Maybe I should do something else?
Last summer I wanted to quit design and become a painter.
I consider myself an industrious type of person. I can work very hard and intensely for several consecutive hours — especially when doing something I like. I often enter the “flow-state” when being creative whether it’s gaming, drawing, painting, writing, crafting or designing. Design is something I like doing. It’s the career path of my own choosing and in the summer of last year it was also my current employment.
Liking design has gotten me through one and a half vocational educations, three different apprenticeships and working freelance on the side. It helped me hold fast against the waves of bullshit from the educational system, demotivated teachers and unprofessional employers. Liking design even made me venture off into self-tutoring. And instead of hanging out in the parking lot with the other kids drinking beers and smoking cigarettes, I did it at home by myself alone in the dark — while working.
That passion is like an anchor holding me in place and as a constant through it all; it’s always been there. No matter how far I drift away I know it’s there at the other end; tugging.
Until one morning in the summer of last year when I woke up to the thought;
Maybe I should do something else?
Usually, I’d take it as a fleeting moment of indecisiveness — most of us have those from time to time and it’s completely normal. With all the options of the world today going through one door closes many others. Who can help but wonder what was behind them and, indeed, whether they might’ve been better? But it soon turned out it wasn’t a single, stray thought. In fact, it was more like the sixth or seventh time. Maybe the eighth?
Or was I kidding myself and it was really more like the twentieth?
It started earlier in the spring when my boyfriend had finished restoring a sailboat from 1972, a Bianca 27, and asked me to paint its name onto it.
As a Designer I approached it as a logo assignment; of course it wasn’t just going to be any random font! It had to fit with the personality and look of the boat and I already knew the one: “Sail” by LatinoType.
But one thing is selecting a font on the computer: an entirely different thing is painting it onto an actual boat. So I decided to play it safe; I’d cut out a stencil, tape it onto the boat and simply fill in with paint. It seemed like a solid plan.
Cut to the two of us being outside where it’s windy, we only have painter’s tape, we spend too much time getting the positioning just right so now the tape won’t really stick anymore and I have to put more on, now the tape is in the way of the paint which is terrible to work with; all sticky and thick.
I decided to trace the stencil with a marker and then remove it to do the painting free-hand. A very risky move as the only marker we had with us was dark blue — the same color of the boat — and daylight was fading fast.
But it actually went much better and suddenly the pictures my boyfriend took turned out… idyllic. Like there’s even the slightest trace of Bob Ross hidden somewhere in there.
Though the work frustrated me I was also excited — far more than I’d expected and far more than I’d been in a very, very, very long time. As we were admiring the finished result I caught myself thinking;
“Maybe I should paint boats?”
So I began toying with the idea of building a portfolio of boat paint work, currently consisting of one almost-botched project, and maybe even spend some time on the weekends painting other people’s boats.
Before long the summer break was entirely upon us and one day in particular the weather was exceptionally good. My boyfriend and decided to ride our motorcycles to a 1950’s styled diner called Stacy’s for lunch.
But while we were there I suddenly couldn’t help myself from stealing glances at the people working in that magical pocket of time and before I knew it I’d blurted it out loud:
“Maybe I should work here…
Wonder what the salary is?“
My boyfriend smiled overbearingly at me and managed to casually answer;
“I don’t know, maybe $15 an hour or so? Probably not a lot.”
I thought to myself that money isn’t always everything just as our “Cadillac” burgers were served and demanded our full attention.
Though he might not be crazy about the idea and would probably challenge it; I knew he’d support me if I really wanted to change career just as I would support him. And because of that every time the thought crossed my mind I very carefully considered it — not only for my own sake but also for his and our relationship’s. But there’s no better feeling than having your partner’s trust and understanding, even when you become unsure of your own choices. Stopping people from following their dreams and trying to take control of their heart will result in either losing them or them losing themselves — and I honestly don’t know which is worse.
Towards the end of the summer break we finally moved into our new house out in the wonderful Danish countryside; both of us determined to leave the noise and stress of the big city far, far behind us.
At the same time the apartment we were leaving behind also needed to be renovated and repainted which we decided to do ourselves. But despite working tirelessly at it around the clock we didn’t manage to finish before suddenly the summer break was over and we were both back at work.
Since the deadline for the apartment was nearing fast I took another day off work to finish repainting the windows, panels and doors white.
