An Assault on the Monkey + Seal Cave!

Hey everyone,

We regret to inform you that due to a bit of a crisis over here at the Monkey + Seal cave, your regularly scheduled blog post and newsletter must be moved back a day or two. We apologize for the break but sometimes the poop hits the fan and priorities must be changed.

Back to the battle!

-Rick + Eve

I Have $161,635.78 in Student Loans, $15,000 in Credit Card Debt, and I Want To Be An Artist…

First off, we'd like to thank everyone who helped make the SF Zine Fest possible - organizers, creators, and attendees alike. We had a great time, met some really awesome people, got some cool new comics and zines, and even won a few raffle prizes!

So today's post is a reprinting of something Monkey wrote for his short-lived "Monkey Zine" that he published a few years back. Lots of stuff has changed, and a lot has stayed the same. Monkey will be posting an updated version of the story a later on.

The reason we even remembered this was because at the Zine Fest two years ago we had the pleasure of talking about art school and life and pursuing your dream with an UC Davis student (who shall not be named, since we didn't ask for his permission to talk about him). He bought the Monkey Zine back in 2009, and two years later, he stopped by our table again! He even brought the zine with him!

So since this was never published on the Monkey + Seal blog, we thought we should republish it for everyone who missed it being posted on Monkey's personal blog way back when. Anyway, thanks R for being a fan, and best of luck pursuing your true passions!

I am 26 years old and have $161,635.78 in student loans, $15,000 in credit card debt, and I want to be an artist. I already have a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, yet because I was too busy running a student acting group and painting, I have no resume-building biology related experience, nor do I care to gain any.

Like I said, I’m about $177k in the hole, and currently my fiancée and I want to be working artists. We’re currently in art school, but I just hit my cap on student loans (wtf, who knew there was actually a ceiling on how much you can take out for education…) so I may not be able to afford another semester. If you ever were interested in pursing art, you’d know that it’s not easy to make money quickly, steadily, or easily. There’s a lot of work, dedication, and a never-ending commitment to your craft that you need to have.

How did I get to where I am? I grew up in Stockton, California, located pretty much dead-center of the state. It’s a politically conservative town of a couple hundred thousand, where public transportation is a joke, my high school had a day care, and our per capita murder rate is the highest in the nation.

My dad works as an environmental coordinator at an aerospace firm and my mom is a dermatologist’s assistance. My mom is very progressive and DIY, my dad, not so much. He’s your standard Democrat, but he’s definitely no Green (my political affiliation of choice). My parents do their best to support my dreams and they are surprisingly calm when I tell them things like I quit my high-paying, health-insurance graphic design job for unemployment during the start of the recession. They divorced when I was 18, and my dad remarried 7 years later. My step-mom is pretty cool, but since I life in San Francisco, and they live in Stockton, I haven’t gotten a chance to really get to know her.

I have a younger brother (5 years younger, to be exact) who still lives in Stockton. He’s super cool, and although we’re into different things (he has something like 30+ pairs of Nikes while I have 2 pairs of running shoes and a pair of interview shoes) we get along pretty fabulously.

My fiancée is pretty awesome. She is a feminist activist, intelligent, an artist, likes the outdoors and is Wilderness First Responder Certified, dances, sings, acts, likes to bake, and is a sexy lady. Basically, she’s everything I could ever ask for.

The two of us are following our dreams of surviving off our art. We make zines, comics, paintings, stationery, sculptures, prints, and also do graphic design work. I have a under-funded and under-advertised non-traditional custom wedding invitation studio. We are also currently very under-employed.

I never thought the recession would really hit us, but it definitely has. As we struggle to make our credit card payments, and rent, it’s sometimes hard to just keep focused on our art, let alone positive about our current situation. We’re not even sure that we can afford rent next month, and there aren’t a whole lot of options in terms of borrowing some cash.

I keep finding job listings that are unrelated to art, but might be kind of cool. I don’t think I’d mind working for a non-profit, or doing something sciencey for underprivileged youth, and I know I’d be great, but I’m always dissuaded by the job posting as I don’t have any resume experience to show how awesome I am with kids, or how I could totally act as an advocate for immigrant reform even though I’ve never worked in a law office.

It’s actually surprisingly difficult (although I guess it’s not that surprising now that I think about it) to get a retail job when you have a degree from UC Berkeley. I really want a job that pays me just enough to get by, and requires nothing mentally taxing, so I can go home stress-free and just focus on my art. Granted, I would most definitely quit as soon as my art career takes off, which I now understand is probably why most prospective employers would be hesitant on taking me on.

So I’m stuck in a resume limbo where I’m underqualified for the jobs I want, and I’m way over qualified for the other jobs I want. But I lucked out and got a job at a place I used to work at, so even though it’s not enough to pay the bills, at least it’s a steady flow of income.

Money and I have never really gotten along. My parents declared bankruptcy when I was 15 or so, and so I worked really hard to get into a good school. I was offered a nearly full-ride scholarship to UC Riverside, but after touring the campus, I knew I would be totally unhappy. I’m sure telling me that it was okay to go to UC Berkeley, where they would be co-signing on my loans, was one of the hardest things my parents have had to do.

Hearing that I would be going back to art school was probably equally as hard to hear, but fortunately for me, like I said before, my parents are surprisingly supportive.

When I first decided to write this, the title was going to be “I Have $161,635.78 in Student Loans, $15,000 in Credit Card Debt, and I Want To Be An Artist FML.” But then I realized, no, not Fuck My Life. I thought about it, and I realized it should be FMLIA.: Fuck, My Life Is Awesome.

Granted, I might not be able to pay next month’s rent. Granted, I may end up eating rice and ramen every meal for the next few months. Granted, I might not be able to finish school. However, I have so much to be grateful for, it’s ridiculous.

I still have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I have a computer to type this out on, and a job to go to tomorrow. I’ve been able to travel outside the country, learn from some of the greatest minds in the world, and find someone I want to spend my life with. I might not be as skilled as Rembrandt, but I can paint and draw, and even if I’m not as prolific as Stephen King, I get to write zines and make comics.

We often are led to believe that life is about making it big. Being a Hollywood superstar, or a millionaire, or a supermodel, or a business executive. Basically, we’re socialized to care about money and fame and glory and being the best. But I’ve come to realize that while the urge to become a famous artist is still there, that’s not what I need to focus on. I need to focus on the little things that make me happy.

As long as I get to paint what I want to paint, I’ll be happy. As long as I get to wake up next to the person that has the screws to my heart, I’ll be happy. As long as I get to stick my hands in my pocket, pull my hood up on my sweatshirt, and stroll through the foggy San Francisco night, I’ll be happy. As long as my family is healthy and doing alright, I’m happy.

Yes, student loans and credit card bills are painful. They are utterly crushing and overwhelming at times, but I did sign up for them in the first place. It was I that accepted the high interest rates and stellar fees to be able to open my mind to unimaginable wonders, make life-long friends, find my life partner, and to learn my craft. And at the end of the night, when my head is swimming with the burden of debt mixed with inspirations for new paintings dusted with hopes and dreams for tomorrow, I find that I couldn’t be happier. For this I am eternally grateful.

The Artist's Multiple Identities

Oftentimes, the artist is described as being manic, we crave solitude to spend time with our work, yet we need to be immersed in life and people in order to experience them and relate them into our art. These two "Identities," of The Introverted Individualist and The Connected Humanist seems very much at odds with each other. And surprisingly, besides the two mentioned, there are more identity aspects that reside in the artist; we often battle between two sides of many coins: we have visions of Humility and Grandeur: of responsibility to be the creative "witness or recorder" in our society while simultaneously we crave to be recognized for that role. Van Gogh often expressed the similar duality that he is a Servant, a creative channel for society/god and at the same time, he has feelings of grandeur as the Savior, the artist who could bring about change in society through his art.

As an artist, you may have realized or come across some of these identities already, either in yourself or other artists:

The Activist - the artist intwined with politics and culture

The Entertainer - the artist who's goal is to amuse

The Warrior - "Art is a Battle" - Edgar Degas

The Careerist/ Productionist - "You tell me what to create, and I'll make it."

The Outsider - the artist who sees himself as not belonging to his society or human race

The Witness - I must record the society of today through my art

The Meditator - "art is in the mind, when it is on paper, it is no longer the purity of what I have imagined"

The Trickster - People buy bad art all the time. I'll create something that I don't care for and charge a ridiculous price and laugh at the stupidity of people for buying into my bandwagon.

. . . These are just a few of the artist identities and they are all very complex.

Why is it even important to know what your identity(ies) are as an artist? Often we do things that seem contradictory, it is because all these artist identities are at interplay with each other. Because these identities often define our roles as artists, it unfortunately often brands us early on and limits our choices. And external events only makes the identity crisis of the artist more complex.

Take an actor who is trained in all aspects of acting, but her/his first handsomely paid gig was in stand-up comedy. S(he) appears in more stand-ups and gets picked up by film producers to do a similar role, in a comedic film. It is not hard for this actor to conclude, I am a comedian, an Entertainer, I make people laugh and society will pay me for it. Were I to do drama, they may not take me seriously. It may even have the opposite effect and people will laugh at me. . .

Now this artist identifies her/himself as the Entertainer, with the expected role that as soon as s(he) is in front of the camera, it is to make people laugh. Although this identity can potentially provide the artist many future paid opportunities for more entertainer roles, the artist becomes cornered and limited. And worse, s(he) limits her/himself by choosing and only sticking to this one identity.

The "opposite" identity can also be true. Take the "Intellectual/ The Shaman/ or Avant-Garde Artist" who is often concern with meaning-making, their art has to be deep. Sometimes, so deep that no one else can dive that far down. This artist believes s(he) must create never before seen work, work that is deep, thoughtful, and new/unfamiliar. This artist refuses to do "commercial" work or "accessible" work for the public. S(he) will not allow herself to "play" to create works for "gist" or simple entertainment. The artist perhaps does not receive the feedback, recognition, or understanding that s(he) deserves and expects. The public is alienated by this artist's work. And the artist becomes alienated to themselves.

Take another example, the Hobbyist - this artist believes that they are creating art for a hobby. While in some aspects this is a positive to not always take on activities as a life-long career, the negative of this identity could be that this artist will never take their art to the "next level" or take it seriously. The act of creating or showing their art in public becomes excused or downplayed by their identity, "it is just a hobby."

To be a "successful artist" you will need to understand and honor all the different aspects of your artist identities; you will need to get to know which one is your primary role, or whether you juggle several, and understand that each identity has its own shadow side. There are positive and negative aspects of each identity and you may also find yourself in simultaneous conflict and at odds with yourself. You will need to learn how to make decisions NOT based solely on what your "identity" is at the time, but ask yourself questions:

whether you are moving closer to yourself or society?

whether the act of creating in this way connects you or disconnects you to what you believe is your purpose as an artist.?

if I were a different or opposite identity than what I'm most comfortable with right now, would I make the same decisions? (For example, if I were a humanist and not an entertainer) would I come to the same conclusions?

Remember, that identity is always flexible. You don't always have to choose. But there is always a danger in not knowing who you are, either. You can start new at any time. You are not bound by your past decisions or how you saw yourself then. We are continually recreating ourselves every day. If you do not change your behaviors, you will get the same results as you did yesterday. So nurture and manifest the identity(ies) that best serves what you want out of life.

Get to know the different multitude of identities that accompanies in being an artist, understand it, debate it, accept that this is part of the process as an artist and honor it. Balance and introspection is the key.

The No Jerk Rule

No Jerk Rule - Kick

We all know that some people fall into a certain category of person. These people are sore losers (or sore winners), and they generally try to hound you no matter how much you try to avoid them. They're always talking about themselves and never ask about you, or they insist on telling you how awesome they are. Instead of talking about themselves, they might just constantly critique your work, especially when you want their opinions the least.

