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Creative New York: In Their Words

1. Sabrina Hedges

Sabrina is an actress, performance artist, and musician who lives in New York City. She recently moved from an apartment in the trendy Lower East Side to a place in Queens because the rent was cheaper. At the moment, she has a day job at an auction house. She enters information about people's estates into a computer. Here is her impression of being in artist in New York:

In Her Words

I sit here typing about furniture and art all day long. I am fairly invisible here but it is not the worst job I have ever had, and it's good to have some health insurance for a change! It gets so depressing, though, writing about millionaires all day while you're struggling to make ends meet. I have very little time for my own projects, and end up filling my nights and weekends with chaotic "creating." It's really not the best atmosphere for an artist.

I grew up in this town, and I can say that it used to be so much cheaper and friendlier towards artists; it's a wonder there are any of them left. I get down on New York because I remember a time when my parents and their crowd struggled to live here, but at least they had space and time to do their art. Life in New York was humane then--rents were respectable. All my parents' theater friends lived in lofts where they could rehearse their shows. All the musicians had theater space and twice as many clubs to play in. All the artists had large painting studios. They were poor but happy.

Today, things have changed. It seems like artists are what made New York so cool and unique, and it was that uniqueness that made people flock here. And how does New York repay its artist community? By making life virtually impossible!

I feel I got raised here with sort of false hopes. But I am not complaining. Being an artist is a choice, sort of, and I am proud of our struggle. I still feel all art is a gift to the world and any struggle that goes along with it is pretty admirable. I do know it is a struggle for artists everywhere....some places are better than New York to be an artist (a lot of Europe), and some places are worse, so every day I count my blessings.

2. Aaron Feldman

Aaron Feldman is a filmmaker living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that has recently been gentrified and has attracted artists because of its abundance of loft space. He is originally from a small town in Rhode Island.

In His Words

Being a filmmaker breaks down into several skills: director, cinematographer, editor, and writer―not usually at the same time, so I wear many hats. I originally became a filmmaker because I liked all the bits and pieces that I thought made up "film" as a discipline: writing, photography, storytelling, music. I went to film school in New York, and when I got there, I was surprised by how long it took to make a film, how expensive it was, and how logistically complicated it could be. As an art form, it's different from other art forms. No one ever talks about the "painting industry" or the "writing industry" like they talk about the "film industry." Of all art forms, it's the most penetrated by conflict about commercialism and whether or not to "dumb down" the art form for a mass audience. So, when you're at the beginning of your career like I am, you feel compromised from the start by the pressure to make things that are commercially acceptable. I feel like I not only have to financially support myself, but also my art, which is a lot of pressure for one person to handle.

It's hard to say whether "surviving" in New York as an artist is easy or hard, because at the moment only part of what I do could be qualified as "art." While I was studying, I acquired some skills for artistic reasons which were also in demand in a less artistic framework, such as camera work, computer editing, and recording skills. These skills have equipped me to be a technician and to make money doing things I find extremely un-artistic, such as concert videos, wedding videos, taping auctions, and making training videos for companies. At the same time, I've been working on a screenplay for a movie. I've become very nocturnal―working in the middle of the night.

It's hard to find the right balance between personal projects and the work I do to pay the bills. On the one hand, I'm afflicted by the nervousness and anxiety of not knowing where my next rent check is coming from, which makes it difficult to concentrate on my own work. If I'm really freaked out about paying bills, it's an extra effort to put that out of my head and focus on my craft. On the other hand, I increasingly feel like allowing myself an infinite amount of time to do creative work makes the process infinitely slow. I need some kind of external time structure or project to help me plan my time. When I'm not working on a project, I really have to carve one out for myself.

Living in New York has its pluses and minuses. In certain logistical ways New York is not friendly—it's very expensive and it's hard to find a place to live. You can't be a big fish in a small pond because the film business is enormous, and the job market is saturated with people looking for work. It's not a place where you'll feel special very quickly. At the same time, I'm surrounded by a million people with whom I can talk intelligently about my work, and I never feel like anyone questions the validity of what I chose to do with my life.

I hope and pray that one day I'll be able to earn a living as an artist without doing the extra work I've been doing. It's absolutely my goal. I'm in an industry where it's possible and people have done it, but it's hard. I don't want to be in the position of having a day job and having someone else structuring my creative time. I'd like to do the type of work structuring my own time.

Finding the Basis for Inference

Scan the reading to find the basis for the following inferences. Write the words that suggest each inference and an explanation. Then read the article all the way through.


1		Inference: Sabrina usually doesn't have health insurance. Basis for the inference:



2		Inference: Sabrina's parents were artists. Basis for the inference:



3		Inference: Aaron does not have a steady source of income. Basis for inference:



4		Inference: Aaron had never made a film before going to film school. Basis for inference:

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