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Out of Book

2/28/2023

 

Life is like a game of chess

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I don't play chess. I sort of know the basics of the game and I love stories about chess masters, but I'm not interested in learning to play it. 
Unlike me, my 17-year-old son loves to play chess. Lately, he's been sharing interesting chess facts with me. For example, he recently told me  "there are more possible variations of chess games than observable atoms in the universe." Which basically blew my mind. 
Coincidentally, the next day a friend shared a meme about chess. "Life is like a game of chess," the meme says. It ends with, "I don't know how to play chess." Of course, this meme is funny because it implies​ that the person not only doesn't know how to play chess, he also doesn't know how to live life.

The Game of Chess

Then another chess coincidence happened that week. While I was working at my sewing machine, I pushed play on Radiolab, one of my favorite podcasts. It just so happened that they were rebroadcasting an episode on games, which included a whole lot of interesting information about chess. My ears piqued.

As I listened, I learned the chess term "out of book". This term quickly caught my fancy. If you don't know this idea - as I didn't - here's the background: there exists a "book" of all the chess moves that have happened throughout the history of the game. Although it's not a real book, in Moscow there is an actual library of all these recorded moves. This library has been kept since the 16th century and, like most things, it recently has been digitized. Basically, during a game of chess, most of the moves players make have already been made before in past games. (The digital book can even tell you how many times before each particular play has occurred!) But, not all of the possible variations of chess moves have been made before. When a player come to the point in the game that isn't in the book, the play is now considered to be "out of book". The way chess analyst Fred Friedel explained it on the the Radiolab episode is my favorite. He says when your play is out of book, "you have a position which has never occurred before in the universe."

​Wow. Consider that!
​

The Game of Life

Traditions are the life equivalent of playing by the book. The book of life says: go to school, get a job, get married, have a family. Traditions can be great; they provide quick and easy answers to basic life decisions.

In the game of chess, it's easy to tell when players are playing by the book. Their moves are quick and decisive. These moves are easy because the players have them memorized. They've been done so many times before that no thought is necessary. It's when play reaches the point of being out of book that the game becomes a challenge and slows down. Now, players have to think about each move they might make. They have to consider all the possibilities and all the consequences of each move and can no longer rely on what's been done before. 

Traditional paths are so well-worn we can feel that
​not only are they the correct way -
but the only way. ​

We humans can be really hard on ourselves. We beat ourselves up when we feel we did something wrong. But life isn't always predictable. ​​​If we learn anything from the game of chess - and the unfathomable number of possible plays there may be in a game - it's that not everything is in the book. Not everything has been done before. There are times when you may "have a position which has never occurred before in the universe."
For me, the pandemic created a whole slew of things that never happened before. I didn't know how to make money as an artist. My two teenagers fell into depressions. Tradition was no help, life was out of book. And just like the game of chess, everything was slow and challenging at this point. It makes sense to me now: my brain needed time to process absolutely everything. At the time though, it was awful, exhausting and terrifying. I felt incredibly guilty and constantly felt that I wasn't doing enough. The problem was, that I didn't know what I should be doing. 
​

Possibility

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My journal page on the concept of Out of Book
Personally, I think this might be the most exciting part! Okay, the exciting part probably doesn't come until after quite a bit of heart-ache and depression. It can be a challenge to adjust to the unknown. What usually happens first for me is that I feel like a loser and I'm extremely sad and I feel sorry for myself and I want to give up.

But after that I come out on the other side feeling excited. All of a sudden there are possibilities I didn't know existed.

"​Look at that!" I say to myself, "It's okay to step off the well-worn path! You can make your own path."

​It's actually more than okay! It's amazing.

Textile Art

Here's my art interpretation of the chess concept Out of Book.
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"Out of Book" 
16" x 20", cut and sewn cotton fabrics, thread. Sold.
​© Mary Pow. All rights reserved.

Why I'm singing "I'm a loser baby"

2/23/2023

3 Comments

 

The true cost of art.

I just returned from Florida where I attended two art festivals with my textile art: Mount Dora Arts Festival near Orlando and Coconut Grove Arts Festival in Miami. Both festivals are very popular, highly rated, juried events, and I was honored to be accepted! 

