Being a middle class artist

Being reasonable

I grew up middle class. It’s that weird state where you don’t not have “enough” but you also don’t have surplus. As my friend Hari put recently in a lovely article, about how being middle class is a weird state of not having the stuff you really want, but also having enough that you can’t really complain.

You learn how to not ask for too much, and learn to be reasonable. Of course you don’t go out and eat all the time, that would be unreasonable. You learn that you don’t really need the fancy pencil that other kids have, your cheap one also writes. You have some toys to play with but of course you can’t have the most fancy one. You are never lacking. But you also don’t have enough. You have just enough for satiation, but not for luxury. You learn to choose and prioritize your desires. You learn to not indulge. You learn to be reasonable.

So what is being “reasonable” if you are middle class? It’s a self learnt way of clipping your own wings. Even when I was young, and even when I was never really told in the family that I should be reasonable, I was a very reasonable kid. I got good grades, I asked for things only after I had gotten good grades, being the reasonable kid I was. I never asked for too much. And that’s how I taught myself, despite the fact that my parents worked damn hard to make sure I didn’t need to be reasonable, that I have to be reasonable.

You know what is not reasonable? going in a creative career. So when my dad said after my entrance exams that I have both a creative and an analytical mind, and that I should try for architecture, I told him “I don’t wanna do these unreasonable things, I’ll be an engineer, a proper serious profession”. Though obviously like all other reasonable children, I came to my senses rather quickly and told him within two years that I can’t be in a serious profession. I want to try this design thing. Bet he never saw that one coming. (He totally did, and gave me the I told you so look.)

But even in the domain of creative careers, design is a reasonable one. You work with people, and you make things that prioritize utility and function. Not like art, which is self indulgent. The decade after college, working as a designer, has been a quest to work hard to curb my desire to make art. This amorphous strange thing that is equal parts creativity, self-expression and worst of all, about connection.

See that’s the thing one doesn’t learn until too much time has been wasted, that a good chunk of being reasonable is about giving up a connection to self to stay connected to the world around you. I’ve learnt to give myself some small leeway. Like I can do certain things for creativity, others for connections and yet others for expression. But never really all together. That felt too unfamiliar, too foreign.

Something changed last year. Maybe it was the fact that Kahran has been doing his poetry MFA and has been exploring more and more of his artistic side. Or maybe that Charu is working on her puzzle game. Or that maybe, finally, I am fed up. Of running away.

Of letting myself have “just enough” to keep wanting.

I’ve been trying to make art. Which means, at least for me, just putting myself out there more, and saying “here are the things I care about.” I’ve been looking at residencies and fellowships. Applying to the ones that feel right. Getting rejections. And you know what? it’s not too bad, it’s not too unreasonable.

It’s hard, putting myself out there, after years and years of not knowing how to own my own wanting, to finally accept it. It feels constantly like I’ve just climbed a hundred stairs, but its better than feeling like there are shackles around my ankles, holding me back.

So, I lied in the title, I don’t know how to be a middle class artist, coz I am still the process of becoming one. I’ll report back in a few years how being unreasonable is causing havoc in my life.

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