It’s the start of another school year, and my third in the MFA program at the University of Regina. I’m entering my year of prep for my graduating exhibition and defense, and I’m excited to see what sorts of new challenges I’ll need to overcome and what they’ll teach me.

I’m taking the last of the four Group Studio courses that this program requires. In these classes, students focus on developing their non-studio skills as an artist, primarily practicing how to speak and write about their work in the art world and beyond. As my prof for this semester’s course, Risa Horowitz, put it in the syllabus, “the MFA Group Studio is more about being an artist, than doing the art.” It’s a brilliant addition to the MFA program, and each prof I’ve taken it with has brought a different approach and usefulness to the course.

One of our assignments for the semester is to keep a blog on the weekly readings and viewings we have to complete. This week, we were each given different sections from Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Essays by 40 Working Artists, edited by Sharon Louden, and asked to write a “vision forward” answering the following questions:

What do you see and wish for yourself as an artist in the next year, 5 years, 15 years, and beyond? What do you envision your day-to-day and your big picture will look like? What sort of life-of-an-artist do you want for yourself? What kind of career do you want? What compromises and risks do you think you will need to make to accomplish that life? How will you cope with failures, and manage successes?

I’m grateful to be shown this book right now, as these are pressing questions for me as I come close to completing my MFA. First of all, I’m just starting to be able to envision myself as an artist, though I’m not quite there. This means that picturing my future practice seems very much like dreaming. What do I wish for “myself as an artist”? Well, just to be one, one day. I wonder if I’ll ever overcome that one. On top of that, I’m hyper-aware of the difficult practical reality of trying to make it as an artist. In the last year or so, as I’ve started allowing myself to even think about this dream, I’ve still been certain of its impossibility. This is where this book’s so helpful. From the three sections I’ve read, I’ve learned about four artists who are sustaining themselves through their creative practices. They write in a very frank and straightforward way, and it almost makes it seems as though it’s actually possible to make a career out of art-making. If so many (40 in this book alone) can do it, well, maybe I can too.

Maggie Michael and Dan Steinhilber are partners who are both artists. They each write about the way they make it work, juggling various roles including parenting. I can associate with them quite a bit, as Mike is an artist (creative writer) who is also a prof, and we share parenting duties too. Maggie mentions that “[a]rtists often partner with someone who has a reliable career and income” (120), though she herself has no regrets. In my case, I have a certain amount of pressure and need to contribute financially to our household, but at the same time, I know that Mike will do anything he needs to in order to support my growth as an artist, and this is something for which I’m grateful.

I found a lot I could associate with in Justin Quinn‘s account. While he talks about having a dream vision of being an all-star, his actual sustenance sounds dreamy enough to me. Commuting “by foot or canoe” (98) to his full-time university teaching job, having a studio on campus and one at home, and having art production that is “steady” (99) sounds like a highly successful juggle to me. What I took away from Justin’s segment the most is how for him, “[e]ach component [of life] — family, teaching and creating — works to keep the other parts going” (99) and that “sustaining a creative life means that life has to be nourished first. Creativity follows sustenance” (100). I understand the importance of striving to find this balance and nourishment, and it’s good to know that it can actually happen for some.

I put more asterisks and underlining in the Jenny Marketou photocopied section of this book than the other two I was given. Jenny has a very clear sense of what she wants from her life, and I can associate with a few of her goals. She realized early on that she needed to pursue “professional art”; she says, “I enjoyed theoretical debates, and practicing art was a way to stay grounded, and at the same time free and use my mind” (80). I think I too need to have some theoretical debate in my life, and that’s likely what led me to take this MFA. At the same time, Jenny decided that she would not tolerate the exploitation of being an adjunct professor, and so she left to pursue her own “creative ambitions as a self-employed artist” (81). I have a huge admiration for anyone brave enough to do this. Jenny admits that “[m]aking money seems to elude [her]” (81), and yet she’s willing to take the risks involved and work extremely hard at sustaining this life. She also knows that she’d rather find her work on the periphery of the art-world-system, so she makes use of “the museum gallery, the public squares, subway platforms, streets and protests as site[s] of production, where the work is produced and supported by commissions, artists’ fees, grants or in-kind sponsorship from education departments” (81). In this sense, she sees herself as a “knowledge entrepreneur — a free agent” (82), and I love the way that sounds.

