Part of the Problem

Hotel Art: The Reason I Don't Remember My Dreams Anymore

Whole Foods will not call me back. I really want to work there. They are my top choice. But they won't call me back. I don't know why. I would make an excellent nonchalant cashier. And just try to forget your canvas bag and ask me for paper. I can cultivate the judgy air that is part of organic shopping without even looking you in your Earth-hating face. Oh, I want to work there so bad and they won't let me!

I am sure that everyone is clinging to their grocer positions in a manner that would have been unthinkable at any other time in my life. I am also sure that they will call me eventually, right? It's a big giant grocery store. It's got to have some turnover. One day you wake up and you realize that you just don't want to cut a bunch of sample-size pita triangles anymore. Well, when that day comes, I'll be waiting. I like triangles – so stable and proud. Alas, I have been without job for almost 2 months now (a personal best) and I am beginning to feel the so-called pinch.

In the meantime, I check Craig's List every morning, but it's really not very encouraging. There is (maybe) 1 job every two weeks that I would consider, and it usually isn't part-time. There are, however, a ton of scammers who reply promptly, while your hopes are still up, and try to get you to fill out an "online application" involving your home address and phone numbers. So far, I have had this happen to me 3 times out of the 5 total jobs I have inquired about, proving once and for all that I am a total sucker. In my defense, I am getting better at spotting them. For instance, if the salary is listed as a range, especially if that range is $31,000-116,000 for a veterinary assistant position, it is a scam. Another way to spot a scam is that it will be the only ad you see that day without egregious misspellings and broken English. At this point, I'm thinking of just buying my own brown apron and showing up at Whole Foods unannounced.

In order to keep out of the poor house, I have a new policy of accepting hardscrabble jobs when they present themselves, no matter what the job is. Two weeks ago I literally shoveled wet sand into sandboxes. I received no less than $8 for every hour I did this. Wet sand is easily as heavy as they say, but I managed to shovel $32 worth.

Finally, this week, I had a real paying gig doing some art installation. The venue? It was the newly renovated Sheraton Hotel in Albuquerque. And, by golly, this was some Hotel Art I was hanging.

The whole situation was pretty perverse. I, a self-proclaimed artist, spent two full days hanging up cheap canvas prints by some other artist that have been stretched to look like paintings but in no way resemble paintings except that they have signatures, though the signatures were also part of the print and not actual signatures.

A few thoughts about this:

– I am sure that these works cost many many more times than (a) what I was being paid to hang them and (b) what I could hope to sell my art objects for.

– My art must really be bad.

– By taking this job, I effectively helped prevent the sale of about 30 works by you maybe, and helped promote the career of artists who paint rectangles of varying stripey color.

– If there was a doubt as to whether art was dead, I think I have the answer – robots make the art now. Ironically, artists will always have jobs as long as the normals don't figure out what a 60" sight-lines is.

...

I hung about 30 of these objets d'art, which vary in size from the 12" square to the 60" nightmare, all of which were attached with security hangers* because the designer (the person who hired me, and who purchased the art) kept saying how people would steal anything from a hotel.

"What's that?"

"Oh, that? That's my enormous print of a painting of an orange rectangle inside of a brown rectangle, that I stole."

"Awesome!"

As I was returning to the hotel from Fuddrucker's (a truly strange restaurant indeed) I realized that the economic depression we are in is just a big lie. It's on the news, and some people have actually lost their jobs, but no one is even thinking about what is happening, or what might yet happen. The designer, nice lady though she was, makes her living by flying to various hotels and picking out stuff for the hotels to buy. She is burning a hole in the ozone layer, and probably making six figures to do it, so that people will come to the Sheraton and not notice that it is extremely ugly. We will only truly be in a depression when we no longer need interior designers.

While I was there I also met the lighting designer, the drink designer, and Carl. While the first two are fairly straightforward in their roles, Carl was a little more difficult to pin down.

For one thing, Carl didn't like me. I have no idea why, but from the moment I showed up he just didn't want anything to do with me. From what I could gather, Carl's job was to:

1. Avoid me
2. If I could not be avoided, then be curt with me
3. Go around to all the work I've already done and say that there is something wrong with it

The designer told me that Carl flies to Phoenix every weekend because he lives in Phoenix. He only works in Albuquerque. His job, when I am not on the premises, is to hang the artwork and signage... My only thought is that if they are paying him to fly in from Phoenix to do that, then the $15/hour I charged to do it in town must have just spoiled the whole ruse.

In closing, I do not think that I will pursue a career in hotel art installation. It was actually a lot of work (though I am seeing that I surely could have charged more) and not really something I can be proud of. It's the equivalent of writing a math problem on the chalkboard and then covering it with a big colored sail. No one will ever see the work I did; they won't even see the art that's hung in its place. It's all the exact right amount of color and abstraction so that you will never stop to look at it for even a second. It's all just an elaborate trick to keep you moving without feeling lost. Now, too late, I wish I had left a message behind one of the works.

"Hello. My name is John. I was 30 years old. I was poor and going to school to become a Nurse when I hung this. I worked for two days and hung all the artwork in this hall. I lived in the United States at the turn of the 21st century. At that time, our economy was going bad, and we were at war. People had gotten to be very strange and mean in the course of my lifetime. We stopped doing a lot of things that I enjoy, like writing letters, or learning how to fix things ourselves. I kept trying to do things that I thought would help. I rode my bike everywhere and learned to cook. I recycled, or I just didn't buy new things. I was scared sometimes, but I tried not to show it.

If you are reading this, I wonder if there is a United States anymore. I wonder if you are tearing this building down, or if you are looting it, or if you are an employee of a hotel that took over Sheraton Hotels and you are just renovating once again.

I just wanted to tell you that during my life we made a lot of mistakes and we lied and embezzled and stole from our neighbors and we hung a lot of ugly stupid things on the walls and we covered the land with plastic that will never go away and we made the empty overly full. And even though that happened, it wasn't all terrible. I had a wife, and a family. I had friends and pets. I played music and took pictures and went for walks. I had good memories.

I don't know if this means anything to you now, or if you think I am a huge sap, but I just wanted to tell you so that you would know. I just wanted it to be in writing so that there would be proof. As of February 20, 2009, love existed. For you, dear reader, I can only hope that it still does."


* Security hangers involve a t-shaped screw that, when turned, locks to a bracket on the back of the frame making it almost impossible to do the math correctly on your first attempt at hanging it.