Market Value

I’ve been teaching and this summer I’m going to begin a new phase in my life. The phase where I figure out how you make money with an MFA if you don’t teach. This has led me to a number of revelations. First of all, I think all art majors should double major. Expanding your interests and developing your mind can only be good for your art. And you might need that other major to survive. This advice is not going to help me at the moment but I am spending a lot of time trying to decide what kind of job to pursue. Early this week I decided I wanted to be a nature photographer. Olivia and I were standing at the lake absolutely freezing and watching the swans and loving it. I didn’t really get any close-ups of the swans because my zoom wasn’t powerful enough so I even came up with a marketing jargon. I will be the photographer who portrays “nature from a distance.”

I’ve come up with lots of job options- I have many skills and varied interests. All of my ideas have one thing in common: they aren’t any easier and don’t pay any better than being an artist. The truth is most of them are some variation of being an artist. Which is in fact what I am. I had a discussion with my college roommate recently. I think she summed the situation up well. She said, “Your personal satisfaction does not have a very high market value.”