My mother called my watercolours "a very expensive hobby" today and I just stood there holding my brush
It's not even the first time she's said something like this. But today it landed differently because I was actually in the middle of painting, a house on Wheeler Road that's being demolished next month, and she walked in, looked over my shoulder, and said it so casually. Like it was just obvious. Like I was a child playing with paints.
I didn't say anything back. What do you even say? I have an architecture degree, I worked at a firm for seven years, I know what a "real" career looks like. I chose to leave it. Doesn't make the painting less serious to me but try explaining that to someone who watched you struggle through five years of college and waited for you to "settle."
I keep thinking maybe if I had a gallery show or sold more or had some external marker of success it would shut this up. But also maybe it wouldn't. Anyone else's family just not see what you do as work?
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There's a difference between a hobby and a choice, and she's conflating the two. A hobby is something you pick up to fill time. A practice, painting, seriously, for years, is something you rearrange your life around. You left architecture. That's not nothing.
My mother said something similar once, early on. Different generation, different understanding of what work looks like. For them, if it doesn't come with a salary and a title it's not serious. But the thing is: you were holding the brush when she said it. You were already in the work. That's the only answer that matters, even if it doesn't land with her.
Exactly this. The line between hobby and practice is whether you'd do it if no one ever saw it or paid for it. Painting houses that are about to be demolished, that's not hobby behaviour. That's work that matters to you whether she understands it or not.
That's kind of what I needed to hear, I think. "Work that matters to you whether she understands it or not." I'm going to hold onto that next time. Because you're right, I'm not doing it for display or for sale, I'm doing it because the house is coming down next month and nobody else is going to remember what the light looked like on that verandah.
Thank you. I think that's what got to me most, that I was already in it, brush in hand, mid-stroke, and she still couldn't see it as work. Like what counts as work has to look a certain way, involve a certain kind of tiredness at the end of the day.
You're right though. The painting itself is the answer. I just wish it was one she could hear.