Cal, that's a hell of a plan!
But consider this - What an irony if the world forgets about your photographs, and remembers you only for your underwear modelling work?
Randy
Randy,
I've struggled in the arts for decades and use to get bouts of artistic despair. I'm okay with remaining just a guy with a ponytail now. I was a painter, a performance artist, a writer and now a photographer who also intends on evolving into a great guitar player.
Over my life I've had enough Al-Cal-Aids. I've had my name in the Gallery Guide, Art Forum, and had a two person show in a Madhattan downtown gallery. I've had my picture in the Daily News and the Village Voice when I was a performer. I performed at The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Second Stage Theater Off-Off Broadway, The Puffin Room, and numerous colleges and universities throughout the Northeast.
As a writer a story of mine was accepted by Paula Deitz the editor of the "Hudson Review" for publication, but this story did not make it past a review board and ended up being shelved. Talk about "Rapture," if I had been published in the "Hudson Review" basically it would have changed my life and the book that took me over a decade to write might have a better chance to get published. Also know that I was also "short listed" in case there was a cancellation at a "Breadloaf Writers' Conference" which is so exclusive that you must be invited to attend, and only 235 people are invited every year. Right now I have a 450 page manuscript with a very serious agent at a major literary agency that is a friend from long ago. She has had the manuscript for about 9-months and even though I sent a reminder just last month, even this insider friend might not have the time to read my work.
All this is like getting nominated for an Oscar or Emmy again and again, but never-ever getting the award. Although it would be great to gain immortality by being recognized and remembered as being important, the real reason I consider myself an artist is to have a meaningful life, to struggle even though I'm a slacker and major underachiever, to define my identity, and most importantly is because I have to.
I know many great creative people who are more talented and have more to say than those who are famous, but also realize I also lost many friends who ended up killing themselves because of artistic despair. I'm OK with being invisible. I do the work for me and only to impress myself. At this point I'm just a selfish artist who makes negatives and digital files. Printing can be done at any time but shooting is for the living.
Cal
P.S. Last year I was raving about the film "Twenty Feet From Stardom" when it was an underground film. Recently it got the Oscar for best documentry. Basically about the unsung heros who set the hooks in songs, how they get exploited (Phil Spector), and why they do it knowing they will likely never make it.
