February 29, 2008

When the first invitation to a group show I have ever received turned out to be a show entitled “Failure,” I was amused. What else could I be? I’m honored, but how do I get selected as an artist to represent failure? Or worse…Why? But when it comes right down to it, I can’t help but think, “Perfect.”

It was sixteen years ago when I vowed that it would be eight years and out at the family grocery store, and during that time I’d develop whatever it was gonna take to become a professional, full-time, living-earning artist, whatever that meant.

I tried to make the break early, after just four years, but the picture framing shop gig failed, and I went back to the store. I made a sincere break for it at eight, in 2001. Had some fun with that for about two months. I think I even considered it a success. Then I had to start filling beer coolers to make some money to contribute to the cost of living in a home. So that pretty much failed, too.

Then I got a teaching job…junior high language arts if you can believe it…and that was the best thing that ever happened. I started pursuing my certification immediately and then I got Vicki pregnant…and that became the best thing that ever happened. But it also meant being a teacher in a Catholic school wasn’t gonna be good enough to support any family, so I had to quit. I became the stay-home-dad while Vicki went back to the office to make the good money. That might be enough to make some men feel like a failure. Did me, and there was nothing I could think of to get out of it.

Then I got the job out in La Farge. That was cool. Getting hired to be in the art department at the cooperative that markets Organic Valley milk…that felt like success. But it came with a 50% pay cut from what Vicki was making in Milwaukee. Good and bad. The move to Viroqua was a dream come true, but it also meant packing up my most prized possession, the press, indefinitely.

And if that's not enough, they were considering not including this piece in the show, because it wasn’t anything close to what they were expecting. True story. Wanna buy it?

So that’s where I sit, seventeen years after graduating from college; exactly where I want to be. Things being the way they are now...wife, two kids, job, life in a progressive rural community...I can only believe there's no such thing as failure.

Mister Sloppa's 2007 Log

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