Art Fag City at the L Magazine: “The Origin of Art Fag City (Or, Why Paddy Will Never Return to the Farm)”

I’m not sure what inspired the good folks at The L Magazine to pair above photo of Superman’s birth with my article on how Art Fag City came to be, but I’ll take it as a compliment. As always, the teaser below:

My countless talks at art schools are having an unexpected effect. I’m reflecting more on the jobs I held prior to blogging and how those experiences taught me to create the work I wanted. It took close to six years of wrongful employment with all sorts of crazies to figure out what I would be doing in my thirties, which seems like a lot, but I count myself lucky, especially since many people never figure it out. I spent a lot of money on art school and the idea of repurposing those skills for my parents’ farm has never been particularly appealing.

The first job I proved ill-suited for was teaching inner-city kids how to paint their school walls. The non-profit tasked employees and children living in underprivileged neighborhoods with beautifying their schools. It was a tough job, and frankly most of us involved weren’t the ones to do it. Many of the kids didn’t want to be there, and neither did I. My painting groups consistently covered the smallest area in the schools, and when I told my boss I knew I had a lot left to do, we ended up talking about other lines of work I could get into. Needless to say, that was the end of that job.

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