As I prepare to finish this MFA program, it’s time I need to consider what my next steps will be. As I’ve said above, I haven’t given a lot of thought to creating a life as an artist because I haven’t seen myself as living that life. It’s still a dream, but even that is a life-shifting change for me; until very recently, as in within these last few months, I never even had that dream. I started taking art classes seven years ago just to put something I enjoy into my life. It never crossed my mind that I’d be able to do this — what I enjoy — as a living. However, as I adjust to the idea that I may just have an MFA in a year or so, the possibility of continuing to make art (as I can’t stop now) AND even leaving my current career as an ESL teacher, a job which I now know contributes severely to my mental health issues, well… maybe it’s time to allow myself some dreaming and see where this can actually take me.

If I were going to entirely blue-sky my future vision for five years from now, it would go something like this. I’d work half time (tenured) for a university in a small to medium-sized city that has a reputable visual arts program and top notch studios and facilities. This city would be a place that encourages the arts, and of course environmental sustainability. It would also be somewhere next to intense natural beauty, likely either right in the mountains (i.e. Rocky; coastal) or on an island (i.e. Vancouver; Salt Spring). I’d live just outside of town with a large enough plot of land to garden and keep chickens, and possibly a pet pig … and there’d be a lake or ocean swimming hole for necessary water access. There would be trees immediately on my property, but not so many in the surrounding area; forest fire would not be a worry. On days when I have time not to drive, I’d be able to make the longish bike-ride into town to work and spend time in my studio (though I’d have one at home as well). I’d gain a sense of daily structure, community, and purpose from my work responsibilities and relationships with colleagues and students, yet being half-time, I’d also have sufficient time to work on my own projects. I’d have shows, installations, and performances globally, often outside the typical gallery-setting, and I’d occasionally be asked to give talks and workshops and collaborate with my peers. I’d have time to putz around in the garden, swim, kayak, and cook, hike and bird-watch with my husband, but fitting all of this in would keep me very busy. Weekends and vacations would be something to look forward to. Ha!

I know that the above is just a fantasy. But what can it teach me about how to plan my next steps post-MFA? What parts of the above dream-life should I actually strive to reach? Is the decision to teach half-time a cop-out — a means of avoiding making a decision (to teach or not to teach) or a sign of cowardice (as impossible as it may be to get a tenured position, the thought of “making it” as an artist seems even more unachievable to me). These are questions I have to continue to work hard to answer in the coming year. If I’d like to attempt to get a tenured teaching position, I’ll have to start doing the work that that entails now; looking into programs across the country, seeing who has been recently hired and their credentials, and making sure I build a CV that will be looked at favourably… giving lectures, having shows, etc. I’m already doing a bit of this, but I’d have to amp it up.

What would it mean to abandon the idea of teaching entirely and focus that energy on establishing myself as something of a “knowledge entrepreneur — a free agent”? One challenge would be psychological, as I’ve already made clear. Another challenge, of course, would be financial. Mike is about to retire in three or four years. Where could he and I live that would afford us a decent quality of life on mostly just his pension and whatever dribs and drabs I could bring in? What sacrifices would we need to make to live that way? Location, lack of travel, less organic produce? While we’re responsible, we’re not good at budgeting. This decision is a joint one, and it’s huge.

I think this at least partially answers Risa’s question of “[w]hat compromises and risks do you think you will need to make to accomplish that life?” At least, this is the best I can answer it right now, given how entirely vague and fantastical my plans are. In terms of her final question, “[h]ow will you cope with failures, and manage successes?” I have even less of a clue. All I can say is that failure, or rather not even attempting this life in the first place, has been my go-to from the get-go. I think I’ll be over-the-mood thrilled and recognize my luck and privilege should I be able to make art my life at all, one way or another.