Should I Quit My Job?

Should I quit being an artist?  Should I shut down Stick Vega and start a new company? I have a million ideas.  Which one should I do first?  Maybe I should do more than one thing?  What if I’m too busy?  What if they fail?  What if I’m watching too much football? Indecision kills.

And then there’s the election.  Oh man, what are we going to do about that?

Work for Bernie?  Now there’s an idea. I wonder if he likes exploded lillies?

He would be the most artist friendly, I think.

I like friendly artists. 

When I was a kid I always wondered what I would do. Same thing when I graduated from high school.  I just wanted out.  I graduated early and moved to Madison.

I went to college.  Geology was cool.  “Rocks For Jocks” they called it.  

I use rocks now.  They steady my fuses, stencils and blast boards.

So when I graduated college I got a job with Coca-Cola.  They taught me stealing was good. I thought that was wrong.  I worked there a month.

So I got an MBA.  I got kicked out of a few classes.  Mostly because I said dumb things, that actually sort of made sense.  At one point I told all my classmates to write down their name and address because they would never work for me.  That was mean.  Sister Helen was pissed! I got kicked out.

Why are Republicans so mean?  Maybe they should get kicked out.

Trump, seriously?  Wake up people.  Vote for Kanye!

So I went to work for WinterSilks. I helped it grow. Then, when we were in trouble, I bought it. We made good products. We were honest. We were successful. We went bankrupt. We paid everyone back. We worked hard. We were successful again. 

I worked hard. The people I worked with worked really hard. I was tired.  I sold it.

Some days it was fun. Some days sucked.

Like being an artist.  

Some days when I get to The Blast Factory I want to scream at the blank canvas.  Why? It never did anything to me except present an opportunity.

You probably feel the same way about your own work.

I get it. Being an artist is hard. You have to self promote. And, do cool work. (See, I'm self-promoting.) Sometimes it’s a while between paychecks.

But I go back to the basics. We have too much violence. I use as much gunpowder as I can to take it away from those who kill.

Quit being an artist? No way.

Maybe I'll work on lillies for 30 years. Like Monet.

I love my job.  Light the fuse.

Stick Vega is the American Gunpowder Artist and author of LESS KILLING. Stick currently lives and creates explosive pop art at The Blast Factory in Madison, Wisconsin. Not limited to one medium, he works in gunpowder drawings and paintings, photography, digital art and writing. Follow Stick on Facebook and/or Twitter.