unpaid interns?