The last few days were very fun and interesting. I will not name artists nor institutions in this blog post but instead speak of specifics generally and my impressions specifically. Late Sunday night I got a text from a contractor asking if I was able to assist an out of town muralist on a rush job outside the city. Of course I said yes and woke up early the next morning to drive out to the site.
I met the out of town muralist as well as the second assistant who is local here to Houston. We were painting three small illustrative designs on a fast food chain opening later this week. The juxtaposition of the interactions and events that occurred were extremely interesting.
The out of town muralist is beyond successful, he is slightly younger than me and is in the throes of an incredible career in design, illustration, marketing and mural painting. It was really amazing to be around someone so open to sharing their experiences and insights as well as how they arrived in the position they currently occupy. Needless to say, this person paid us very well.
This was all set against the backdrop of the training days occurring at this fast food "restaurant" where tens and tens of new employees are training to be employed at what frankly appears to be a horrendous job in a horrendous location somewhere between two highways in the to-be-developed suburbs of Houston. I felt really bad for these people and got the sense that they were very much victims of growing up in this area as well as access to limited opportunities as a result of that and other socioeconomic and cultural factors.
The point is to be positioned between such unreal success and such terrifying un-success (failure would be too strong a word) was interesting. I would only note that in reality the degree of my “success” as an artist is certainly somewhat situated right in between these two polarities. To reinforce the point the other in town artist who was assisting on this job is more or less in my same position visive Houston art world success. This person and myself know a lot of the same Houston mural world characters and have had very similar experiences with many of them.
It was very enjoyable to participate in such a range of art related conversations with both of these people, all whilst getting paid well to paint. The type of painting was not really my style, I don't typically mind painting corrugated surfaces, in fact in recent years I have leaned into painting the corrugated walls no one else wants to paint, but these were different. It was an extremely shallow and tight corrugation and the style of the artist who we needed to emulate has very clean and tight linework. So for example if you need to cut a clean diagonal line or paint the outline of a circle on this type of circle is a very real challenge. It's not even a matter of skill as much as you just need to make 20 little marks to try and fake one seamless one. Like making a 15 point turn to get into a parking lot, it's inefficient.
There were key takeaways from both sets of conversations had with both very different artists. I will identify some of the takeaways that I have first as a result of talking with the successful artists. Essentially this person is a hustler, but there's so much more here because “hustling” wont take you all the way (maybe it will but I haven't seen it) - because the other artist is a big “hustler” too and I’m not seeing the same results occur. Anyway the out of town painter is a combination of right person, right time, talent and business smarts. He hustled hard, met the right people and has since taken this momentum a decade deep in multiple states. He has a very commercial friendly style and set of skills as well as an extremely magnetic and positive personality. He is the type to make every single person around him feel appreciated and special, it really is a gift. He took hustling screenprint skills and design work to murals and now travels half the year executing very highly designed (very safe) artwork for huge clients all over.
Another key takeaway: he applies for everything. This is one very concrete arena, which is a big part of the game, which I had given up on. Not because I’ve given up but because I was working professionally in other areas and was enjoying the luxury of not needing to make money with art and thus not “waste my time” applying for things that historically I have very infrequently got. Anyway, that's lazy and that's a losing mentality, and spending some time with this person inspires me to get my act together in this regard.
His artwork is very commercial. My work doesn't poses this same quality, at least not when it comes to my mural work, my mural work is more expressive. I am really trying to push boundaries (with formal elements of the picture not politically) and I haven't experienced Houston to be ready for that - or not interested in it at least.
Speaking with the other local muralist this fact sort of crystallized for me. It was really clear at the mural festival last October 2023 - I was by far the only expressive muralist who participated. Everyone had very preplanned designs that they translated onto the wall, and out of 20+ painters, I was the only painter actually dealing with the materiality of paint - allowing it to create and solve certain problems throughout the process. This was one of my insights speaking with this person. I need to sit with this for some time because perhaps there is a niche, or a void, to exploit here in the Houston mural painting scene.
The other key insight speaking with this person was that I haven't been competing in the mural space for some time now. For this person the only art world success that can be conceived of is that within the world of painting murals, walls, graffiti - whatever. But that is just merely one very small dimension of what success in the world of painting could look like. I am very grateful that my vision, my interests, and success, as defined by my dreams, exists outside of these tight confines. Don’t get me wrong, I'm not making a value judgement, I would love to have immense success across this domain, and the fact that many do is very alluring, but I have invested so much in my studio practice and the gallery space that success for me is not defined by one medium.
Speaking of which, I applied for two part time jobs at the main museum here this week. Success for me could look like a combination of formal art world employment as well as the wielding of my skills in a more informal and freelance setting as well. I love painting so much that to do any number of things that revolve around this medium could be what defines success. There will be more insights from this week but these are the ones that hover in the immediate.
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