I got up early and after breakfast drove straight to the apartment, traveling up the stairs for quite possibly the very last time. I made myself a luxurious cup of instant coffee — my personal favourite. Lastly, I connected my phone to the boombox and woke up the entire neighbourhood with Kala Marka’s “Jaguar”.
And I got to work, painting.
I worked the entire day from early in the morning to late in the afternoon — completely lost in a flow-state. It felt good, almost therapeutic; one white stroke after the other, wiping away the cuts and scars of our life there. I was enjoying the straightforwardness of painting as well as the physical work and as bolt of lightning it struck me, suddenly:
“I should be a painter.”
This thought took me farther than any of the previous ones, especially since I started seeing “signs” such as an article about a woman in her 30’s deciding to quit her office job to be a construction painter. I even started getting ads for the painter education. I was trapped in a frequency illusion where painting seemed to pop up just about everywhere. It soon became so serious I called my dad and told him about it.
Something in what I said made him want to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. He told me that in reality a construction painter’s work would be mostly repetitive; painting walls white, painting ceilings white, painting buildings and windows — often outdoors. It’s hard manual labour and not necessarily as creative or romantic as I imagined. It would also take years of apprenticeship in a company which might not necessarily care about treating its workers right, in an industry largely dominated by men. He didn’t say it out loud, but I knew he meant as a young woman you have to have a certain hardiness to withstand that — I know this from my sister who’s an industrial technician. Somewhere deep down I knew he was right — as a craftsman he knows what he’s talking about. His concern was disarming.
I knew I should let it go.
But without it I felt not only without an anchor, but like I’d fallen completely overboard and was currently afloat. Lost in a wide, vast sea. If I didn’t want to be a painter but didn’t want to do design either, what then, was I supposed to do? In the end taking up work at the local supermarket until I could figure things out also became one of my considerations.
October suddenly came and my boyfriend and I travelled to Münich in Germany for the Push Conference 2018. I was to be a keynote speaker for the first time ever in front of a crowd of ~600 people and I remember being so anxious about it I asked one of the event organisers, Christian:
“So what’s the protocol for… you know… throwing up on stage?”
To which he replied:
“Well… You clean it up yourself that’s for sure!”
Which actually helped because if anything; I’m too much of a lazy person to ever get myself into a cleaning situation. I took the stage focused on telling my story and it went better than I could ever dream of — despite all my fears.
I talked about my passion for design and the personal projects I’d worked on as a starving freelancer the year before. I told of my own insecurities and shortcomings and asked my audience to Stop Complaining, Start Designing. I almost cried right there onstage in front of 500 people because it was just so overwhelming. We went out to dinner the entire conference team and most of the speakers on the final night where I feverishly (and also drunkenly) discussed design, the creative industry and our working culture with fellow designers. I was having the time of my life.
November came and I agreed to take a spontaneous trip to Switzerland to present a revised, twenty-minute version of my talk for the design students at the school and the outcome was the same; amazing. I managed to lure out a few laughs from the next generation of designers and hopefully left them feeling inspired to pursue their own, crazy ideas and to be true to themselves.
But as quickly as the adventures had begun suddenly they were over and I was once again back home in my real-life job doing my real-life work routines— only I was completely and utterly confused. What I’d done is not what I imagined someone wanting to leave design behind would do.
I felt aflame anew, returning home energised and hungry for more.
But at this point I had considered almost all the other career choices I could think of. Becoming a construction painter had honestly felt like a possibility because I was genuinely enjoying it — as I had once genuinely enjoyed doing design. I had soul searched all summer seeing possibilities everywhere…
Everywhere except where I currently was.
I had actually considered leaving it all behind — all I’d worked so hard to learn, to be good at, to become. I had even considered working as a cashier in the local store and don’t get me wrong; I have a whole lot of appreciation for cashiers because it can be a really shitty, unforgiving fucking job. But was exactly that not saying everything I needed to know about my current job?
In the end I realised changing the course of my ship entirely wasn’t the solution. Design wasn’t wrong for me at all, in fact — I could still enjoy it.
Finally, I could ask myself the right question:
“Maybe I should find another job.”
So I’m staying in design and I’m excited about what other adventures the future has in store for me. Besides I still get to paint every now and then.
Thank you for reading!
