About Being Famous
Over the weekend I exhibited at Broad Street Gallery in Hartford. CT. I showed alongside Mary Catherine McBrian, a talented painter, who will be earning her masters in French through Middlebury’s abroad program this coming year. She is the bomb! Folks from all my different circles in Hartford came through to the opening.
I had a chance to reconnect with folks from Hygienic Art Galleries, located in downtown New London on Bank Street (www.hygienic.org). I also saw people from Hartford Friends Meeting and Conn. Coll. represented with Victoria Mann and Andrew Carten from ‘08. Fellow co-workers from Real Art Ways (www.realartways.org) also showed their support. So it was all an exciting time. The after party continued at Hartford’s three story bar and eatery City Steam, where we enjoyed the brewed-in-house selection of beers and dug into the salmon special. The night continued with Saeed Ola from Swarthmore ‘07 and my brother Windsor Jordan, also Swat-Team ’07, with saki at Koji and vodka & tonics at The Russell with other young Black professionals.
The whole night reminded me that openings are social events. They provide a time and place to celebrate, to meet new people, and have simulating conversations about art or, at least pretend to. Art has a way of invigorating life. Shaking off the dust of life, its normalcy and routine and shedding light on the feelings and wonder that really make up good experiences (Dali and Picasso both have similar quotes, I’m trying to tag myself for future famousness).
I’m also in the middle of hunting down new jobs in arts administration and gallery management. This is important because I need to eat and live under a roof next month and a new job is going to determine how much I eat and where that roof is going to be.
Being out of school is like evolution. The priorities are different, the expectations have changed and you must adapt and bend to the situation. A fish out of water either dies or learns how to breathe air and walk...quickly. Where the hell is my De Lorean! And spin up that FTL drive!