Coming home from the dog park, I planned to start organizing my storage space. I said I would do just a single box when I got home. I’ll do a little at a time, I says to myself. And maybe over time, I can get through all of it.

But now that I’ve been home, I haven’t started on shit. I’m sitting at my computer, getting back to the work I started earlier this morning: rewriting my artist’s statement and bio. I don’t know why I keep fucking with it. I guess I’m just a crazy perfectionist. For now, I’m leaving it be. I got to a point where I’m pretty happy with it. …for now.

I also organized and added up my exhibition budget. I thought it was going to be so much worse, but it’s significantly less than I’ve spent on any other show. Ever. It’s not even $1,000. That’s such a fraction of what I’ve spent in the past.

Oh wait! I totally forgot about the videography I’m paying for. Well, I’m still under $2,000, and that’s also a fraction of what I’ve spent on past shows. Ha.

I also have yet to hire a photographer to take professional pictures of the pieces individually. And I want installation shots, too. So, all of that will be a few hundred dollars more. I may still be able to keep the budget near $2,000.

So, now, I totally forgot what I was planning to write about. It had something to do with time… I guess I’ll sit here until it comes to me.

#Oh yes! Now I remember. I was reading a blog post (not my own), which was about Catherine Opie and how she’s been working for 40 years. She started taking pictures at 9 years old. She got her degrees in the 80s. I’m not knocking any of that. love Catherine Opie. And she has earned a ton of recognition—shows at the Guggenheim, the Guggenheim Fellowship, blah blah blah.

It’s really hard for me to toot my horn—about any good things about myself. I mean, at all. I don’t think I’m all that, honestly. I hardly even like myself. Others seem to like me and my art much more than I do.

But I opened my calculator to add up the years I’ve been working seriously as an artist (I’ll say the late 80s, even though I’ve made art before that—since I can remember. I mean, I have work from my childhood that I don’t have any recollection of making, like an artist book I made with pencil, crayons, and Scotch tape. Very trippy and funny. Maybe even cute?

I picked a time in my life when I started documenting and trying to sell my art. That’s a good place to start. Let’s say 1987. Counting that all up, it’s been 39 years. Isn’t that practically 40? I’ve won a few awards myself and have shown at a few museums. I also have some artwork in the Getty.

Anyway, it’s not just about earning your way up. It has a lot to do with luck, too. And who you know, how you promote yourself, and several other factors. I don’t mind not being as well-known as Opie or other artists who get a lot of attention. It does not change anything. It doesn’t change the art I’m making. It doesn’t change the projects I want to accomplish. And I’m very sure Catherine Opie’s had her fair share of rejection, too. But now that she doesn’t experience that as much anymore, all that recognition she’s accumulated ever since has given her privileges we don’t all get to have. And them’s the breaks.

All we can do is keep making art, right? And keep trying to stay focused on our own state of mind.