making something

I’m feel­ing melan­choly to­day. I just read a re­jec­tion let­ter. An 8.5 x 11″ piece of white linen pa­per has mea­sured the sum of my achieve­ments and found me want­i­ng.

“… our pan­el en­joyed your work but …”

“Please reap­ply next year.”

These sen­tences in­spired a flur­ry of masochis­tic en­deav­ors. I en­gaged in “pop­u­lar­i­ty math.” I count­ed fol­low­ers. I stud­ied the work of col­leagues and com­pared my­self to them. I found my work strug­gling on the score­board. Which in­vari­ably, in the arts, means ei­ther your ca­reer is in a slump or it is non-ex­is­tent.

Let me pause my self-loathing and fo­cus on what mat­ters. I’m healthy. I still have the love and sup­port of my wife and fam­i­ly. My par­ents have rec­on­ciled their slight shame in telling peo­ple that their son is a pen­ni­less artist with the gen­uine tone of awe.

“He’s still do­ing this.”

“Af­ter years of Art School, debt, lost op­por­tu­ni­ties, no hol­i­days, re­la­tion­ship is­sues, men­tal an­guish and even out­right fail­ure … He’s still do­ing this.”

Why?

Be­cause I love my craft.
Be­cause I love Type.
Be­cause I love print­ing.
Be­cause I love the feel­ing that wash­es over you af­ter an all-nighter.
When you’re done and your work stands be­side you res­olute and still.

And yes,
it’s slight­ly painful and it might prove fu­tile but all mor­tal ex­er­tions are. Maybe spend­ing your for­ma­tive years pur­su­ing your pas­sion and learn­ing about your­self is a ro­man­tic en­deav­or. I may nev­er be as suc­cess­ful as my peers but I am still a well-versed crafts­man pro­pelled by his own mo­men­tum.

Ex­ter­nal forces do not dri­ve me.
Only my undy­ing faith that this is time well spent keeps me stand­ing.
The let­ter didn’t change any­thing.

Keep your fel­low­ship.
Keep your schol­ar­ship and shin­ing cities.
I’m work­ing on mak­ing some­thing.
 
 

—louis her­nan­dez

Flom­mist Louis Her­dan­dez is ob­sessed with go­ing Bauhaus and be­com­ing The Ma­chine. Prefer­ably a drill press. Copy­right © 2017 Louis Her­nan­dez.

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