Socially Anxious Practice

Since my move to Cincinnati, I’ve been trying to invest sincere time and energy into the communities I inhabit and get to know the area better. I’m hard on myself when it comes to these things – I see my time in Connecticut post-grad school as mostly wasted, where I had more opportunities to make solid connections than I ever took advantage of. I’m sure in retrospect I’ll be more gracious to myself, but it feels almost hypocritical to say I engage in communities and feel like I’m barely a part of one myself. So I’m trying to use my status as the new guy in town to reestablish a community-oriented practice. 

But this is challenging. I have an unhealthy work/life relationship. I feel artists, in general, are taught that being able to practice their craft as a means to support themselves is a privilege. This leads to a culture of never-say-no, or a constant grind that is not sustainable in any way, shape, or form. How can I make meaningful connections when I’m jumping from project to project to project? Don’t get me started on how my ADHD is fueling this (and the further guilt/strange feelings that come with relying on that as a “crutch”). Point is, I don’t have time or energy to meet people, let alone collaborate in meaningful ways. 

A completely flattering portrait of the artist as taken and shared by the Tiger Lily Press Instagram account

My current attempt at solving these problems is entering local craft and artisan markets and sharing my work. This is a base-level entry point into meeting other artists and people who like art (on paper, at least). Because I cannot be normal, I have two particular projects I’m working through by attending these fairs. One involves pricing, the other explores the nature of monetizing my trauma. Both are first ideas that need work, but I’m happy with how they’re turning out so far.

First and foremost, I do not price my own work. I tell the audience to tell me how much they want to pay. I ask for a $1 minimum per object, but other than that, it’s up to them to tell me how much they want to pay. And I always accept their offer – this is not haggling. This is an attempt to force them into feeling as uncomfortable as I do in this circumstance.

I’m calling it “socially anxious practice”. I want to work with people, but people terrify me. Selling my work and claiming it has monetary value makes me very uncomfortable, so if you want it, you too need to feel that discomfort with me.

An actually flattering portrait of the artist at the 2022 Wave Pool Holiday Bazaar outdoor market.

I have entered 2 so far, showing a variety of print-based media and selling enough to pay for the registration fee and some gas money. At the Tiger Lily Local Ink market, I immediately felt out of place. This was not my audience. I had an entire display of my zines, all of which were older (2020 at the most recent) and while they garnered some interest, in a lot of cases they were ignored. 

The wildest part was seeing those who were interested in my zines leaf through them and have humorous reactions to what I felt were very confessional and sad – especially my “How I Became My Own Ex-Gay Therapist” essay. There’s not enough time to unpack or even take in what that implies, but it’s weird how people are immediately laughing at it as if it’s a joke. Taking into consideration the original context of the installation and how somber that was, it’s just weird.

By having the audience to name their own price (and NOT “pay what you can”, there is a difference), I am forcing them to directly tell me how much they think my work is worth. I do not make to sell. I have never considered selling my work to be a priority in making. The resulting awkward social moment between myself and the potential buyer, for at least a brief moment, makes us both consider the economic value of art objects, and if there is such a thing as objective value in art. The transaction becomes more than just vendor and consumer, it is a social transaction. And I’m bad at those. 

residues of my mental illness 1209-01 through 20, unique screen print monoprints, 2022

Another project-in-progress I am subjecting the masses to is a monoprint series called “residues of my mental illness”. I started with 30 unique screen prints, and sold 10 at my first fair. I brought these back into my studio and printed more on top of them, then re-titled and re-signed the remaining 20 prints. I then offered them for sale at the second market, Wave Pool’s Holiday Bazaar. Here I sold much less, which is to be expected – rather than a print-focused sale, it’s a general makers market.

These prints explore the general nature of my making – an extension of my mental wellbeing – and what it means to then sell what is effectively a residue of my mental illness. I use abstraction generated from the scribbles and doodles and shapes that used to decorate the margins of my notebooks before I became medicated. There is only one opportunity to get a print at any state — once they are unsold at a market, they are no longer available for consumption in their current form until they are printed upon again. Already one-of-a-kind prints are made more ephemeral through this process. I have plans for these prints and their iterations at the next 2-3 markets, but I don’t want to spoil it. 

Cover for tellmethatyourealright, with a section to write your name once you’ve finished “curating” your zine.

Exclusive to the Holiday Bazaar, I had packs of spreads and covers ready for the audience to turn into zines. This marks the first of a new zine series, tellmethatyourealright, which will act somewhere between found-text poetry collections, photography, and a diary. I invited the viewer to pick 4-6 spreads (of the available 10), collate them, then staple and take home a unique zine of their own creation. Only 2 zines were made, leaving me with a bunch of bespoke prints that I’m considering stapling and offering for sale here.

Regardless of what I’m doing, I want to make something that is experiential. Perhaps it’s making your own zine, or giving some other strange kind of performance or interaction. For the most part these kinds of fairs and markets can only have incredibly strange things through the vendors work and displays — I want to push that further into the realm of the interactions between artist and audience. I want to break the norms and expectations of these kinds of social transactions and give the audience not just an object to take away, but a memory. It might involve costuming. It might involve props. It could just be continued economic nonsense, making the viewer use a calculator and input their annual income before I sell them an object. I don’t know.

I don’t quite see these being interventions – not yet at least, but I am interested in the potential there. Right now I see these as unsolicited performances – the organizations who put these on are not asking for me to show up and be a weirdo who isn’t in it for the sales but also sort of participates in that relationship. I have a lot of questions I am seeking answers to throughout this process. How do I document these as “performances” or “interventions”?  How do we place value on art objects? Should art fluctuate in value? Is an artist valid if they do not (or are bad at) selling their work?

In the end, the real question is – what am I selling? Am I selling my products? Am I selling myself? Am I selling an experience? An idea? 

I don’t know yet. But I’m having fun so far.