rebeccmeister | Create Your Own Economy

Several years ago,

annikusrex introduced me to the artwork of Nikki McClure, who uses an X-acto knife to cut out beautiful and evocative images from single pieces of paper. McClure uses this imagery, often drawn from the Northwest, to express important and empowering ideas. For example, prior to the last election, she created a series of posters encouraging people to vote ("Vote for Survival," you can see some examples on buyolympia.com, here).

A short while back, I bought a journal that she produced called Things to Make and Do, which contains an image that says, "Create Your Own Economy." It shows a woman holding a freshly baked pie. I've been thinking about this statement this past week, as I watched the working people of Seattle while I traveled to and fro on my vacation [Note to self: we don't have a chance to observe each other in the same way in Arizona, which is a pity. I have less context for my economic well-being.].

I have been trying to think about the sort of work that I hope to do in the long run, and have been discussing the future with my friends and family. Lately, I've been answering, "I don't know" whenever I'm asked what will come next after graduation. On a related vein, this past fall

sytharin has been struggling to find a job up in B-ham, and I'm sure her struggle resonates with the other seven percent of the population that is currently unemployed. She's tired of being broke all of the time, she said, and feeling like she's dependent on the charity of others.

I've also been pondering this manifesto over the past couple of weeks as I've been reorganizing and working away at my list of things to make, participating in the informal economy more out of a sense of aesthetic responsibility and idealism than out of necessity.

I think the phrase is essential to someone like McClure, who makes a (successful?) living through her artwork, but it goes beyond simple justification of her career as an Artist. It declares, "find your own way to live your life." Now if only I knew what that was for my future.