Artists, Moving On

The deadline is October 31 at midnight; that's when our studio lease is up.

We're almost done. After a month of steady work, the furniture and equipment are gone, the files emptied, the tools sorted, the negatives and prints and artwork moved. Two days ago I sprayed my large charcoal drawings with fixative and took them off the walls - those were the last piece of our work remaining. The recycling/junk guys came yesterday and took away all the leftover books and a large wooden shelving unit. We have a small load remaining to bring home, another to take to storage (it is a small storage locker!), and another group of things, mostly tools, are going to the lake, but we can begin to imagine ourselves sweeping and mopping the floor, and turning the key in the lock for the last time.

What a saga. This move has been so much harder than downsizing and moving our household. There was simply a greater accumulation of things that we hadn't dealt with, and had to go through in detail, separating them into "keep", "sell", "give away", "recycle" and "throw away" - and then those categories ended up with finer subsections --for instance, things that we could take ourselves to the EcoCentre, like metal recycling, or hazardous waste, or the thrift store, or other things that were too bulky or impossible to dispose of -- like the many books that our bookseller friend didn't want, and friends and family didn't want, and even the thrift places and used bookstores didn't want.

The real issue, of course, wasn't just the arduous, lengthy, physically-demanding process, which simply had to be gone through, but the emotional aspects of sifting through forty years of our working lives and personal history, and preparing ourselves for the next chapter, which will not include a large space for whatever projects we decide to embark upon. For years I'd occasionally suggest that we sort through the boxes and accumulated stuff that we didn't seem to be using, but when you have plenty of space, there is such a dis-incentive to actually do that -- and we didn't. But as the rent rose higher and higher, the day of reckoning approached. We did a lot of weeding last summer, but signed one more lease, knowing that it would probably be the last one, but with no concrete plan for what was next except that we wanted to bring living and work under one roof again. In March, when we found a new place to live, that set the inevitable process in motion -- and the studio closing was forced upon us. When my father became dependent on our care, and then died, the available time for the moving process was contracted and the pressure became much greater.

It's been enlightening to see what we actually did keep over the years, and why, and what has changed now to allow us to let much of that go. I think we've learned a lot about ourselves and each other in this process, and I'm more inclined to be gentle as I look back at the people we were, rather than judging ourselves too harshly. When we started out together, as partners in marriage and a fledgling business, we had nothing, and were determined to be self-sufficient -- so of course we gradually acquired tools and supplies for every conceivable task. We bought a house that needed a great deal of work, and we did almost all of it all ourselves, from the heating in the cellar to raking the roof in the winter to prevent ice dams; my husband sanded and painted every clapboard; I grew a lot of our food, made curtains and clothing, papered and painted and sanded; he took care of the car and built furniture for us in his small woodshop; he learned how to do plumbing and electricity and tiling. We bought and mastered each new generation of computer equipment to keep our design and publishing business going without needing employees or technical assistance. This was at first a necessity, but became our way of life, and during those energetic years, we enjoyed it and took pride in it.

When we moved from a small, relatively rural Vermont village to Montreal, we really had no idea of what we were getting into, and what we might need or not - so we brought most of those tools and equipment with us. And we kept far too much in the way of outmoded tools and supplies. Our big error was not dealing with all of that during the intervening years and having to do it all at once -- but now we've done it, and we've gone through the paralyzing uncertainties about what to do, the decisions, the leave-takings, the questions about identity and age, and the sorting and packing and letting-go -- and we've survived. When October 31 comes, we will feel lighter, happier, and more free.

What I find most sobering is the plight of artists and craftspeople who still desperately need those large studio spaces, yet are being pushed out of one once-affordable but now-gentrified neighborhood after another. During the moving process, we've shared the freight elevator, loading dock and dumpster with many other tenants of this large former factory building, who can no longer afford the rent charged by the new landlords who are upgrading and changing the building into a place for small businesses, high-tech firms, and offices -- all of which can afford considerably higher rents. It is a business decision for the owners, and they have a right to do that; the building is much more attractive than when we moved in more than fifteen years ago. But as I've talked to others who are leaving, their anxiety and stress are palpable, and there are few good options for them in this city. And while a society without art is unbearable, and the governments everywhere tout their artists as intrinsic to the society's identity, very few actually give the necessary support. Relentless capitalism always wins.

