So What Do You Do?

A Creative In A World Of Others

“So, what do you do? Like, for work.”

It’s the adult version of “what’s your major?” isn’t it? How do you earn your keep? What sucks your soul each day? Are you happy or unhappy? Are you forced to do something for money?

These are the secret questions within the question. Are you like me? Or are you an Other?

“I’m an artist,” I reply, usually shrugging. I don’t know why I shrug, but I almost always do. “I write, too, but I mostly do art and design work.”

“Like what?”

“Whatever I want,” I say, hoping I don’t sound too surly. I don’t mind talking about what I do, not really, but it’s better if you actually care, and most people don’t. “Graphic design,” I add, because that’s something most people can understand and add a value to.

You don’t care that I spend most days alone, weaving or drawing or painting. That the skin of my thumbs is rough because I poke it so often with a needle. That I do this, all of this, because I have to.

Not for money, although that’s nice, but because it’s in me, this… need to create, to make these things inside my head. It’s always been this way, even when I’m doing something else, working for someone else, making their products and their dreams. i always come back to my own thoughts, feelings, machinations. I do because I must.

I’m an artist. I make whatever I want. That’s what I do.