Rare are the artists who manage to make a living from their creations from the start of their career. Many are forced to do odd jobs to support themselves. The new exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, shows how these food jobs can boost their creativity.
The “Day Jobs” exhibition shows that most artists resort to odd jobs at one time or another in their lives to make ends meet. It brings together 75 works of art made by various American artists since the First World War. Among them, emerging talents, but also more established artists like Mark Bradford, Howardena Pindell, Tishan Hsu and Larry Bell. The latter worked in a frame store in the Venice Beach district of Los Angeles, before becoming one of the figures of the Light and Space movement alongside Robert Irwin.
Some artists whose works are exhibited in “Day Jobs” were momentarily lawyers, nurses, hairdressers or even nannies, before devoting themselves fully to their artistic careers. Others have worked for large companies such as Ford Motors, HEB Grocery and IKEA. If these food jobs are very disparate, Veronica Roberts and Lynne Maphies, curators of the exhibition, affirm that they have nurtured the artistic practice of those who exercised them.
