Creative Space

The Den Transaction

Last night, Jacob and I went to the MFA open studios at Hunter college. It was a really fun flash back to Art school for me, and made me not a little nostalgic for those days. I was so earnest and optimistic back then about making art and being part of the conversation of art. I really wanted to be a working artist, but when I graduated I was hit with the hard reality of needing a job and having no community. Back then in 1996, there was no social network to connect people like there is today. I'm sure that recent grads still have a similar feeling of free-fall when they get out of college. Jacob and I often talk about how we'd like to teach a class on building your own community. He's done such an amazing job of bringing together a community of people he admires and respects since we've gotten to New York.

We were at the open studio to visit with Jacob's friend, McKendree, who he met at Skohegan.  McKendree's about our age, so I find it really inspiring that she's back in school and following what she loves. She's also doing this really interesting project in her home. The project is called The Den Transaction and she describes it like this, "The Den is a one room cabin in the backyard of a townhouse in Brooklyn... The Den Transaction is an experiment in which the space is bartered for services or goods. Services such as gardening, composting, painting, repairing, chicken coop construction..." I love this idea.

I've been thinking this week a lot about the fear of failure. On hearing about my project, many of my friends have enthusiastically said to me 'I can't wait to here what you do!'.  The dark-sided snarky voice inside my head replies 'Yeah, what ARE you going to do Isobel? What if you don't have anything to do or say? What if you are publicly making an ass of yourself?'

I think everyone has this snarky voice, and one big challenge is telling it to shut the fuck up.