Aftermath
By: Addison Bryant
As a recent art school graduate, I’ve had trouble adjusting to the realization that I’m on my own and no longer have designated time every day to work on your art, show it to other artists and academics, and receive feedback. Even before I graduated, I had been feeling less inspired and artistically motivated than ever, working on projects I didn’t care about for all the classes I had put off until my senior year, and dealing with the impact of the pandemic. Even in the more interesting studio classes, I could tell nobody was feeling especially passionate about working from home, presenting over zoom and engaging with work in a meaningful way, or trying to work together and make friends. I lost interest in trying to stay active in my fine arts fraternity over zoom, along with just about every other social element of my extracurricular life. Campus galleries shut down and I was so busy with classwork that going to the galleries in town that were still open started to feel like a chore.
All of this only gave me more appreciation for the fact that I AM Art House reached out and gave me the opportunity to present my work in both a solo and group gallery show. As much as I dislike the necessity of Zoom, being able to show as much of my work as I liked and talk about it to an audience was really exciting for me and felt like a breath of fresh air after my senior year. Up until that point, most people’s experience seeing my art was in the form of a tiny square on Instagram, the occasional singular work lacking context in a gallery or magazine, or the classroom setting. Having the opportunity to engage directly with an audience (that isn’t forced to be there) and speak at length about my work was a completely different experience. A lot my work is built around the element of mystery and I don’t necessarily want to give the viewer an “explanation”, but even just talking about the technical aspects of how I made a piece- the camera techniques I used or where I found source material for a collage, adds a layer of depth to the presentation and gives insight on my process that I hope will inspire new ideas in other artists and give the viewer a better understanding of what goes into my work.
At the beginning of this summer I was doing anything I could think of to avoid getting a full time job. I had been dreading this for a long time and knew this might be one of my last chances to travel and truly do whatever I wanted without having commitments to work around and answer to. I applied for every single artist residency in the National Parks program and dozens of others, spending days coming up with elaborate proposals and writing pages on the history and culture of the parks from Death Valley to the Hawaii Volcanoes. I received nothing but polite rejections. My daily schedule was just writing and delivering food for Uber Eats. Then in May, one of my friends from my college art program reached out to me and said she had spent a summer in a cabin in the Adirondack mountains practicing art and thought it sounded perfect for me. She gave me the contact information of three sisters who owned around a dozen cabins near Lake Placid, New York that had been converted from a boys’ camp to family rentals, and within a week they had offered me a place to stay with them for free for almost 2 months. I would be free to work on whatever I’d like and they only asked that I’d occasionally watch the property while they were gone in exchange. I was in disbelief, and I suppose that just goes to show that talking to the right person will get you farther than weeks of writing and research.
One of my favorite views of the Adirondack Mountains, taken during my drive through the massive park.
At the beginning of June I traveled 750 miles up the east coast over a 5-day trip in my Honda CR-V. I’m terrible at planning ahead, so several of those nights ended with me pulling up to a campground that had actually closed years ago or taking a restless nap at a questionable truck stop. Along the way I used a site called Atlas Obscura to find interesting locations to photograph, which included an abandoned experimental concrete neighborhood, a lake in a cave 100 feet underground, and a town called Centralia in Pennsylvania that had been evacuated due to the presence of a coal seam under the streets that caught fire decades ago and still burns to this day. When I arrived at the camp, the sisters showed me a small one-room log cabin that would be my home for the next two months, a studio, and kitchen. It was everything I needed but still felt very remote and rustic. During the residency, I mostly focused on nature photography, hiking up mountains to capture sunsets and kayaking out on a lake to try to catch a shot of the Loon chick that had just hatched and lived by the camp with its protective parents. It was a great experience, and I cannot thank the Reiners family enough for giving me this opportunity and the generosity they showed me.
I spent most of my time at the lake, which was only a short walk from my cabin.
Every night the haunting call of this Common Loon would echo across the lake. If anyone got too close to its baby, it would stand up in the water, cackling and flapping its wings in a dramatic display.
Independence Day at Saranac Lake, the closest town to my residence.
What I didn’t realize when I set out towards home at the beginning of September was that the adventure was only beginning for me. On day 3 of the trip back I was in Wilkes-Barre, a depressing industrial town in Pennsylvania, heading for a cheap motel. I had planned on camping, but it was Labor day weekend, everything was booked up, and I was not taking my chances sleeping in the car in this town. I had been driving for about 4 hours and decided to stop at a park to stretch my legs. I walked for around 30 minutes as the sun went down, listening to the deafening crash of the nearby river. The river, it turns out, was masking the sound of several fire trucks and police cars filling the parking lot. I walked back to the lot and realized what was once my car was now a smoking husk that had melted into the pavement. It was such a bizarre situation, I had no idea how to react. It took a minute for me to realize what had happened and I was so shocked all I could do was laugh and take photos. According to the firefighter on scene, a fire had started in my radiator and ended up torching the entire interior of my vehicle along with my clothes, art supplies, electronics, and everything else I had with me for the entire summer. Practically the only thing that survived unharmed was my camera, since I had taken it with me for the walk, which felt oddly poetic.
My car, my belongings, my home and lifeline for much of the summer, all coming to a violent end just minutes after I stepped out of the vehicle.
It was demoralizing to lose my favorite clothes, rolls of film I had shot on the trip, the car that represented independence and freedom to me, and so much more, but I was thankful I just so happened to be out of the car, unharmed, when it spontaneously combusted, and most of all thankful I was able to come back to my parents’ place where they could help me figure things out. The last few weeks have put my art practice on pause as I’ve been haggling with insurance, trying to replace my car and several thousand dollars’ worth of belongings. When I left the camp to set out for home, I was satisfied that I had been able to travel and live without worrying about commitments for a while. I was looking forward to moving to a new city and starting my career. At first, it was hard not to feel dejected now that I was back to living with my parents, had no money, no car, and practically no belongings. I’ve never exactly been the type of person to look on the bright side of things, but I’ve surprisingly made my peace with what happened and it has given me a burst of motivation to get back on track, to treat it as a beginning to something new . I also feel less alone knowing there’s people that want to see me succeed and can guide me in starting my career so I’m thankful to be a part of this organization.
I think one of the hardest parts of this experience has been the switch from my art practice being my only priority to the last thing on my mind. I have hundreds of pictures from my residency I need to edit, my notes app is full of dozens of ideas, and I can’t bear to look at all the photoshop files with projects I’ve already started. It’s hard not to let that become a burden like school projects I’ve been putting off, and the last thing I want is for the thing I’m most passionate about to feel like a chore. I think that might be the part of me that’s still stuck in the college mindset and I try to remind myself that I should make art because I love it, not because I have to or need to prove something to myself or anyone else. Prioritizing tasks has always been difficult for me, but losing my car and most important belongings certainly gave me a sense of clarity and made that a little easier. That might sound odd but when you wake up in the morning and your only pair of clothes are covered in ash and smell like burnt plastic, it’s pretty easy to figure out what you should get done that day.
It’s been 2 months, and I have a new car, some job prospects, and I’m getting ready to move again. Having a sense of community is important to me, and one of the scariest things about leaving Virginia is leaving my friends and most of the other artists I know behind. Knowing that the people at I AM Art House are working to support artists in the same stage of their career as me around the globe and want me to succeed makes me feel less alone, and seeing others with completely different backgrounds following the same path is exciting. I’m looking forward to a new stage in my life and hope that this group of people will remain a part of it!
