Fire and Tides
I lost my job. I see the moon.
Dear Village Disco Subscribers,
If you subscribe to my other Substack, Disco Nola, pardon the repetition; I’m sharing this on both publications.
-e
Fire and Tides
I just lost my day job. Along with this problem—and it’s a big problem—there’s the gift of adrenaline. I’ve been quoting Joan of Arc, “I was made for this.”
(Swagger—real or performative—is easiest early in the day and when I’m around other people. Late at night I think about “van life.”)
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I’ve been replaying a memory and something I told my son Oscar when he was four years old.
Hans across the street let me use his backyard shed as a painting studio. Not only was it rent-free, but with two small children, the twenty-second commute was ideal. I painted in Hans’s shed about a year before a hurricane caused the roof to cave in.
A week or so after the storm, Oscar told me he was building me a new studio in our back garden, a small space the size of one of the rooms in our rented half-shotgun. He was out there a while before appearing in the kitchen doorway, dirty and frustrated.
“I don’t have the right materials, and I don’t have the right tools!”
I picked up Ivan, who was playing on the floor. “Show me.”
artists are, above all, problem solvers
Oscar’s hammer, pliers, screwdriver and an assortment of hardware lay on the stones by the camellia bush. He had leaned some long boards on the fence under the pear tree and it looked like he tried to hammer plywood to the boards to make walls. I told Oscar how much it meant to me that he wanted to help. I said, “Not having a studio is a problem…but artists are, above all, problem solvers. Like you out here. We’ll find a solution.”
My own words return to me now that my main income has disappeared. (This is a problem → I am an artist → I’ll solve the problem.
I told Oscar there are artists like Andy Goldsworthy who don’t work in studios. That night we watched Rivers and Tides. In the documentary, the artist says,
I often take it to the very edge of its collapse and that’s a beautiful balance.
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Late at night, I’m not finding the edge of financial collapse very beautiful.
My income supported my two children and myself (plus 3 porch cats and at least 2 opossums named Karl). My day job (a position at the intersection of art and tech start-up) was engaging, flexible, paid our bills. It left me with enough time and energy to write about art without needing to get paid (much or anything) to do it—granted, I wake at 4 am and have a scant social life. Now, like many people in the “richest country on earth,” I’m on a tightrope and the few safety nets are sketchy and close to the ground.
But what my current predicament lacks in Goldsworthyan beauty, it makes up for in that adrenaline I mentioned before.
“I was made for this,” I tell my friends who look concerned. (Worried expressions just make me more worried.)
“Joan of Arc was burned alive...” my friends remind me.
“That’s hot.”
I say, with overacted nonchalance.
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Privately, I’m chalant. Superchalant. It’s scary when something—in this case, a whole income—is suddenly gone. As I have in other barn-burnt moments, I think of the 17th century haiku by Japanese poet Mizuta Masahide.
Barn’s burnt down
now
I can see the moon.
Art is a bright moon.
Meanchile, the barn situation nudged me to enable PAID subscriptions at Disco Nola, to lean on and into community.
In a perfect world, I would continue to do this work freely. The pro-labor part of me thinks it’s good to get paid; the part that views a life in art as a spiritual vocation prefers to do this for free. Village Disco remains FREE.
There will still be at least one free post each month. I’ll figure out the rest and rhythm in the next week or two.
I appreciate you being here. Thank you for subscribing, paid or unpaid. Thank you for your ❤️s and comments. And thank you so much for sharing and supporting my work.
-e
Details About Disco Nola Paid Subscriptions:
What is Disco Nola? Disco Nola is a Substack publication written by me that covers art and digression, mostly in New Orleans. It will arrive by email and is also viewable on the Substack App. I love writing DN and am so glad when readers find value in it.
Paid Subscribers will receive Disco Nola weekly, probably more, once I catch my breath and lock in.
What will a paid subscription cost?
$3.33 (like the song) monthly if you subscribe for a whole year ($40), $5 if you subscribe month-to month. There is also—with no additional benefit—a flexible higher dollar subscription if you owe me money, stole my Ramones tee shirt, or want a very expensive loaf of homemade sourdough bread…
Comments are open and messages always welcome.
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Outro: