After nearly 5 years of sitting stagnant, I’ve redesigned and rebuilt my portfolio site from the ground up, and added over 40 new projects. It’s been on the back burner for a long while, but really is an important thing for new opportunities. It took time, it took energy, and I’m glad to be free of it.
Nothing like cutting out of work at noon with the whole team in purist of the Pacific ocean and Mai Tai’s.
Self-imposed deadlines on self-initiated projects haven’t ever killed anyone, right?
Uncovered an old note given to me by an intern I worked with a few years back. Made me smile. Her name is Kelly. Sure did capture me well in her illustration. It’s a nice thing knowing you were able to help someone on their journey, even if in the smallest way. I can’t count how many have helped me on mine. Nobody does it on their own.
The circle of life.
Probably the best workday I’ve ever had. All thanks to this guy, Captain Nate.
My old name tag from Albertson’s. Seemed fitting for labor day. My good friend Charlie worked there, and got me an interview when I was fifteen maybe sixteen. I was hired as a Courtesy Clerk. You did a lot as a clerk. You were asked to do what needed to be done where there was no one to do it. It was never the same from one day to the next. I spent time helping in almost every department. Cleaned toilets, buffed floors, stocked shelves, cleaned machinery, and froze working in dairy refrigerators. If there was something too heavy to be lifted for a customer or employee, they called the 135 pound kid over to handle it. It was 30 hours a week, the maximum allowed for my age. Full days every Saturday and Sunday and a few 3 to 4 hour days throughout the week after school. It was hard work, and by the end of the day, I felt it.
Mostly, I fetched shopping carts and loaded groceries I bagged into customer’s cars. Often helped load for elderly customers or mothers trying to manage one too many kids. Occasionally there were the able bodied eccentrics, who just liked to talk to strangers. Always got a kick out of reactions as I handled a customer’s eggs. You’d think I was moving an unpredictable stick of dynamite. The few minute walk from the checkout line to the car taught me how to make small talk. Weather was the typical topic. Customers were always curious to know if I was saving up to buy something specific, a car maybe. I always surprised them and got a few laughs when I said “retirement.”
A faulty moral compass kept me from accepting customer tips for a long time. My family, friends, and co-workers eventually convinced me I was insane for it. Think I made five or six dollars an hour. The job taught me the value of those dollars. I vividly remember sitting at Wendy’s on my lunch break, calculating in my head how much time the food I was eating cost me. I ate every crumb, and soon after started bringing my own lunch.
Collecting carts outside was my favorite. I didn’t have to talk to anyone. There was time to think. I taught myself to whistle out there. I always wore a wrist watch but once I learned that time liked to move faster when you didn’t watch it, I kept my eyes away from it. Instead, I liked guessing the time by eyeing how far the building’s shadow was cast across the parking lot.
I have more memories and stories from the job than I can fit here. It was invaluable to me and the most laborious job I’ve ever had, yet I worked every labor day I was there. In a strange way, I do miss it sometimes.
The college I went to, wrote and printed their own textbooks for many of their courses. I was hired by them before I even graduated to be the illustrator for all their books. These images are a few samples of the work I was doing.
Come a long way since. Bizarre looking back and thinking I was content with it for a time. Met some great people, but I didn’t belong there. Co-workers told me I didn’t belong there. The person who hired me told me I didn’t belong there. Sure enough, I got a call one day, and put in my 2 weeks the next.
Glad I had the opportunity, more glad I didn’t settle.
The fine and talented people I work with, standing on the observatory deck of the beautiful building we work in. Beers, margaritas, the sun and the sky. Not a bad workday.
Just over 10 years ago, I was about to turn 27 and hunting for ways to keep myself on a trajectory of upwards and onwards. Best as I could figure at the time, that meant leaving behind a very stable and very loved staff position I’d held for 6 years, to set out on a freelance career of uncertainty.
I had doubts. In fact, I was terrified. I poisoned my mind with the thought that I wouldn’t be good enough to secure enough work to make ends meet, let alone thrive. Even my parents, who’s advice I still seek and value to this day, basically advised me against it for other reasons, and I can’t say I blame them. It didn’t make a lot of sense on the surface to them. I loved my job, the work, the people, the company, and I was making great money for the season in my life. It was safe, and freelance was a risk. None the less, I charted my course, gave notice to my bosses and mentors through a very shaky voice, and to my own amazement, I took the leap.
It helped that I had a clear vision of what a successful freelance career meant to me, before I even embarked on it. I wanted to work less, earn more, make more art (as opposed to only directing it), and position myself to work remotely should I ever choose to leave the sprawl of Los Angeles behind. Those 4 ideas, each one a different form of freedom, was what I sought in freelance, and the promise of those ideas made leaving a job I loved, turn from unbearable, to obvious.
Looking back a decade into it, it’s clear my freelance career took shape differently than I imagined it would’ve, but I met the destination I set all the same. Put modestly, freelance has gone well. Put bluntly, last year alone I took months of collective time off, earned more money than ever, spent the majority of my days making art, and worked entirely from my home office. I attained the ideas I sought all those years ago, and it didn’t take 10 years. Some came immediately, and some took longer, but for the most part, reaching my definition of success in my career, is old news.
So, I’m not celebrating reaching some metaphorical mountain top in this moment, that’s already long been true. What I’m trying to do, is preserve the memory that I once did something that absolutely terrified me, and that it worked out alright. That I swam instead of sank. That I took a risk, and that I not only lived to tell the tale, but am better for it. It’s easy to forget how brave we once were, when we’re standing in the shadow of new fears. So here I am, trying to remember, because 10 years sure seems like an awful long time to have not rolled the dice.