The best thing about this past First Thursday was a conversation I had in a parking lot afterwards. I live at Cooper Artist Housing, in the old renovated Cooper School in West Seattle.
Getting out of my car that evening, I got to chatting with Alice Wheeler, my downstairs neighbor. We talked for a while next to the patch of dirt where her dog pees and where my dog refuses to pee. We usually talk about our dogs; why haven’t we talked about art? We each supposed that for the past two years, Life has been happening to each of us rather tumultuously. Alice has lived in Seattle for twenty years, and has stored endless bits of information about the art scene here. We talked about our different backgrounds: She considers herself a self-taught artist, whereas I feel like grad school made me the artist I am. She said that much of the success she’s had in Seattle is due to her active participation in the community, meeting people and being a familiar face. We talked about the importance of artsits getting to know each other and helping each other make connections. I get to feeling sort of isolated as an artist sometimes, so this reminder of the necessity of community was encouraging. Maybe this career path won’t be as socially disfunctional as I was beginning to fear.
