Working Artist

After quitting her barista job, Tabitha Arnold (https://www.tabithaarnold.com/) became a full-time artist. Her artwork directly responds to her own experience as a member of the working class and the history of labor movements. “I started to make (my art) focused on labor because I was so angry…Art is one way that I can amplify my voice, and I want to amplify the perspective of someone who is working, someone who is on the unfair end of capitalism, where we don’t have a lot of rights and freedom. It feels nice to be able to vent some of those frustrations about the state of labor in America.”

Frances Cordelia Beaver (https://www.francescordeliabeaver.com/) experiments with storytelling through drawings, film, animation, songwriting, and theater. Recently, she published a graphic novel: On a Cute One [https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/frances-beaver/on-a-cute-one/paperback/product-685m56.html?page=1&pageSize=4].  She has had jobs in many industries, such as the trades, service, retail, higher education, art, and performance. “Being in service is kinda fun. I like being looked at, I like talking to strangers, I go in and I get hyper-caffeinated and I just sail for the day … I go home, and it’s over… There are all the other things I can do, it’s so freeing! You know what, I did the thing where I try to have an institutionalized career, it sucked… I would not afford that, it was unsustainable. So this time, I leaned in to not treat the work at the cafe as a thing that’s temporary… I have shoes that are comfortable to wear, I dress nice and look good, I get as much sleep as I could, and I like my coworkers…”

Scott Kip(http://www.scottkip.com/index.html [http://www.scottkip.com/index.html]) is an installation artist, restoration woodworker for the Wanamaker Organ, and freelance fabricator. He also makes clock movement. “I listened to the episode, Going off the Script with Teresa Cervantes [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1848743/9791182], and her idea of the free school was really inspiring to me. I want to say to Teresa: ‘I will teach at your free school…in fact, I’ve got a big room, and I can even host it.’ What I actually want or what I think everyone needs is a healthy interdependence.”

Daniel Zentmeyer(http://www.danielzentmeyer.com/ [http://www.danielzentmeyer.com/]) describes himself as a worker bee with many hats: as an artist, educator, and construction worker. Fun fact: we used to clean an art museum together! He aims to make useful art, which includes utilitarian clay objects, framed drawings (where the frame is as important as the the drawing), and writings on the function of art.“I feel like the basic principle of our economic mode is that people are lazy, and I just fundamentally reject that. I don’t think people are lazy, and I don’t even know if laziness exists. I think people just need to rest…Instead of having a dream job, I dream of other things and knowing work will happen within them.“

Suso Phizer (https://www.susopomorphizer.org/) is interested in human relationships both as a performance-based artist and a mental health therapist.“Since becoming a therapist, I have really felt so healed by the experience of studying something, getting better at it, then doing it, and having it be received as a gift by people, in a way that’s very clear… That is also why I make art! I wanted to do it as a gift all along…but it was too scary and dangerous and (I was) sort of ashamed to own that. “