The Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America

Before I complete my thoughts on one Minneapolis artist who is currently skirting the abyss, a few more words on the topic of how poorly Minneapolis treats its arts community and its less fortunate despite its entrenched self-image (and deep amounts of supporting propaganda to support the image) as a place particularly enlightened and progressive on these issues.

A few weeks ago I quoted a local artist who had blogged that Minneapolis was not all that friendly to artists. After my post, the blogger responded with this: “Minneapolis shouldn’t feel bad about not supporting artists. Lots of places can’t support their artists. But Minneapolis should stop making out with itself in the mirror and take a look at itself instead.” He also wrote: “I think this place is a fine spot for a middle class, well adjusted, creative person with a descent backup plan to get a good start. I believe that I have personal issues that keep me from realizing my goals, specifically in this place.” And he vowed to leave Minneapolis soon: “Come 8/31, there’s nothing keeping me here. Unless I start a fun dance band, or find my calling in middle management, or give myself a labotomy, I’m moving.”

Barbara Ehrenreich, in her exposé about the working poor in America, Nickel and Dimed, famously exposed Minneapolis as being among the least friendly places for people without money. In Minneapolis, the ”living wage” was calculated to be $11.77 an hour, and Ehrenreich got a job at Wal-Mart paying $7 an hour. Because of the poor layout of the city and the inadequate public transportation, she had trouble getting to work on time (she went carless for the duration of her experiment). And because of the lack of affordable housing, she could not find a decent apartment and had to stay in a barely adequate rattrap motel—like many of her co-workers. While she wondered at first how her co-workers could even think of paying $40 to $60 a day for a dive of a room (totaling up to $1500 a month), she soon realized that low-wage earners had to deal with a double-edged sword—they could not afford to pay the large sums (a full month’s rent, plus a down-payment, plus bills, etc) needed to rent a more cost-effective apartment and so had to live in more expensive, less suitable conditions.

Earlier today, meanwhile, the artist Combs made final preparations for walking away from his modest apartment—writing on an artist forum: “i quit existing on paper soon. hidden place in which to land and radiate art, incognito in society, unseen and silent… i feel like moving like a shadow down between the cracks of society and back again. lost and unlost. whole and broken hearted. pulling something out of the self that has craved the foreground, albeit bringing a new lonliness with it…”

I once quoted the Minneapolis gallerian Thomas Barry on how he felt about the city after running a gallery there for nearly thirty years: “In general, [local support] is nowhere near what is necessary to make it a vital place for showing and making art….It was better in the Eighties, most definitely. Art was a fashionable thing and people bought into it….But it’s pretty much been flat for a long time now. A lot of talented people can’t continue to make art because they can’t afford to.”

Were Minneapolis a better place for the working poor—be they artists or non-artists—it might be easier to forgive the place for patting itself over and over for its wonderful self-image. But in addition to the fact that the poor can barely survive here, and artists (who come from all over the region to be in the place that constantly extols itself as an artistic Mecca) often flounder here to get established and to thrive, as I described in 2006, in reality, at best, Minneapolis/Minnesota ranks below average nationally as an art center. Among the failings of Minneapolis in the art realm: in 2003, budget cuts of 30-60 percent decimated the State Arts Board, and while much of the budget was restored for the current biennium (after four years of struggle among arts orgs and artists), that money is likely to go the way of the dodo yet again next year—owing to yet another brutal state budget deficit; arts employees in Minnesota are generally paid 30-50 percent less than their counterparts in other places, leading to large rates of job attrition in the arts worker corps; neither Minneapolis nor St. Paul has a cultural affairs officer, a public arts plan (though St. Paul has a modest non-profit public art org), a functioning arts and culture plan, a cultural tourism initiative or plan, or any of the other features of other cities/regions serious about their arts community; and, of course, all of these factors trickle down and lead to continuing despair and hopelessness among the artists on the ground.

When I saw that Gabriel Combs’ situation had spiraled down to the point that he was facing eviction and out of options—likely to end up in a shelter, alone and doomed—I debated what I would do.

On one hand, despite my ambivalence about his art but because of a history of being serendipitously “connected” with him, I was terribly curious about what sort of life he was leading, and would lead, through this personal, art-driven disintegration. In a way, I thought, it’d be a kind of window-view into the life of a modern-day Van Gogh—as, in many respects, Combs’s life seemed to mirror the life of the Dutch icon of the quintessentially unrealized-genius/failed artist. After all, like Van Gogh, Combs is remarkably prolific. By perusing his website, scanning through the mnartist forums, and his eBay seller ID, anyone could see he is compulsive about producing art (some of it derivative, some of it rather empty of any meaning, but much of it remarkably inventive and facile in rendering). Further, like Van Gogh, Combs speaks a severe dedication to the act of art-making; it’s all he really wants to do, nothing else—and in fact he had done nothing but art for the past few years.

