In an earlier post, I wrote about my “keyword” in 2022.
In 2023, it is commitment. It’s not a very flashy word inspiring a lot of boldness or risk, but one that speaks of quiet grit. It’s a word that really describes what I feel is an appropriate focal point for my current thought.
You see, I know what burn-out is.
In 1999, when I went back to school to finish my degree I really thought I’d get out of illustration and become a lab researcher instead. I was feeling unfulfilled and becoming resentful of my illustration career and had gotten to a point where I’d begun asking myself, “Is this all there is?” I was over-working, not seeing any appreciable increase in my freelance salary. Offers for the kinds of books I wanted to be working on were fewer and far between. Why, after a decade of working as an illustrator, wasn’t I more ahead financially? Why wasn’t I getting the plum jobs with more recognition and better opportunities in the industry? Had I peaked as an artist? What was going on?
College and then grad school allowed me to see that there were other ways I could expand the container of my art career and keep it sustainable. I started to say no to all the illustration work that didn’t excite me so that I could say yes to more of my own work and other commissions that sparked my curiosity and joy. Teaching at a local college allowed me to pick and choose even more and slowly I began to develop a new body of work which has led me to what I’m doing today.
It’s possible that burn-out is just a mindset in which our expectations fuel feelings of entitlement. When reality doesn’t quite match our expectations, we can get resentful— or we can adjust our perspective. What happens when we let go of the expectations, what it’s “supposed to be” and just do the work and enjoy the ride? What if we just have faith that the work’s success— in whatever way that means for us— is inevitable and that we just need to endure and believe in the outcome?
There is no date on the success of my work. There’s just the work. There is only renewed commitment. However long it takes for me to achieve the goals of my work is how long it’ll take. I really don’t know when it’ll happen; I can’t predict it in the slightest. So I just work. I ask the Muse to sit and keep me company day after day while I lift my rucksack again and keep trundling along on my path.
No effort is ever wasted, it’s always being folded into tomorrow’s possibilities and opportunities. Keep trudging on, my dear Art Gnome.