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A Week in the Life of a Fellow, Part 2 Wednesday, October 07, 2009
When I was in High School, the ominous topic of future careers arose quite often. I think I always tentatively said that I wanted to be an artist, a poet or some other trade involving creativity, mystique and no steady income. One of my best friends said she wanted to be a fashion merchandiser—a professional shopper who outfits clothing stores with their goods. A couple weeks ago, I got to do her dream job…sort of.
Along with Senior Arts Fellow Jessica Martin, I spent a day shopping for items to fill the clothing trunk in 55here’s pseudo living room for the Persona | Anima show. As we wandered the aisles of America’s Thrift, our cart became a cornucopia of kitschy home goods and early 90’s garments of all shapes and sizes, including a lime green tracksuit, patterned sports bra, tasseled sweater, tiger-print briefs, not to mention other oddball treasures like a painting of a horse, a stack of old National Geographics, and a neo-baroque clock (which may be coming home with me once the show is over).
Over the following week or two, I did a lot more shopping for the opening reception. Shopping, I’ve found, has this whole new dimension when it’s not a gift, or yourself, that you’re shopping for. It involves expense reports, buying en masse, strategic thinking, and awkward interactions with various cashiers. I’ve learned to double-check receipts, to stifle nervous giggles when I ask the manager at Halloween Express about the possibility of buying false mustaches in bulk, and to load six 24 packs of soda into my cart without crying out, “But they’re not all for me!” Such difficulties, however, are really not difficulties at all considering how much fun it is to buy crazy junk for a living.
And as I sit here in a green wingback chair, staring at the horse painting in a faux-living room, I think about my high school friend and I, and our past ambitions and current occupations. She’s an operations manager for a cosmetics retailer, which seems to suite her just fine. I’m an arts fellow for CreateHere. Neither are the jobs we thought we’d have by now. I haven’t published a novel or continued to make artwork at all really, but I don’t regret it. Over the course of the past two to three weeks, I’ve gotten to co-curate, write, paint, papier-mâché, design, plan, draw, set-up, celebrate, promote, play dress-up—and, of course, shop. So despite the lack of mystique, and with the added bonus of a steady income, really, I’m doing everything I always wanted to do when I grew up. And then some.
By Katie Waddell, Arts Fellow
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