Last year I attended one art festival in Florida (Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Festival) and it went reasonably well. I learned a lot, sold a moderate amount for being a new artist, and gained many new friends and followers. My next step was to try two in a row to make the most out of my travel expenses.
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I had good reason to expect that the two festivals I got into to would be decent shows for me. I did my research on both events and I heard great things. But I'm not naïve, I know that doing any art show - especially if it includes large travel expenses - is a huge gamble. But I figured that if I could double the amount of sales I made at one show last year, it would be worth it. 

"I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?" 

Unfortunately, the end result of this experience has left me not only in debt, but also questioning my art. I've decided to share the true cost of selling my art at these shows. This is not an easy decision; I know that people unwittingly prefer to support winners and I could lose sales over this. I usually try to be as upbeat as possible about my art career in public. But I'm not sure it can get much worse; this week I definitely feel like the loser in Beck's song.
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Two Art Festivals in Florida, February 2023

Costs and Expenses

  • Fees paid to apply to two art festivals: $75
  • Total Booth fees (for a 10ft x 10ft space) for two festivals: $1250
  • Gas money spent on driving to and from Florida: over $600
  • Hotel costs during the drive: about $500
  • Hotel costs during the two events: $2800
  • Airfare to come home for a week in between shows: $360
  • Airfare for my husband to assist me with the 2nd show (two one-way tickets): $526
​​Total = $6,311.00

What costs are not included here?

  1. The cost of materials I spent to create my art.
  2. The cost of my studio rent in order to have a place to make art.
  3. The cost of my tent and display so I can show art at outdoor festivals.
  4. The cost of a vehicle that will transport the art, the tent, and the display.
  5. All of the miscellaneous costs that simply cannot be counted in order to run a business.

Artists are not paid for their time.

It's hard to imagine all of the time the entire art-festival-going process takes. Usually I try not to think about it since none of it is paid time. But, in an effort to be transparent, here's a look at some of the time I put into doing these two art festivals. 
  1. The time I spent creating the art. This really can't be measured. Years, months, days, hours...
  2. The time spent driving to and from the art festivals: 52 hours.
  3. The time I spent setting up my tent and art display. This takes about 4-6 hours each time.
  4. The hours that the art festivals are open to the public. The two-day show was a total of 15 hours. The three-day show was a total of 23 hours.
  5. All of the time I spent taking down my display and tent. This takes about 3 hours each time.
  6. All of the time it takes to run a business. Seriously, I don't even know how to measure this. I guess the best I can say is that I spend several hours on my business every single day. This is separate from making art.
Total hours put into the festivals (does not include making the art!) = 108 hours

The hardest question I always get asked is:
​"How long did it take you to make this?"

Sales

"Okay," you're probably saying, "but how much money did you make?!" 

Here is the dismal truth...
​
Show one: $698.00 in sales 
Show two: $2,323.00 in sales

Total after expenses =  -$3,290.00
This result is extremely embarrassing to share. Sure, there are places I could have cut costs. I could have slept in the cheapest (worst) hotels available. I could have driven through the night (dangerous and stressful). I could have done the second show without my husband's help (no lunch or bathroom breaks and no support) and saved on his airfare. But regardless of expenses, the amount I made in sales wasn't worth it.

​Art festivals are great for public interaction, feedback on my art, and it's always wonderful to hear compliments about my art. 
​
Sadly, compliments can't pay the bills.

Conclusion

Where do I go from here? I don't know. I have more questions than answers.

​Is it me? Does my art suck? Should I get a "real" job? If so, what makes something a "real" job? Maybe it's not me, maybe it's the economy? Perhaps people are too worried about inflation? Do people ever spend money on art? Do any artists make money at art fairs? Maybe it's my medium? Perhaps people aren't interested in purchasing textile art? And around again: Is it me?

Who knows. All I know is that I can't NOT make art. (I've tried to stop.) So despite the huge emotional toll all of this puts on me, I'm already planning for my next art festival. 

3 Comments
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    Mary Pow

    I am an artist and designer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My specialties are textiles and pastels.

    I also enjoy reflecting on the human condition.

    In my blog, I write about my musings and my art.

    Find my bio 
    here.


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