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i’m Making a career shift

i’ve worked in the arts for my entire career, mainly in art museums. i’m also an independent curator and ran a gallery out of my storefront apartment for a year and a half. i’ve archived photographs, led museum tours, curated exhibitions, couriered art across the country in an 18-wheeler, written wall texts, edited books, interviewed artists, fundraised, done countless studio visits, written exhibition essays, provided accessibility for disabled visitors, built a curatorial practice around working with disabled artists, project managed performances, and participated as a performer in a couple of pieces (including a Tino Sehgal). i am immensely proud of my work and have done and seen some incredible things. i’ve also worked with incredible passionate people who have the privilege and honor of making culture. but I’m also very burnt out and currently in the midst of plotting a departure from the art world, in search of a job that provides more balance. my whole job as a “museum worker” has been my identity for 14 years and I’m curious to see what my life looks like next. i’m mediating on and grappling with the idea that we weren’t put on this planet to labor, which compounded with the effects of lockdown and the pandemic, has changed my relationship to work and having a linear career. life is too short and too precious to give all of ourselves to a job (hope that doesn’t make me sound far out or too radical). right now I’m working with a career coach, doing informational interviews, playing with my resume and cover letter formats, and applying for a wild array of non-art / non-museum jobs. I’d love to hear if you have any insights or suggestions! it’s scary making the leap but I’m trusting my gut here.

@salad_valet

Feb 15, 2025

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Weighty opportunities

I've been offered a really unique, challenging job, but I'm so burnt out from my last one I don't know if I should accept it. I feel grateful and excited, and ungrateful and terrified, and like I should take it because it's stable even if I'm not. It's resting heavy in me, knowing that my next 21 months might be so work focused when maybe I need the me focus to not just be a sassy little crisp of a human. I have to respond today, I have no idea what I'll do xoxo

@indiedreams

Mar 3, 2025

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being offered a job

what’s that like? i’ve never experienced it. i’ve been searching for a job nonstop for the past five months and fucking no one has gotten back to me. i haven’t even been called back to say i didn’t get the job. i’m sick of it. i’m not in desperate need of a job but i’d rather have one before i am. i was expecting a call back all day. i waited by the fucking phone. i called because i was expecting a call this week, and the guy who interviewed me said “i’ll call you tomorrow.” fuck you. i hope you can’t sleep at night because you keep having dreams about your ex. i hope she calls you the next day and says she wants to get back together with you and she’ll meet you at your favorite date spot. i hope she stands you up, dan. i hope everything bad that could happen to you, happens. i wish murphy’s law upon you. edit: it’s so funny because this is my first semi-serious post that’s doing NUMBERS. thought i’d point that out and brag a little. maybe i don’t need a job after all. can i monetize this post?

@al1

Mar 3, 2025

Top Recs from @jmeridian

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SOLO TRIP

Back in April I went to the PNW for 11 days solo! This trip pushed me and taught me so much about myself. I did a bunch of hiking even though before this I wouldn’t have called myself a hiker. Driving through remote areas with poor reception forced me to trust myself. I loved the solitude and nature and who I became on this trip. I also got 2 tattoos (my first!!) and worked through my fear of needles! I’m tougher than I think.

@jmeridian

Dec 27, 2024

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ice cream is just ice cream

My grandparents owned an ice cream shop for 35 years. In the early days they sold sandwiches too, before moving to just ice cream. At one point when my dad was an adolescent, they actually lived above their shop. My grandma would dream up flavors and my grandpa would make them — he's lactose intolerant, he never really even reaped the one benefit of owning an ice cream shop. My grandparents, dad, aunt, great aunts and uncles, second cousins, and even my mom all worked fairs and festivals scooping ice cream. It was a family business, my grandma and grandpa were the core. They had to change locations twice. They "retired" at least once before actually retiring. This ice cream shop was an institution. For me though it was the place where we would have Thanksgiving. Closed for the season, the shop was the only space big enough for all of us. I had birthday parties there as a baby. It was our first stop after a five hour drive across state lines to see family. That's the place where, at my grandpa's insistence, I wrote my initials into the wet cement he had laid down for a bike rack. They are still there. When I was 16, I worked at the shop over the summer. You don't realize how tough it is. Decades of dipping had made my grandpa particular. I didn't have the wrist strength or the speed necessary when there were customers out the door, all of them hungry and agitated by the stifling heat. I was terrified of giving someone back the wrong amount of change. Becoming almost paralyzed by the responsibility of being behind the cash register — it was their livelihood after all. That was my grandma's responsibility. I was in charge of the milkshakes and malts. I decorated sundaes with hot fudge, wet walnuts, sprinkles, and cherries. I packed the shaved ice into paper cones and doused the evenly shaped mounds with syrup. I doled out the frozen lemonade into styrofoam cups. My hands became raw from all the cleaning. I'm now particular about hygiene in the kitchen and always tip. My grandparents still own the building, renting it out to a dentist and coincidentally, an ice cream shop. It's so strange now to go there. Everything is entirely different while being exactly the same. They painted the chairs a different color, but they are still those heart-shaped wrought iron, poorly cushioned chairs I know from childhood. Some of the flavors have remained. But it's not the same. Maybe they're buying their heavy cream from a different supplier. Or the high schoolers who work behind the counter aren't as precise with the measurements. I can try, skipping the artisanal flavors for the ones I grew up eating, but it will never be the same as it was. And that's alright. They're softer now, my grandparents; the anxieties and stress of those decades having melted away. These days, ice cream is just ice cream.

@jmeridian

Dec 30, 2024

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another one

“Love has never been a popular movement. And no one's ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you've got to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be.” James Baldwin

@jmeridian

Dec 24, 2024