post contemporary

making a living making art at the end of capitalism

In the same way that Modern Art is a historical Western Art time period even though “modern” once meant new, contemporary art has run its course.

One of my favorite questions to ask artists is: “So what’s after contemporary art?!” Aside from some blank stares like its canon will carry on forever, it’s clear that so many of us are already building outside of its confines. When speaking with Alana Fitzgerald on this topic I heard her say “Ancient Futurisms,” which resonated deep.

Our ancestors wove creativity into daily life; so many people still do. Art based in theory or concept feels alien to a timeline materially falling to fascism, climate chaos, and a billionaire corporate economic, media, governmental, educational chokehold. Ancient art speaks seasons, ecologies, food, elemental spirits, cosmologies, homes, habits, the body.

I like futurism for noting that we aren’t talking about the romanticization nor essentialisms of how art happened in the multitudes of pasts we can’t possibly know, but how creation can expand beyond this profit-driven, individualistic, Art Market human-supremacist art complex has run its course.

It’s art in conversation with life and not in the coffers of fossil-fueled, military, and agro-industrial endowments.

Art active in the hands of many beyond the same five tokenized artists getting all the grants, shows, and write-ups. Art making soil rather than polluting it with micro-plastics. Art generating multi-species coalitions not more white-walled exhibitions. I’m not above these contradictions, but of them, too. I’m curious and questioning what’s next.

So many art worlds are happening simultaneously beyond the Western Academy’s Contemporary Art production. They are blended like us. So many of us are in-between, trying to find our way past the folk art / fine art false binary.

How do we contend with making a living in a country that devalues art not made in marketable series within a narrow identity arc and conceptual frame? How do we price what’s taken us a year and 50 relationships to craft, or put into 200 words what intuition and integrity ask us to visually create?

I love this precipice. Looking over it, I reflect on what Nico from Climate Control asked me: “What makes good art?”

For me, it’s felt in the conviction of finding what one’s called to make from the primordial depths of their being and matching it with the medium that can transmit their visionary medicine.

It’s in the instinct and dedication to keep creating, not for a market nor an attractive-sounding narrative (although it can still engage with these) but because the calling is so loud that our spirit finds relief in its making. We self-soothe, as a species, in art. We express in reverence, and hope that the channel is resonant for someone else.

Existing in-between what we were told is the way is the medicine. It’s not an either/or, but taking up space through authentic creation in the both/and.

This era after Contemporary Art is full of incantations for a world that is enhanced, not polluted by our crafts. Where living systems are buoyed not built out of the equation.

I make a living as an artist by some gallery shows, some art sales, some high quality prints, some teaching, some grants, some consulting, some fundraising, some gift economy some crowd-sourced support, some barter, some low overhead, and some magical vision spells. None of this is consistent, pero, goddess-willing, altogether it somehow works out and feels abundant ~ especially when I’m abundant in quality time with my daughter and beloveds.

As the sole provider for my child, it’s a risk. But as a citizen-witness to Empire’s path of death, it’s necessary. I’m privileged in piecing this together. The artists in Gaza and undocuartists are living in the tightest militarized state prisons of creation.

I hate the idea of doing the same thing everyday, giving my labor to corporations, workin for someone else, doing anything beyond what Pachamama is asking me to do. I am driven by beauty and nurturing the living systems on this miraculous planet to keep existing for my child’s generation and beyond.

I make life as art in community, in ceremony, in offering, in parenting, in habitat, in failing, in trying again and again, in grief, in heartbreak, in solidarity, in loneliness, in collaboration, in love, with creek, with plants, with Apu, and in the quieting of my mind to see the sacred in movement of light and color on leaves. I make art because it’s what I’ve done since I can remember and all I know to do.

This new moon shares a walk-through I did of my recent show at Climate Control in San Francisco, Raymatush Ohlone Lands.

What does making art today mean and look like for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.