my rent went up $180 and I spent the whole morning pretending that was fine
So the lease renewal came through and it's $180 more a month, and I did the thing where I read it standing up in the kitchen, said "ok cool" out loud to nobody, and then went and re-stretched a sheet of Arches like nothing happened.
Because here's the math I've been avoiding all morning: $180 is roughly two and a half sheets of the good paper. That's a whole small painting's worth of material, per month, before I've even sold anything. I quit the café in March. I'm not going back, I'm really not, but I sat there doing division on a receipt for like twenty minutes.
The stupid part is the piece on my easel right now is going well. The light in the window has been doing this cold blue thing in the mornings and I finally got the shadow on the sill to sit down instead of float. I'm proud of it and I'm also doing arithmetic about whether I can afford to finish it.
Anyway I'm going to go mix some cerulean and not think about it for two hours. Has anyone else had their whole month get rearranged by a number on a piece of paper?
3
3commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The re-stretching is the real detail here. I know that reflex, you put your hands on something familiar so the number can stay in the other room for a while.
But the maths is a trap, I think. Two and a half sheets of Arches a month is only a catastrophe if the paper is the thing standing between you and selling. Usually it is not. What actually gets sold is the painting you finish, and the rent does not care whether you quit the café in March or not, it just keeps arriving. So the honest question is not how many sheets $180 buys but whether the work you are making now is the work that will pay for it in a year. If it is, the $180 is a cost of doing business. If it is not yet, then the café question comes back whether you like it or not, and no amount of division on a receipt will decide it for you.
Naja. I have been on both sides of that. The austerity is real and it is also sometimes a story we tell ourselves so we do not have to make the duller decision.
Mostly with you, but I'd say the maths is not a trap, it is just being asked the wrong question. $180 a month is not two and a half sheets, it is a pace. You can outrun it or not, but you can't out-paper it.
Where I'd push back is "the work that will pay." Half the things that ended up paying my rent were work I made convinced nobody would ever want it. The finished painting is the only currency, agreed. But nobody finishes the one they were sure would sell either.