These people have a name. That name is "jerk." More accurately, they might not be jerks, but their actions are often that of jerkiness. Whether they try to bring you down or are trying to bring themselves up, they are generally unpleasant to be around. Either way (or even if they reek of some other sort of personality disorder like just being a rude asshat), we're going to call them jerks for now and move forward.

So Monkey + Seal have a rule: it's called the "No Jerk Rule." We actually call it the "No A-hole Rule," but for pleasantry's sake, let's go with jerks.

Basically, we refuse to work with jerks. While it is a lot more difficult to start out following this rule when you're starting out, we've found that it's a great guiding principle for our business. If the jerk is a client, we'll politely and professionally end the relationship. If it's a collaborator, we'll politely and professionally leave the project. No matter how it works - no jerks.

We do realize that at times there are people who seem nice at first and turn into jerks as you begin to work with them. Also, you can be contractually obligated to work with people and you can't back out lest some sort of huge financial obligation. There are many circumstances, but there are ways that sometimes you can get stuck with jerks. How to deal with them? The Jerk Fee.

If you are working with a client who you know is going to be troublesome from the get-go, the best way to deal with them is to basically apply a Jerk Fee. Whatever that fee is, you want to make sure that it's enough for you to feel okay about dealing with this person. This is why for design work you should always limit the number of revisions your client gets for free. The jerks are going to be the one who will make you change a color, then change it back, then add some new text that will completely change the layout, then have you change it back to a new color and remove all the first changes...etc. etc. etc. By basically giving them a free proof or two, but then charging them for each revision, people usually limit their changes after that.

If you're working with a client who refuses to get you assets on time, start charging them a fee for every day late that they turn it in. Your friend of a friend not paying you for that CD cover that you delivered a month ago? Let them know that in your contract, you stipulated payment in full within 7 days of receipt and they you're charging them 10% per day, interest compounding, after each day thereafter.

If you couldn't tell, Monkey + Seal have found that contracts are our best friends. Even for little jobs for friends, signing contracts is important as you can legally bind these people to agree to your Jerk Fees. If they are going to make your life as an artist more difficult, you should be compensated for it, and by putting that in writing, it makes people generally a lot more civil and easier to work with.

Alternatively, if your boss is a jerk, we recommend that you start looking for a new job, ASAP. While there is a myth that everyone hates their boss, it is just that: a myth, so do your best to try and find good bosses. You can have really cool bosses (yes, they do exist!). We don't advise just quitting your job without a backup unless the abuse is too much to handle, and at that point, there are probably other recourses you can take like harassment suits or talking to HR.

The other option to quitting a toxic job is to start up your own business on the side. Want to quit your day job? Start the hustle. Find ways to sell your art. Write an e-book. Auction your paintings off on eBay. Get that portfolio together and start submitting it wherever you can. Figure out what skills you have that people will pay for and get out there and find a way to make other sources of income. Escape the jerkdom!

The one caveat to the "No Jerk Rule" is that you have to act like everyone else has this rule as well. You gotta make sure that you are acting professionally and with integrity as well. Be the artist that YOU would want to work with.

All in all, the reason we really want to encourage people to take up the "No Jerk Rule" is because when it really comes down with it, no one should have to put up with bad behavior. You're an awesome, amazing person, and you deserve much better.

How Distractions Can Save Your Life

We all get distracted while we're trying to do work - especially work that seems tedious or boring or that we aren't excited about. Instead of cleaning the studio (which might create a better environment for creating), we end up watching youtube videos or reading blogs. Instead of working on that painting we've been trying to finish for the last two months, we're on our phones playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends.

It happens to the best of us, and with smart phones and laptops, it's even easier to be lured away from our work. And if we're digital artists who are plugged into the net for important emails and looking for reference or using Skype or Gchat to communicate with clients or collaborators, there's always emails about specials, vacations, funny links to viral content, etc. etc. etc. How is someone supposed to get any work done?

