I recently picked up the latest Dave Mathews Tim Reynolds cd LIVE at Radio City Music Hall (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, it's a little more of the "old Dave" sound we have all missed). The acoustic disc took me for a nice little stroll down memory lane listening to some great now-old-songs mixed with a few fresh acoustic originals and a couple nice covers. Towards the end of disc two, one of my favorite Dave originals Dancing Nancies hauntingly summoned up several flash-backs with Dave posing the question... "Could I have been... anyone other than me".
This got me thinking... professionally (for money) I have been a lot of things other than an illustrator and an artist, some I am proud of some I am not... some were easy as pie and some I will NEVER forget... here are a few I was humming to Dave's playing...
Could I have been...
A door to door Fruit Salesman...
Could I have been...
A animal Poop-Scooper
Could I have been...
A Landscaper and Grass-Clipper...
Could I have been...
A Car-washing-detailer
Could I have been...
A Dish Washer and Grease Trap Dumper...
Could I have been...
A Pizza Delivery Boy...
Could I have been...
A Cook in a restaurant
Could I have been...
A Graphic Designing Artist
Could I have been...
A Musician in an acoustic rock band
Could I have been...
A phone-answering Office Assistant
Could I have been...
A home-audio Salesman
Could I have been...
A Sandwich-making Deli-man
Could I have been...
A Retail Bookseller
Could I have been...
A Dark-Room Film Developer
Could I have been...
A Bar-Back and Beer-Poorer
Could I have been...
A Retail Customer Service Representative
Could I have been...
A Substitute Teacher
Could I have been...
A Print-Production-Layout-Binding-Specialist
Could I have been...
A Waiter and a Bus Boy...
Could I have been...
A College Professor
Could I have been...
A Heavy-Shit-Lifter...
Could I have been anyone other than me? The answer is still NO! But I am sure the list will go on...
Lets admit it... we've all got our own list of what I like to call "SHIT JOBS", but making drawings and paintings is the only thing I do better than everything else and I would be lost without it. To this day I still struggle to do it in the capacity that I dream about, but guess it's what keeps a guy going...
A true artist-inspiration of mine once said to me when I was feeling frustrated and distracted by having to spend all my time trying to survive and not being able to make art (and it always kept me going):
You "ARE"(defined by) the first thing you think of and the last thing you think of in a day, and the rest is a just what you do cause you have to.
The image was one I did a long time ago for a class assignment while studying with Barron Storey. We were illustrating a short story by Annie Proulix called Heart Songs. A quote from the text read "tall trees are my jail bars".
Image: ©Copyright Trey Gallaher
