2 posts tagged “career”
Having a younger sister was lucky for me. Not only was she a willing listener, she believed every word I said - just like I believed every word my teachers said. And just like my teachers I sometimes spoke the biggest load nonsense. It was fun to tell my sister interesting facts with even more interesting embellishments. “The things we see” I once told her “are actually refracted upside down on the retina at the back of the eye, but our brains turn it the right way around for us”. True. “Baboons, also see inverted images, but unlike us their brains are not smart enough to turn the image around. So they see everything upside down”. Not true.
At university I was a tutor for a couple of years in Art History and Visual Communication and it was during this time that I had my 15 minutes of fame. My classes usually went well, word got around and in time there were so many people attending my lessons I felt like the lecturer. I would have given the tutorials for free at the time, just for the sake of it. It was fun.
After I graduated I decided to do some travelling. One of the first jobs that caught my eye was teaching English as a foreign language in far flung places in the world. It paid more than 10 times what I had ever earned before and I figured that it would look better on my resume than bartending in London or working on a kibbutz in Israel (two other options). Little did I know what a quagmire ESL teaching would prove to be or how hard it would be to extricate myself from it… The only way to make it count as CV-worthy experience ultimately was to go into proper teaching, which is precisely what I did.
Now I find myself teaching Art and Design at a lovely school in the Eastern Cape. All in all it is a fine job but it is not quite as enjoyable as I had expected it to be. The kids are neither as talented nor as interested in art as I had imagined them to be, which is draining. I have less time to make my own art than I thought I would have. Teachers in general and Art teachers specifically are not accorded much respect in South Africa and everyone knows that we earn an appallingly low wage. So the question posed to me today is certainly warranted: why teach?
I tried to answer the question honestly. I am teacher because it is a job that allows me to be my own boss, to set my own rules and be in control of my work environment. Art is important to me, which makes sharing my knowledge and skills in it feel important too. Teaching is one of the few jobs that comes with three months of paid vacation, it is a job that keeps me fit because I am always on my feet, and perhaps most significantly, I am rather good at being a teacher, which is gratifying.
My students nodded their understanding but after the class I caught the tail end of one of them saying how unimaginable it would be to finally be done with schooling only top return as a teacher. What a waste of freedom that seems to them.
I wonder if they are right.
Last year I considered working as a sales representative in Taiwan at the same company my wife works at but I rejected a job offer there because it seemed far too boring. Teaching art on the other hand has not been all that exciting either. What made it seem worthwhile was the belief that my students find my classes enjoyable and worthwhile – that I am making a positive impact on their lives. Today I realised that even my best classes are not enough to keep my students wishing they could be somewhere else, and that has affected me rather adversely. It really made teaching seem thankless on every level.
I suddenly find myself willing to reconsider a new line of work, amongst people my own age in the ‘outside world’ dealing with just about the only thing that matters to everyone – money.
An old friend of mine is having her first solo exhibition in Johannesburg, which she invited me to come see. Nancy asked if it would make me sad if I went. What she meant was if it would make me feel bad for not becoming an artist myself. It probably will. I always get this ache in my heart when I go to gallery or an art museum. But nothing effects me quite as much as a practicing artist, especially a successful one and doubly especially one who I think is not that talented anyway. It makes me feel as if I have neglected my greatest ability and stupidly deprived myself of an equally fulfilling and productive life.
Recently I bumped into a lady who showed me some houses in Grahamstown a few months ago. She told me that she has since quit her job as an estate agent to become a full time artist. I was surprised to hear that because she was doing quite well for herself as an agent and I had no idea she was an artist. It made me remember one of the houses she showed Nancy and I. The owner was an artist himself who used a small damp cellar as a studio and wanted to move to a bigger house. As I was looking around the place I had a good look at his paintings too and we got talking about them for a bit. Of course he had no idea how much I yearned to lead his life. Just I had no idea how much the estate agent was also yearning to lead his life. To her I was just a schoolteacher. To me she was just an estate agent. To the guy selling the house we were both not-artists. She had a good laugh when she realised that I teach Art and that I understood exactly how she could have left a reasonably well-paid job to pick up her paintbrushes again.
People often think of artists as tragic figures who struggle to keep body and soul together, but the artists I know are nothing like that. They all make a fair amount of money, which they invest in things like property and lead perfectly comfortable lives. I believe if an artist is talented, works hard, has an audience and a little bit of business acumen, they will probably do fine financially. The stereotypical starving artist is the exception. Either the artist lacks talent in which case they don’t count, or they are so unique and ahead of their time that their work goes unappreciated, which is quite rare when you come to think of it. The artists I know are certainly talented and their talent is easily recognisable to others. So they sell their work. And make money. Just like my old friend in Johannesburg.
When I was a kid I met man from Germany. His mother and my aunt were penpals for many years and they would visit one another once a year or so. When she came to South Africa, her son came too. He always brought his sketchbook and paints and would busy himself doing art while the two ladies caught up. He was hobbyist painter at the time. He experimented in different media and taught himself different techniques and I didn’t think much of his work. It wasn’t that much different to what I used to do for school. I recall showing him my pictures and we would talk about them. He said I was really talented. Many years later he too quit his job as an estate agent to become a full-time artist. Now has a humungous studio overlooking a forest in Germany where he produces colourful abstract paintings that have brought him a degree of fame. I still don’t think he is particularly talented, but he has honed his style to such a degree that he can bring out the most that he can in his art.
I guess the moral to be had is that to be successful as an artist requires the same skill, work ethic and self-determination that it takes to be successful in any career. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but I am sure I’ll also end up as a full-time artist down the line. Until then teaching art well is a satisfactory career too.