The worst thing is that when we give in to our primal urges to watch the latest Gaga video, or whatever it is we're compelled to distract ourselves with, is that the entire time we're distracting ourselves we're also fighting the voice in our head that's saying "You're wasting time! Get back to work!" The same goes for many people who put in long hours to get their creativity done or entrepreneurs that are trying to get a side-business (or two) up and running. While we need breaks to stay sane, every time we decide to take a night off, or to ignore our emails for going on a date or hanging out with friends, we feel like we're failing ourselves a little bit since we don't have the dedication to keep our nose to the grindstone. Guilt and frustration at ourselves begins to well up, and we begin to not even enjoy the break anymore since we know "we should be working!"

In this way, we're not really even taking a break. If we're still thinking about that email that needs to be sent or that shirt that has to get printed, we're not taking a break, we're merely not doing work and raising our stress level at the same time.

Poo poo on this! While we're guilty of this as well (that's why we talk about it here!), we all need to get better at compartmentalizing the difference between work and play. However you do it, you have to make a break between work and non-work. Whether it's scheduling in breaks as you would an important meeting with a producer, or if it's scheduling the time that you have to do your creative work, you have to do it.

You see, if a break doesn't feel like a break, then it's really just a waste of your time. If you're not recharging and feeling good about yourself on a break, you're just distracting yourself from your distractions, so at that point you might as well just be working. But all work and no play makes people crazy, so take a break and enjoy it!

We have found that life is all about priorities. Priorities are different for everyone, but when we say "we don't have time," we're really just saying that we are not prioritizing it. If you say "I don't have time to take a break," are you really engaged every single second of every single hour with some activity that is more important than your own sanity? You can't delegate a task for ten minutes? You can't take five minutes on your bus ride to zone out and meditate? You can't waste three minutes on your lunch to watch a funny video, or tend to your digital crops?

Just as important as it is to prioritize creating, it is equally important to prioritize taking an actual, enjoyable, guilt-free break. So what do you do to rest and recharge?

Shutting Down the Heckler

Inside your head there is a voice. Where it came from isn't all that important, but it'll probably take on the voice of one of your greatest critics. Maybe your parents, maybe a teacher, someone perhaps who you thought was your friend but really isn't.

"You suck."

"You're doing it wrong."

"That totally didn't work."

Sound familiar? This butthole voice is what Seth Godin calls "The Heckler." While I think you should all go read Seth Godin's description here about The Heckler, we'll sum it for you in a sentence: "The Heckler is part of your primal, lizard brain that you can't ever really get rid of. If you fight, it will fight harder, and the only way to get rid of it is to disable it."

So, Monkey and Seal, how do you disable the Heckler? The Heckler is a big bully that takes pleasure in your resistance - it enjoys the fight, and is just waiting for you to tell it to shut up so you can yell louder. Using one simple phrase will take the wind out of the bastard's sails, making it weaker and quieter. That phrase is:

"So what?"

If you've ever been taunted, or teased, or a victim of bullying, the immediate, primal urge is to react against the insults. You refute the disparaging claim or you try and throw it back at the bully. However, as it is the nature of a bully, it will take pleasure in your obvious reaction and will continue on its bully ways of attacking you. However, it stops being fun for the bully when you don't react, or care.

Instead of "No, my painting doesn't suck, yours sucks!" it's "My painting sucks? So what?" Its the exact opposite reaction the Heckler needs to continue on the fight.

"That brushstroke doesn't work. So what?"

"I messed up in that last routine. So what?"

"I didn't win that competition. So what?"

Now we don't want you to turn into some self-effacing downer that's just all negative. By saying "So what?" the goal is not to get down about whatever deficiency (imaginary or real) that your inner Heckler is bringing up. The goal is to realize that whether the Heckler is right or wrong, it's not the end of the world.

The skies won't rain blood just because you missed a note in that last solo. The earth won't implode because you didn't render those hands enough. The sun won't die just because your proportions are off.

