Cultivating an Image

I am an artist.  And I can’t help but look the part.  I’ve been told that I look like an artist (or a weirdo) by many people many times.  Folks often assert that they knew I was an artist before the knew I was an artist.  So, my career as an international super-spy was over long before it started.

Do I consciously try to cultivate this image?  You bet I do.  Always have.  Back in high school, that meant dressing more strangely that my peers (it’s called understatement – go with it).  In college, it was easy – it simply meant that I had printer’s ink staining all my clothes.

Workin' in North Adams

But I’m supposed to be an adult now.  I have a career now.  I have to be respectable-like.  So I, of course, wear a vest & tie.

Having chosen my aesthetic, I think it important to be consistent.  I often dress in a vest & tie to work, which is simply ridiculous when you’re an art teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed teenagers.  You run the risk of messing up your clothes two ways: you could either get art materials thrown at you, or tear them while in a restraint.  I’ve done both.  No big deal.

I naturally dress this way to gallery openings and other nights out on the scene.  That’s a no-brainer.  It’s schmooze time, and people will remember an off-kilter-yet-dapper fellow like me if I dress the part.  For more formal occasions, I dress rather conservatively:  I add a jacket to my getup.  But I can’t help but wear one of my colorful vintage ties that once belonged to Becca’s great-grandfather (thanks, Carol) – so it’s never really that hard to pull the artist out of the lineup.

So far, nothing really all that incongruous, right?  What sets me apart – that extra mile that I’m willing to go, is that I dress the part in the studio, as well.  Even if I’m working alone, you won’t find me without my vest & tie.

I feel that, since I work in a medium that is now technologically obsolete, that I should comport myself in a manner that references a more civilized, genteel time.  plus, everybody looks better in a vest – I’ve know that since I got one for senior prom and was hooked on ‘em.  I positively retch at sweatpants in public, and, though I love my t-shirts, I wouldn’t wear them to work (maybe casual fridays…), so I won’t wear them to the studio.  Art is my higher calling, and I perceive it as a slight to that calling to show up underdressed.  It’d be like attending church in ripped jeans – in a totally non-blasphemous way.

...more appealing than black ink.

The other day I was visiting with friends at their store after having spent the morning in the studio, so naturally I was dressed to kill, and my hands were black as coal.  One friend said, “Mike, what  the hell is wrong with you? you’re wearing a tie & vest and your hands look like shit!  What kind of look are you going for?”  In reply, I stumbled onto one of those pearls of wordplay that we do sometimes, and I found a name for my aesthetic:  “I’ve been in the studio.  I’ve trying to cultivate an image, here:  I’m the Gentleman Printmaker.”