The Peacock

I think I’ve mentioned it before, I pay my bills (almost) through work as a French-to-English translator. At best, I deal with art catalogues, at worst, and more typically, badly written coffee table books about luxury resorts in the south of France, Jackie Onassis or Christofle silver flatware.

Let me be clear. I hate working.

But, the funny thing is about balancing paid work and non-paid art work is that I do in fact need the former to be able to do the latter. I’m not talking financially (that’s just obvious), I’m talking psychologically. Working (which, I repeat, I hate) makes me feel that I deserve to do other things, perhaps because I get paid. It acts as a validation.

Probably very confident artists feel their work is all they need to do. Although arrogant, this may be part of the mindset of success.

I’m not sure I want to go there.