granted, I'm, only 36, and it's sort of weird to say out loud, but I've been retired now for over 5 years... for 8 years i worked in a gallery in Boston, the best contemporary art gallery, i was the director for about 5 or so years. it was fast paced, glam, crazy,and i loved every minute of it. i decided i wanted to be in the art world when i was a sophomore in college, after my second art history course, i just fell in love and never looked back. i spent 2 semesters away from college (union college in Schenectady, NY) interning in the art field. fall of my junior year in London, (my favorite city, i would move there in a minute) where i worked in a contemporary gallery. they hated my English accent and gave me voice training lessons before they let me loose on the phones, it was priceless... such a life altering experience
senior year my best friend from high school and college (i was so lucky, she was with me at both) and i went to new york, for our "life in the big city" experience... i worked at the Whitney Museum as well as a research assistant-for an art critic who was writing a book on Jackson Pollack (i was put in charge of collecting the 411 on how Jackson Pollack was connected with Communists, it was during the MacArthur trials) such rich experience. really, those two years cemented my knowledge that i was heading for a career in the right place for me, the art world was a great fit for me. i loved the combo of culture, politics, sociology (my other major), people and obviously i was gaga over the art. i could not get enough of looking at art... so working at a gallery was a riot, kind of like getting paid for my hobby:) but, believe me, it was real, hard, career stuff. i felt so lucky to have that job and i had the most amazing boss. she is famous and rightly so, has the best personality, every woman wants to be her and man wants to be her best friend...
i loved meeting/seeing all my regulars of the collectors who would come by on Saturday to see the monthly exhibitions, check out any new work we got in, or in lots of cases, we would be working directly with a client to address the needs for their personal collection, be it finding thing to purchase at auction or searching out a blue chip artist such as a Warhol print they are looking for such as a "Marilyn Monroe" image to add to their collection." whatever, i loved the work with clients. particularly when i went to their homes, sometimes it was because they wanted me to get a sense of the room, or a feel for what would work, what they already had, i.e. the "personality of their collection" and what would work... often, i swear i spent more time hauling furniture around and doing room make-overs then hanging art sometimes!
anyway, after over 7 years of doing this and rising to the director with a staff of 4 reporting to me, it became a real challenge to keep up my days which consisted of meetings with clients, at their homes as we previously talked about or at the gallery, where i would show them work and often that could take hours, which for me was so much fun. but, as time wore on and i became sick it was hard to be on my feet for long periods and seem perky, etc...
i had to keep up with the correspondence with clients as a result of the meeting i had with them and what images, slides, newspaper articles about the artist i had promised to send them, etc...
not to mention the other end, dealing with the artists, helping them deal with their new work, selling it, or not selling it and feeling guilty.
throughout me whole tenure at the gallery, i was so, so lucky to have a boss who was someone who was way more then just my boss. she was my mentor, the person i aspired to be like one day and looked up to for good reason. she has such a way with people that to this day i have not found any other person like her. she was my friend, my teacher, my confidant, and my shoulder to lean on as i dealt with a diagnosis of lupus - she could not have been more supportive.
one story that illustrates her is how she showed up at my first hospital stay with a special down filled little pillow and beautiful cover that made my bed instantly glam. she is like another mother for me and i will never forget the impact that she had on my life. ,
i was lucky. i know that so many of you are not and your bosses are not supportive and that sucks. i was so lucky to be able to arrange my hours as in got sicker and work out a part time schedule. i know that many of you do not have that option, but i urge you to go to HR if your company has one and see if there is a flex plan available so that you can premptively rest, which is the KEY to working with an illness. i will definitely write more about that later, i have so many strategies about working while dealing with an illness, taking up brain space that i will write them down soon...
i digress, back to summing up my "life/work story."
unfortunately, 4 1/2 years after my diagnosis i had to retire. it was a very long and torturous road to that decision, believe me. i tried working part time, coming in for only a few hours at a time, often i would be out of the gallery for months at a time after i was in the hospital with a flare, but i kept at it, hoping to make it work. it was my dream job, i couldn't believe that i had it so early in my life, but ultimately i just couldn't make it work...my dr. and i decided that for my health it was the best decision to leave and focus on it... at that point in my life if was THE MOST DIFFICULT decision i had ever made. walking away was so sad and the only way i could handle it was sort of by going 'cold turkey" and still to this day, i can't really be in the gallery, or any gallery for that matter, without thinking about the career that i had to walk away from.
i try so, so, so hard not to complain and be all "why me, poor me-ish," but the yucky fact that having to live with all these chronic illnesses cost me a career that i loved, is really sad and believe me, i did lots of mourning over it. but, ultimately it was an extremely smart decision. now, when i have a bad day (pretty much daily,)i can sleep and deal with it and i don't have the heinous guilt of having to call the gallery and tell them i wouldn't be able to be in that day. while i knew that they understood, it killed me to do it and whatever i was dealing with physically that day, i added an ulcer from the stress of worrying about what was going on at work while i was gone...not that they couldn't handle it, of course they could, but the guilt of letting people down, is the worst, worst thing for me to do. that is what stops me from being able to do any "work stuff," as i just don't know how i am going to feel on any given day when i wake up, let alone in the afternoon!
fortunately this disease gives me lots of practice in confronting this issue! how very, yes i go to see my shrink once a week of me!!!
ok, enough about me, I'm sorry i went on so long about my old career, but as you can see, i still miss it.
thanks for listening, take care,
Jules