Entrepreneurship & Schizophrenia
The daunting road through entrepreneurship in recent years has been speckled with the classic trials of starting a business. Being broke isn’t the best pitch to investors, “Hi, I do have a lot of experience and ideas that will grab the public interest just…..” asking someone with any means of wealth to look passed the obvious, means your elevator pitch is google startup worthy. You met Mark Zuckerberg once at the National Geographic convention in Washington D.C., and gave him a passionate speech about this film startup, that will offer a Vice Media meets Participant Media space for underprivileged artists? Of course he heard the first fifteen seconds and the photographer interjected with the latest, hot internet trend, his sleek suit, Armani, something Italian, and shined shoes make your H&M chic look drab. Next.
Your dream barely crawled out of childhood, strangled by college debt, it was put on hold while homelessness found your early twenties, outside a church in Arlington, Virginia. What was it again? A studio? Revolutionary? Travel photography? Mom never cared to read the fine print on that loan, and regretfully co-signed for your first camera, nagging that a business degree would keep you employed.
So there you were, twenty-three, eyeballs in debt, pre schizophrenia, asked to speak at a TED conference about crippling college loans, and be the poster child for kids in poverty. Living in a car, what was there to lose?
This isn’t how entrepreneurs were supposed to appear. That studio owner Doug drove a sports car, used a large format Hasselblad, and lived in a pent house in Crystal City. That was entrepreneurship. You piled your life into a Nissan Sentra, packed the trunk with clothing, and live out of a suitcase on the passenger seat. Once you thought about getting a tattoo of the air freshener because of its significance in your daily life.
That ex once said to walk into galleries with a portfolio. Pour your heart to an aloof blank wall that sought the next legend of black and white photography. “Don’t beg, be confident.” What did I have to show? My pockets couldn’t afford Gucci shoes, Prada purses, and hair stylists like Nick Arrojo. Green is only desirable with presidential faces.
Vivian. He introduced you to one of the greatest photographers. Stills of New York life. Humble. Like you she was alone. Walked the streets with a lens. Never asked permission. She had boxes of negatives when she died. Simple wages sacrificed for rolls of 35mm. Vivian would not pitch to a gallery, and yet her work is beautifully framed in the most famous in New York. True artistry.
Diane Arbus, The Factory by Warhol, Dorothea Lange, could all communicate pain and strife through depictions of the grit of life and emotional expression of the eyes. Capitalizing on the everyday.
They told me, “it takes money to make money.” Where would I find capital to back fine art photographs? There had to be an element of community, something to entice investors, and later, create a humble purpose to the work, that would reach the viewer.
Schizophrenia came early. Near birthday twenty-four. Networks of studio owners, photographers, crew, and producers began to burn as the delusions slowly crept into relationships and became an obsession.