{January 2019} Why I live in a Van Part II
Greetings, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I absolutely love this holiday above all the rest. What an opportunity to re-build yourself, kick old habits, and motivate yourself to reach your goals. So, speaking of the New Year, around this time last year is when I had officially bought a van and began traveling. A year prior to that, I had started a dream wall in my apartment. What in the hell is a dream wall? A dream wall is a place where there are NO limits. It’s holding space for possibility and a place where you can write out everything you want to accomplish, even if getting to that point seems impossible. It’s a place for pictures of places you want to travel, people you want to attract into your life, and well, your dreams.
In 1985, a broke and depressed Jim Carrey drove his old beat-up Toyota up the Hollywood hills. There, sitting overlooking Los Angeles, he daydreamed of success. To make himself feel better, he wrote himself a check for 10 million dollars for "acting services rendered," post-dated it 10 years and kept it in his wallet. He made that money later in life. When you write your goals down, you make them tangible. Something that you can hold on to and reference back to when everything seems like it’s going in the wrong direction. I still keep a dream wall in the van. I always want my goals looking back at me when I wake up in the morning. I want to read them out loud before I even take a piss. That way, I know in my heart, they will happen. Luck has nothing to do with it. I make my own reality and I manifest the type of life I want to live. You can too.
Picking up where I left off in the last newsletter….
As I mentioned, I wanted my art to be BIGGER. I became fascinated with mural art. I started reading about other mural artists and following their work obsessively. I wanted to paint big, I just didn’t know how. Murals can be extremely intimidating. Not only are they large in scale but also your unfinished work is on display for all to see, like an open wound. At this point in my life I had started a few new jobs. I was teaching yoga and zumba which I loved, but I still wasn’t able to make ends meet. I still felt so stuck living paycheck to paycheck. Then something extraordinary happened. Well, two things really. The first thing that happened was that my best friend tagged me in a post on Facebook. The post was a call to artists. Muralist John Pugh was looking for help painting a mural in Minneapolis. As soon as I read the post my heart began to beat quickly. I sent him a message asking him to call me, and he did…
He told me the internship was unpaid and my heart stopped fluttering long enough to sink. There was no way I could take that much time off work and pay my rent too. I told him I’d think it over and call him back. Then the second thing happened. The next morning I woke up to a note from my roommate. She said she was moving out in two weeks. They say when one door closes another opens, but in this case it flew open. Here were my options.
1, Find a new roommate
2. Find a new apartment
3. Pack all my shit in my car and head to Minneapolis
There was a dumpster in the alley right behind our apartment. I threw everything I owned in that dumpster. In one short week, I had quit all three of my jobs and I was destiny bound. I spent the next few weeks learning the ins and outs of mural painting. I set up and tore down supplies, I mixed paint, and I froze my ass off on scaffolding. It felt like I was suddenly living someone else’s life. Everything changed so quickly. At the end of the internship, I was homeless. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Now at this point I didn’t have the van, only a car packed with what had survived the dumpster. I headed to Wisconsin after finding a place to stay on an app called couch surfer. The house where I stayed had an empty wall that I stared at for three days before I mustered the courage to ask to paint it. I realized as I was painting that I had painted in two states, Minnesota and Wisconsin. “I might as well paint a mural in every state,” I said to myself. It was this day that America paints America was born. I would need a home on wheels. I worked in Milwaukee for three months and saved six thousand dollars for a van that I scoped out in Indiana. I’ve been on the move ever since. That was one year ago this month. I’ve painted murals in six states (edit: currently 11). People ask me if I set up murals before hand, but I think it is important to feel a place out before committing to painting it. For this reason, I don’t know much about my next mural. Only that it will be better than my last. If you missed my December newsletter, Why I Live in a Van Part I, you can follow this link to get the full story.
https://www.artbyamerica.com/will-paint-for-food/2018/11/30/december-2018-why-i-live-in-a-van-part-i
My best advice for this New Year is to write your goals down on paper and make them tangible. Set goals this year. What brings you joy? What situations or relationships are holding you back? Write your goals down so that when John Pugh calls, you’ll be ready to pack your shit and GO!
Also, my birthday is January 30th! Would you mind, for my birthday sharing the link below on your Facebook page?
https://www.artbyamerica.com/will-paint-for-food/2019/1/2/why-i-live-in-a-van-part-i
I love you all. Thank you for your ongoing support and interest in my mission. Please comment below any feedback or feel free to email me directly through my website.
Here is the mural I worked on in Minneapolis with John Pugh