If we have the fortitude and imagination to dream, we also have the imagination to whip up illusions of grandeur where we become painfully inadequate compared to Everyone Else. However, even when we are at the height of our careers and a huge mistake could cost us everything, we still tend to overreact to mistakes and to exaggerate what Everyone Else thinks about us.

If you're an aircraft controller, the stakes are high. Planes could crash, people could die. If you're a painter, most likely you are not going to be put in a situation where your performance is a life or death situation. The Heckler is telling you that it's the end of the world, that your imperfection (perfection is overrated anyway, remember?) is a huge deal. It's not. You screwed up. So what? Learn from it and grow. There are no mistakes, just opportunities for growth.

The point of disabling the Heckler is not to stop criticism. The point of disabling the Heckler is taking the work-stopping, genius-interrupting, creativity-killing emotional sucker punch that comes with the taunts of the Heckler and taking the poison out of them. Criticism is good, it helps you grow, but if you take it personally and shut down, then all it's doing is getting in your way of living up to your true potential of making something magical and wonderful.

Perfection is Overrated (Enjoy the Ride)

We all (hopefully) are striving for perfection in our work (and if you aren't, what are you working for?). However, we think that perfection is overrated.

Often in the artist's journey, we are chasing after some sort of ideal. Perhaps it's the perfect translation from what's in your head to what's on paper/canvas/wood/the dance floor/etc. Perhaps it's worldwide fame and acclaim. Perhaps it's your own holy grail of technical perfection. Whatever it is, it's that elusive thing that we spend our lives chasing.

The thing to watch our for on this quest is the notion that we MUST find it. We often berate ourselves for not being perfect, for not achieving this impossibly high level of awesomeness. Every attempt feels like a failure and we end up crushing our own dreams because the elusive perfection is so far away. The key here is that if we are on this quest for perfection, we must want/desperately need to achieve it, but we have to realize that the road to perfection is what's important, not perfection itself.

You see, perfection itself is overrated. Once you achieve perfection, what are you going to do? You've crushed all competition, you have surpassed your rivals and mentors and instructors, nothing is ever new to you, you can't learn anything more. You just sit there alone at the top with nowhere to go but down. Not a very appealing prospect, if you ask us. What sounds more awesome is the notion of being close to perfection. You have competitors and rivals keeping you on your toes. You have to constantly stay on top of your game because other people are on top of theirs. You learn from your peers, and you look forward to finding something new and exciting in your craft. Sounds much more fun and interactive and amazing, right?

Now don't get us wrong - perfection is still something you want to strive for, but realize that it's something that you probably won't achieve in your lifetime. No one does. Take Michelangelo and DaVinci. These two genius masters of the Renaissance have had lasting effects on the world, and these two guys were alive over 500 years ago. However, they weren't perfect, but both strove for perfection and constantly worked and worked and worked at their craft so much that many would call them "perfect," even though they were not always happy with their own work. Michelangelo wasn't pleased with a tomb for the pope that he worked on for 40 years! The reason we regard these two so greatly is that while they were extremely gifted and talented and produced amazing works of art and engineering, they constantly strove for perfection. Additionally, just because they weren't perfect doesn't mean that their work wasn't amazing and awe-inspiring. You shouldn't knock your own work just because it is not perfect - it can still be amazingly mind-blowing - the secret is to embrace your creation for what it is, and the next time keep on striving for that perfect piece.

You see, oftentimes we forget in our hyper-competitive world that the trip is just as important as the destination, and in the journey of a creative, the trip is more important than the destination. If we must strive for perfection but never achieve it, you can either look at it as extremely depressing and you can give up now, or you can enjoy the neverending quest for perfection and enjoy the ride.

If you're in the creative field because you want to make money, get out. Whatever the field you're in, if you're in it just to make money, then why bother? The whole point is that you should be doing something that you enjoy and love, and you need to find joy in the pursuit of perfection, not perfection itself.

So go out there, try your best, and make something awesome today. Because just remember, while it might not be perfect, it doesn't have to be.