Thursday, January 7, 2010

Putting off

DW can tell you: I’m a procrastinator. I prefer “tangentially distracted.” Sounds better, even though it would be easy to write it up as TDS, Tangent Distraction Syndrome. Ah, I do myself a disservice. I get busy with other things. For instance, I handed over “RawCan” today. (More on that as the show date nears.)

So, we didn’t have the omelets planned for Tuesday until this evening. Three more eggs from the girls this morning drove home the point that eggs must be used NOW. Shall I tell you how I prepared them? DW: black olives, red onions, spinach and pecorino cheese. Mine: mole´ sausage, black olives, red onions and cheddar. Multi-grain toast on the side. Brunch at 2000 hours.

Wolynski inquired about the taste of duck eggs, and if it differed from chicken eggs. I would have to say they taste very similar, although others would say that they have more of a sulfur taste. I don’t know where those people acquired their eggs. Yet, where one gets one’s eggs will make a difference, to be sure. If you buy eggs in the grocery store, chances are they will not taste like eggs from chickens or ducks that range about all day in a field of seeds, bugs and slugs. Nor do store-bought eggs have the same texture. Their albumen and yolks are runny, while our eggs have some heft and bulk. So much so that one has to crack the shell with a good whack from a knife and then practically scrape out the whites. If I remember correctly, Wolynski, and a fair number of my rurally raised readers know what I’m talking about anyway, so let’s move on.

Dinner done, my intended activity for the evening was to work on a job application that is due early next week. A teaching job. To be specific, a tenure-track professorship at a Portland university. But I had been away for the greater part of today, and checking email led to blogs and a social site, and back to blogs, and the next thing I know I am writing “I am writing.”

I have written elsewhere in these pages that I would give my eye teeth for a teaching position. I would. I would give something. Maybe not teeth; but without dental coverage on the horizon, who knows?

I digress. Avoid.

See, the thing is that I may not be qualified to teach because I have very little teaching experience, per se. I can only claim teaching assistantships for both of my Masters programs and a semester teaching an art theory class nine years ago. Not much at all. But teaching isn’t everything when art programs consider someone for a position. They also look at exhibition records and publications. Again, not much of either, at least in the last six years. Farming will do that. How about other skills? Well, I owned and ran a critically successful gallery in Chicago for a couple years, and some of the younger artists I exhibited remarked that I would make a great teacher. And lord knows, art students are interested in the machinations of the gallery world.  Enough of a selling point? Again, who knows?

So, here I sit. And if I continue sitting here worrying about whether or not what I have to offer is adequate, the only thing that is going to happen for sure is I’ll get older. (Maybe another drawback: my age.) And even though I have applied for dozens of similar positions (My letters of reference are seven years old! LOL) without so much as a phone interview, over the next few days I’m going to piece together an artist’s statement, cover letter, teaching philosophy, dig up those old letters of reference, select twenty images of my recent work, and send the damn thing. I would make one helluva good teacher. Given half a chance, I’ll prove it.

Wish me luck. Not with getting the job, but getting the package together on time. First things first.




10 comments:

Crash said...

I wish you luck, whatever way you want it. And I have never given a reference that did not result in a job offer. There is a way to do it. Your references just have to do it right.

Memphis MOJO said...

Good Luck -- all you need is a chance as I know you would do a great job.

(Maybe another drawback: my age.)

They're not supposed to discriminate based on age, but . . .

TenMile said...

Dont forget to add the address to your Art Site in that soup of 'these things I have done.'

Under the guise: This site is also 'published' works.

GL, Patrick.

Dave G said...

Have you thought about teaching an online class? The community college I work at has online classes with teachers all around the country teaching them. It's not full time with benefits but would provide extra income and maybe the needed experience for a full time job. There are quite a few colleges that have these type of classes.

Good luck

bastinptc said...

Thanks to all fro the encouragement and advise. I hate to think that I sound like a whiner, yet there is a high degree of frustration that accompanies these endeavors. Much seems to come to naught.

As to Dave's suggestion about an online class, I have looked into such things, and the art-related ones are few and far between. BTW, I have also put in apps at the local CC numerous times, to no avail.

There is, and has been for quite some time, a glut in applicants for art teaching jobs. MFA programs are shooting out grads like popcorn from a ripped Jiffy bag. Most positions available are of the part-time adjunct variety. Recent grads who are lucky enough to get these jobs are run hard for a few years, get burned out and quit. Of course, there are 200 other recent grads ready to take fill the vacancy.

I should have stayed in the medical field of my youth.

TenMile said...

Acronyms:

•WFF
Warm Fuzzy Feeling
•WFHIT
What Fresh Hell Is This
•WFM
Works For Me
•WFO
Wide Fucking Open

but no WF.

Except for several Google suggestions not related to what you comments seemed to be about.

So: WTF does WF mean?

Ah, please. By the way, I'm smiling.

Anonymous said...

B

Good luck with that.

I sympathize, I have concluded that to get a job you need to be what the employer is. (Yup, that's a period after "is")

I myself, as you know don't have a job. I engage in amusing activities which somehow get me checks from time to time. Lucky me cuz I was born too smart for my own good and pig headed.

Started reading montaigne and he talks about a conversation between pythagoras and a student who said, "Why should I learn about the stars when the persians are on their way to bash my head in and make me listen to Lady Gaga's acoustic cover of MC Hammer's "Can't touch this."

Best wishes

Aki

bastinptc said...

Aki- before that last paragraph, I thought I would be able to handle the End Times. Now I'm not so sure.

Crash said...

You mentioned before the early medical experience. Would it be worth a try to re-enter that at a low pay, low level job. Maybe promotions would come fast when they saw how good you are. Pay your dues again, so to speak. Might even be worth getting a certificate of some kind.

bastinptc said...

Crash - One cannot even empty a bedpan without proper certification these days. But it's a thought.