the story behind the art: “sure, why not?”
this work is a juxtaposition piece about work as we once knew it and work as it is today, done with a bit of dry humoured sarcasm about the status quo.
the way we went about finding work was said to be simple. we’d go to school or training for something of interest and get job in what we studied soon after graduation and after one interview and a follow up phone call and we were on our way to a good life [with a pension]. we’d work at this job or a similar job for an entire career and climb the corporate ladder in a nice, orderly fashion.
this was what we were told; and maybe we even experienced it for awhile.
today this has shifted——but for some reason the way we find work and the way we hire hasn’t and it’s creating friction; unemployed workers [millions] are applying for new jobs in an old system. we’re all tired of being rejected again and again and sometimes not even from another person.
is this all worth it? do i even want this job? is this what i even want to be doing?
let’s call it cushioned security… until they do yet another round of budget cuts, of course. nobody knows who’s gonna be hit next [it might be me and it could be you].
what if?…
…more people started to think outside the box with what work could look like? what if we looked for opportunities that actually excite us in a child-like curious way even if they don’t seem connected to our silly little degree or what we should do for a living? maybe taking time when you’re younger to discover what it is you want to do won’t be so frowned upon? maybe job hopping, switching entire industries, or contract work will be the new norm?
maybe the corporate ladder will cease to exist.
maybe nobody will give a damn about resume gaps.
maybe there’s a better way of life than we could have ever imagined… but we can’t see it when we’re stuck in a cubical?
——
this work shines a light on opportunity and maybe even a smidge of optimism about the future of work——as long as we learn humility as a lesson and focus on opportunities that light something inside.
we never know where any opportunity lies and will lead us later…
but the light doesn’t lie. follow it.
the process [video below]:
i wrote out by hand most of the auto rejection emails I’ve received this year alone and started gluing them on in no particular order. auto rejection emails all sound the same to me so i treated them all the same. this layer is hardly shown in the final piece [because these emails are not important] so i painted over that quickly and imperfectly, the texture and outlines of the paper to leave room for curiosity but nothing to be legible.
rejection is redirection.
then i cut out small phrases, words, or images from vintage books and magazines to build on the idea and then blended everything together with white and yellow paint as a symbol of optimism, carefully still letting specific words and phrases show through.
the connected dots and stencilled words further tell the story of opportunity, the people you meet, and the things you learn that lead you from one thing to the next. the final step was the golf ball that was dipped in black paint and then rolled around the canvas wherever it wanted.
because sometimes we just gotta jump in and and roll with it.
a final look:
i was one of many to show this at a local event at saskatoon makerspace. since makerspace is kept dim with hanging patio lights for most events and there is a lot of detail to see here, i hung flashlights on either side of the canvas for people to hold up to the canvas and move it around to see the details as some kind of immersive treasure hunt type of experience.