If Combs had the intellectual discipline to match his hand skills, he could have been, like Van Gogh eventually proved to be, a great artist—he’s that visually inventive. Instead, as with Van Gogh, Combs seems just another angry young (tagger) artist trying to go legit, who, by striking out at everyone—in bar fights, through substance abuse, or by taking offense at every cross word (as he has often described on the forums)—dooms himself to failure.

did’nt sleep much last night. something about 3 liters of wine, mushrooms, and speed. oh, and some whiskey too. and i may have to fight tonight but its not my fault she was left neglected. i will likely lose this fight too, but one never knows. only a little half done with an american tragedy. i like dreisers style alright, but hes fairly long-winded and makes errors. i think i’ll pick up some joseph conrad after this, and may have to read the heart of darkness again first. time passes and certain texts come off a bit differently in going back over them. i am currently morose, confused, and solidly self-destructive but its nothing new and tomorrow will bring new scars to earn. what difference does it all make? to twist out of that moribund shit, here is something cute. hide your fishes… (G. Combs, mnartists.org forums, February 12)

I debated going to visit Combs’s studio/apartment not only because of our history, but because I knew I’d end up accused of “exploitation”—taking advantage of one person’s (in this case an artist’s) dire situation for my own gain, or to get my sick jollies, or for revenge. It’s a conundrum and a fine line. On one hand, one could see this sort of writing as very vulture-like—a feeding frenzy on the dead or dying carcasses of artists. On the other hand, the most compelling stories I tend to write, the stories that get the best response and attract the biggest readership—to this (uncommercial) blog and to my (commercially) published writing—are the personal stories of artists who are teetering, or falling over, the edge. These stories, strangely, are what people seem to want to read, and, despite the inevitable accusations and questions about my motives, I continue to write these stories (without seeking them out), because I think they serve an important and useful purpose. They make people, generally speaking, more aware of the life-realities (and dire struggles) of working artists today. Vultures, after all, serve a very useful function as a warning and spur, for those who are still well-fed and healthy, not to set off on the dry gulch pathways.

So, despite my hesitation, and recalling the Artistic Failure mission—to a record the “struggles of myriad failing and failed artists across the communities of this country, as well as the failure of the “entire structure that supports artists and arts viewing… so that we somehow, someday may collectively rise up and fulfill our national creative promise”—I continued wondering if I should visit Combs, see his work-live space, and get a brief glimpse of what was at the heart of his personal dissolution. My intention was I might (or might not) write about him specifically, but that I would at the very least use information about his situation to feed a large essay about the great make-or-break, career-crushing hurdle that every artist seems to face at some point in life. Still, I continued to have serious misgiving about whether visiting Combs would be worth the inevitable frustration to me, and, likely, to Combs.

I had very nearly decided to back off, let my curiosity die, and ignore Combs’ obvious cries for attention, but then he posted the message below on the forums:

i cannot believe how crazy last night was, and how it was an extension of the days before that. tonight threatens to be worse. i am officially out next friday. things are more fucked up than i can remember them ever being. if you live around stevens, look for random art on the street, as i’ll be setting odd boards and panels out in the next few days. if i don’t get killed. walked right into a crack den to tell someone what was up, like ten people in there. the guy who is evicted today that lived there laying naked on the bed except for his underwear, with the place full of people smoking. landlord “uhhh, just what happened in your apartment last night?” all hell. i’m carrying a hammer with me as i might need it to hit someone (s). mopping up blood thinned by liquor. let it all come, i can take it. heres five drawings i did awhile back. sold the lot for 99 cents to a guy in germany. one of my worse sales lately. got some better prices from a series of people from spain, which makes spain the foreign country i’ve sent the most work to i think. i’m to about $500 a month on art, and maybe 25+ pieces to make that. so desperate today, and out of my mind… (G. Combs, mnartists.org forums, February 15)

That same day, I wrote a hasty email to Combs and to one of his forum friends, and I waited to find out if he would let me visit.

TO BE CONCLUDED…

Note, below is a representative sample of Combs’ most recent work (originally posted by the artist on the mnartists.org forums).
Combs has been supporting himself exclusively for the past few years—ever since he quit a job at a photo-processing company (something to do with the politics of the place and some evil fellow employee)—by selling his paintings/drawings on eBay. These paintings typically sell for $20-$30 a pop, though occasionally a bit more.

You can support Combs directly by bidding on the work he sells on eBay.

Sorry, fans of Failure, that I’ve missed a few posting days this week.

Part of it is I’ve been swamped 24-7 of late putting together a fundraising event for the little art organization I direct as my day job. Don’t let anyone ever tell you (ever) that fundraising, no matter for what amount (even for small-town nickels and dimes), is easy… Oh man, is it anything but easy.

By the way, the auction we’ve put together is pretty awesome, in a small-town Minnesota kind of way (with at least two world-renowned artists)—in case you happen to be one of the rare people at present in this country who are flush with cash.

