As a 23-year-old I had a half-formed idea, a vague inkling, of the person I wanted to become. If you had asked me at that age exactly who or what it was I was aiming for, I probably would have stumbled over my words searching for a cohesive answer. It’s hard enough answering that question at 34.
I had moved to New York City from Southern California and got a job as an editorial assistant. Living in Chinatown, I sometimes felt trapped inside the concrete jungle. I missed my trees, but I soon found a way to commune with my new surroundings. Whenever I needed a moment, I’d go up to the rooftop of my apartment building and look out at the “natural splendor” of Lower Manhattan beginning to twinkle in the dusk. The sound of trains thunking across the Manhattan Bridge was strangely comforting.
I was still getting used to post-college life—commuting to work and back, making meals for myself, paying bills, feeling alone most of the time—and trying to figure out what it means to be an adult. So far it had been pretty underwhelming.
I focused on the things I could control, like making my apartment more habitable. Suddenly I had many needs: a book case, kitchen appliances, a sofa if I wanted to sit on something other than my bed. I scoured Craigslist and claimed a hand-me-down IKEA dining table and chairs for $60. The seller was only a 15-minute walk away on Clinton Street, but there was no way I’d be able to lug the table and chairs back on foot. Craigslist had a solution for that too: a man with a van.
The man and the van showed up late, but it didn’t take long to load the dining set. I hopped into the passenger seat for the 5-minute ride. The driver, a guy in his thirties, tried to make chit chat, asking me where I was from, etc. I must have had that impressionable, doe-eyed gleam that most newcomers do. Those first few months living in New York, everyone seemed to know I wasn’t from around there.
“So what do you do? Are you an artist?”
Me, an artist? I laughed off the question. Perhaps he thought that because I had bangs and was wearing a blouse with bell sleeves. His mistake.
“Well, you look like an artist.”
Although I dismissed the idea outright, the truth is his words have lingered in my mind for a decade. Sometimes I’d remember that moment and think to myself, Maybe I will be an artist. One day.
A few weeks ago, as I was ordering new prints for Thank You Enjoy and coordinating tour dates for the exhibition, it suddenly occurred to me that the day had finally come. Thank you, Man with a Van, for acknowledging that I am an artist. Sometimes we need others to recognize the most essential elements of who we are—if only to give us the courage to finally say it out loud.
