My grandmother asked me when I'm getting a "real job" and I told her this is it
My abuela called me earlier this week and again did her little thing where she asks how "the hobby" is going, and I told her I sold 14 pieces this month and she got quiet for a second and said "mijo, that's very nice, but when are you going to get a real job." And I just said, grandma, this is it. This is the real job.
I know she means well. She's the one who got me clay in the first place, when I was like 12, she had this old wheel in her garage nobody used. But she still thinks it's a phase.
Anyway I sold a lidded jar today to a stranger in Bilbao who said it reminded her of her grandmother's hands. That's worth more than any salary to me but try explaining that to someone who survived on a fixed pension her whole life.
Not really looking for advice. Just had to say it somewhere somebody gets it. 14 pieces. That's not a hobby, right?
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My grandmother lived long enough to watch me go from working in a factory to building rooms of junk people walked through and called art. She still asked about the "real job" until the week she died. Some of them never stop, and that's okay. You don't need her to get it. The stranger in Bilbao who bought the jar, she gets it. That's the one who matters.
"rooms of junk people walked through and called art", that got me, man. That's exactly it. Glad you got to show her the rooms even if she never called them anything else. You're right, though. The stranger in Bilbao doesn't know my grandma, she just saw a jar and felt her own one in it. That's the whole thing, isn't it. Making something that lands somewhere you'll never see.