My spine hurts. I’ve been sleeping in coils and sitting on a stool for hours massaging numbers and wishing someone would massage my back instead. I THINK I’ve got enough time. I know I don’t have enough money. The latter will work out. So will the former. Both would be corrected by making a little more money. I know that’s redundant.
We’re coming up on 10 years since I quit my salaried position with Glovia / Fujitsu and decided to make a Living off my art and my music. It’s been about five years since I stopped being homeless. Having to pay rent again meant making sure I had a little bit more in the way of stable income and paying rent made me want to be slightly more in just one place. Less touring meant less money… it’s all sort of conspired to get me picking up hours at House of Musical Traditions till we are where we are today – theoretically working a 4-day a week schedule at a retail music store repairing autoharps, selling guitars, tuning hammered dulcimers and ordering banjo heads. More practically over the course of August I’ll have worked 10 days and that’s actually not too bad – but it’s grating at me, my definition of myself, my soul as I sit here waiting for a customer knowing that I’ve got shit to do.
It’s not a bad place to be. As you can see from the numbers above it’s extremely flexible to boot. But I’d like to get back to where I’m Living off my art and my music and operating entirely on my own terms. Ironically the ACA (Obamacare) may well provide the little financial burst that I need – that and a little bit more creativity on MY part.
Sunday morning I woke up at a fairly decent hour (especially considering the late-night gig the night before) – I got up and broke out the inks, set up my scratch knives and got to work. The cover for Another Life / Another Live swiftly took shape as I worked and reworked the photographs from the previous week’s photoshoot. After about three hours I popped up stairs and made myself an omelet and some coffee and had a wonderful breakfast with the cats and some bad scifi… and then it was back to work. A couple more hours and then I ran out to run errands before running south to run my Old Bowie Town Grille open mic. Great performances, good times – I came home pleasantly exhausted, artistically fulfilled and feeling damned good about what I did with my time.
I used to feel like that a lot – but right now I’ve got too many days where I don’t. Another Life / Another Live is wrapping up. It’ll go to press on Thursday morning and with that a major stressor will be off my shoulders and it’ll be time to regroup and ready myself for new projects. I’m not entirely sure what they are, but I’ve got a list. First off of course I’ve got to tie up the loose ends from the CD fundraising: I’ve got a t-shirt to produce and art prints to print… and then I’ve got a lot of other projects I need to finish up including Live recordings from my open mics and a promised cover album…. But then I guess it’s time to get serious.
DeJohn. Koye Berry Meg Bowen.