Somehow, the arts and artists survive, but I ache for the people whose work and psychological health will suffer as a result of being forced into smaller, insufficient spaces. What do we care about and value, as human societies? Choosing art (and here I mean all the arts) as a way of life almost always means years of low income and precarity, but artists are not considered in the same breath as "the poor" - in fact, many people see them as somehow privileged, and governments tout them as shining examples of each culture. Except in rare circumstances, artists are not protected, and very few rise to acclaim or monetary success -- but just look at the people who use the work of artists, and their associations with them, to make themselves feel important and elite. Look at the system of grants and exhibitions and art sales, and who really profits from it -- a largely-closed system that has only been somewhat eroded by the freedom of the internet and artists taking control of their own distribution, marketing, and sales. When you look closely at the system, you see its unfairness and hypocrisy -- but the purity at the heart of art always remains, and can't be taken away. This is why, in spite of everything, it survives.

Comments

[Peter Zicari]

You said something about the liberating effect of clearing house when you moved to Montreal, and it has stayed with me even as our own 30-year residence accumulates more *stuff*. The embarrassing part of having so many things around is that things kept "because they might be useful" occasionally ARE useful, and it very satisfying to be able to produce a tool or fitting for one of Andy's stage management gigs. After my mom died, my dad devoted a lot of his time to getting rid of unnecessary things and made clearing his house somewhat easier — but we still haven’t finished the last step, getting rid of the inherited things we brought home.

In Cleveland, old factory buildings, with generous light, became artist spaces, and the city even adjusted its zoning to allow live-in lofts. These are being gentrified now, as in Montreal. I wonder if artists who require inexpensive space might be willing to move to smaller cities to adopt old buildings that don't have a strong market as residences. There are churches at loose ends, too. There's an empty Wal-Mart near me that could have a future as a sound stage or the workshop for a hundred foot statue, come to think of it.

Oh, and a belated happy birthday!

[Roderick Robinson]

The two of us - both octogenarians - live in a four-bedroom house, new when we moved in in 1998. Mortgage paid off 25 years ago. As a result we both have what, for want of a better word, can be described as studies. Easily convertible to bedrooms when segments of the family visit. Nevertheless a ridiculous luxury.

Neither of us is in the best of health and it would make sense to move to somewhere smaller, perhaps under care. But as my younger daughter has pointed out, we're happy here, and we are able to pay a cleaner and a gardener to do the drudgery.

The cleaner, who has been with us for a decade, describes my study as "a tip". True, but not a tip that was randomly arrived at. During the past quarter-century I've used it to write four novels, forty to fifty short stories, a cluster of verses of widely varying quality, run a blog once called Works Well now, ill-advisedly, called Tone Deaf. More recently it's been (expensively) adapted to the receipt of my Skyped singing lessons.

It's a visible archive of my life stretching back to the time I was in gainful employment. Two shelves display die-cast models of forklift trucks picked up during my editorship of a magazine devoted to logistics. Another long shelf holds about fifty novels in French, a tangible reminder of the French lessons I launched into in the mid-seventies. Raggedy folders contain financial info. There's a mass of dictionaries. Pinned to the door of the built-in wardrobe is a road map of the southern half of France which allowed me to plan a myriad of small-plane flights as the basis of my novel Out of Arizona.

All would go if we down-sized; lived somewhere that had no history. Some day bad health will force us to make a decision. Probably some day quite soon. I envy you your decisiveness and your industry even if it was forced upon you for financial reasons. I've railed at nostalgia in others, seeing it as a destructive act of self-hypnosis. I would defend my own "quasi-nostalgia" as an essential crutch to the subjective stuff I do here; writing fiction differs in that sense from, say, gardening. Ah well.

[Duchesse]

To achieve what you have means putting your hands on every single thing you have owned, a huge undertaking. Though we divested at least 60% of everything in a move a decade ago, I am vigilant about massing up again—new tools, new tech, gear, housewares and the six pairs of socks my daughter-in-law gave me... it creeps in. Now, I do seasonal weed-out days.

re the plight of artists' spaces, I hope you can somehow see the locally-made film, "305 Bellechasse", about the "renoviction" of artists who had worked in that building, many for decades.

[Priya]

Reading through your post reminds me of Mirvish Village in Toronto, which was a vibrant community of artists, craftspeople and musicians. When I visited there in 2015, all the artists were outside selling their work. They had been asked to shut down their studios which they'd had for decades, because the government wanted to convert the street into something else, some kind of development. There was an exhibition in an art gallery there where a photographer had taken beautiful portraits of each and every one of the artists in their studios at Mirvish Village. I remember commenting to the gallery manager about the look of pride in the every one of the artist's faces as they stood in their studios with their work. It was their life.