Blah
Feeling very soul-weary today, which I realize is nothing new for me (I promise I do have happy times, guys, they just don't get posted on here much), so I apologize about posting about it.
Late last night got an email telling us that we did not get accepted into the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. This is mostly tough because 1) I was getting really excited about maybe doing Fringe and 2) it would have been the perfect "coming out" into the city as a company and announcing our presence as a group in Cincinnati. Now I'm feeling very discouraged, as with each show it's getting harder and harder for me to keep doing these productions without more help, especially help that I do not have to pay. I need company members, and I don't necessarily have any, and that's getting just. so. tough.
I feel like God is tearing me down in a lot of ways right now, leaving me standing very much alone in a lot of ways, and I can't see over the edge of the pit to know if there's a why or wherefore to it all, which is of course frustrating and difficult.
I am so tired of being alone. I just want someone who's on my team. Someone I don't feel like I have to cajole and convince and beg to be a part of who I am and what I'm doing. I'm so tired of begging, and, frankly, it's beginning to feel like maybe I should stop.
Then again, this may just be an "I hate Theatre" kind of day, and it will pass. But I do feel like I'm at an impasse--do I ignore this setback and just make more and more work, or do I just throw in the towel? I've been working in this area for over 15 years and I'm still begging. And I know there are some legitimate reasons for this, but on a day like today it's difficult to care and easier to consider just going and getting a teaching certificate or a nursing degree or something than to keep trying to do this artist thing in a world where so few people really give a shit about seeing your art.
This coupled with all the articles I keep reading about people who have been adjunct professors for 10-20-30 years without any shot at ever becoming full-time professors is just so discouraging. I don't want to keep working three-six jobs and hoping for the best, but never be able to afford a home, or a family, or even a pet. I don't know if it's worth it for that.
Edit: Found out that we aren't even on the list of alternates, so blah. But also read some parts of Neil Gaiman's "Make Good Art" and specifically the parts regarding failure, and that made me feel a bit better:
"...When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive. A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.
"The problems of failure are problems of discouragement, of hopelessness, of hunger. You want everything to happen and you want it now, and things go wrong."
Late last night got an email telling us that we did not get accepted into the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. This is mostly tough because 1) I was getting really excited about maybe doing Fringe and 2) it would have been the perfect "coming out" into the city as a company and announcing our presence as a group in Cincinnati. Now I'm feeling very discouraged, as with each show it's getting harder and harder for me to keep doing these productions without more help, especially help that I do not have to pay. I need company members, and I don't necessarily have any, and that's getting just. so. tough.
I feel like God is tearing me down in a lot of ways right now, leaving me standing very much alone in a lot of ways, and I can't see over the edge of the pit to know if there's a why or wherefore to it all, which is of course frustrating and difficult.
I am so tired of being alone. I just want someone who's on my team. Someone I don't feel like I have to cajole and convince and beg to be a part of who I am and what I'm doing. I'm so tired of begging, and, frankly, it's beginning to feel like maybe I should stop.
Then again, this may just be an "I hate Theatre" kind of day, and it will pass. But I do feel like I'm at an impasse--do I ignore this setback and just make more and more work, or do I just throw in the towel? I've been working in this area for over 15 years and I'm still begging. And I know there are some legitimate reasons for this, but on a day like today it's difficult to care and easier to consider just going and getting a teaching certificate or a nursing degree or something than to keep trying to do this artist thing in a world where so few people really give a shit about seeing your art.
This coupled with all the articles I keep reading about people who have been adjunct professors for 10-20-30 years without any shot at ever becoming full-time professors is just so discouraging. I don't want to keep working three-six jobs and hoping for the best, but never be able to afford a home, or a family, or even a pet. I don't know if it's worth it for that.
Edit: Found out that we aren't even on the list of alternates, so blah. But also read some parts of Neil Gaiman's "Make Good Art" and specifically the parts regarding failure, and that made me feel a bit better:
"...When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive. A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.
"The problems of failure are problems of discouragement, of hopelessness, of hunger. You want everything to happen and you want it now, and things go wrong."