The other part of my absence is I’ve been following the self-destruction of a young artist here in Minneapolis named Gabriel Combs. Combs has known for a number of weeks now that he’s going to be evicted from his drug-den urban-core apartment in the infamous Stevens Square section of Minneapolis. Here’s what he wrote (unedited) to a local artists’ forum back in early February, during the coldest part of what has amounted to the coldest winter in Minnesota in the past 15 years:

looking into renting a weekly room for awhile. luck seems to have run out. was inevitable i suppose. strange how i can’t get a job. i’ve always been curious as to what my character would become reaching complete desperation… what i will be reduced to doing, simply to survive a little longer… my instinct to survive is mercenary at rock bottom.

I should back up a bit.

I first met Gabriel Combs in 2003 or 2004. I had been writing for a website in Minnesota run by the Walker Art Center and funded by the McKnight Foundation called Mnartists.org, which also had—in an effort to connect the local community of artists—established an open forum for artists. I, of course, with my interest in community affairs, my Gen-X lack of online savvy, and my infernal optimism, have been a regular contributor, participant, and watcher of the Forums since they were mounted.

I also, in 2002, founded a local arts writer association called the Visual Art Critics Union of Minnesota, and, around 2003, I set up with the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts a lecture series called the Trialogues, in which we connected a local art critic/writer with the artists exhibited in each of the MAEP’s exhibitions.

Long story short, I met Combs at one of my favorite venues (a bar) after an early Trialogue event—back when I was pushing the events to any and all comers. I remember him as being smallish, but strong and wiry, full of the angry energy of a disciple of the Juxtapoz movement, and I’ve had a kind of ongoing “connection” (for lack of a better word) with him through the online forums ever since. As I recall, he had brought a small drawing (of a techno-beetle done in graphite on paper), that he made a point of passing around the bar table to see how the critics would react. (I kept my cards to my chest, as I was the nominal organizer of the event and had to remain political; but let’s just say here and now that I’ve never really been much of a fan of the acolytes of Robert Williams…)

Needless to say, Combs and I haven’t always gotten along. Let’s face it, I’m an opinionated arts writer, and he was an artist struggling to get noticed in a market overflooded with artists. It was inevitable that I’d eventually be the target of his frustration—if only because I stupidly kept myself in proximity. At one point, after something I wrote that only indirectly concerned him ca. 2006, Combs wrote the following gut-clenching diatribe against me on the mnartists forums (which I post primarily because it reveals, I think, something essential about the artist):

I think you need to be called on your shit. So far, i’m up to Sam Spiczka, Ben Olson, and John Grider whose comments could’nt be posted on your blog, which you say you did’nt pull down in a hissy fit, yet I think we all know better. The hypocrisy of how you complain about artists whining about not being noticed is sad, and at times a blot on the (or clot in the) scene. In contrast, a general rule i’ve heard repeated over the years has been that it takes around ten years for many collectors to acknowledge artists. Judging by the time you arrived in MN, got in the MIA’s foot in the door show, and then bailed from showing your visual art, you are what? At one third of that time? Another example of your long history of not getting what you want and getting negative. I would’nt bring these things up, but you insult other people who refuse to give up. You speak of artists harassing you for attention in your columns, which I have personally witnessed, but you asked me for images from the Inkala, Grider, and Combs Caffetto collab show, at which I was first hesitant, but gave in on your *second* request. You proceeded to hack it up in reality, again dismissing the “Juxtapoz” movement, which you’ve been unable to correctly set in history in any way, raising suspicions of yet another acidic kickback from your weaknesses. Your bashing of Olsons’ work was pathetic, (especially in contrast to the glowing and truthful review by Mark Wojahn on mplsart.org, (and you are both VACUM)) with an even more pathetic attempt at tying into a supposed overall flaw in art history. I would call it basic disrespect. Insult without a backup. Your blog came down again after a criticsm by myself, and a statement made by Spiczka on mnartists.org forums that was dismissed and dodged. True, you have given your hand to some decent (not great) writing on the arts the last few years, but also have undermined your own work better than any artist “attack” could by your general bitterness laden with venoumous hypocrisy, child-like behaviour, and your thinly masked pen-names. You’ve alienated the audience, the core peoples who would back you up.

Without you, we exist.

Without us, you do not.

There were worse comments along the way about things I’d written in print. I didn’t take offense (after a locally well-known and respected printmaker wrote, in a letter to the editor, that he’d like to smash my head in with a brick, I long ago stopped caring what local artists say about me for what I’ve written as a critic). I never responded. So why, you wonder, would I even care about such an erratic and unstable artist now—now that he’s about to be out on the street, primarily due to his own choices?

Well, if I don’t care about the self-destruction about one lowly artist in one insignificant American backwater town, then who will?…

TO BE CONTINUED…