ON THE ARTIST LIVING IN OBSCURITY by Gary  Crandall

There was a movie called Il Posto (The Job) made during the European New Wave era. It was about a young clerk rising in the drab confines of a corporate office in Italy. At one point (as I remember it), an older clerk dies and opens up a position in the office. When authorities go to the dead man’s meager apartment to take stock of his belongings, they find stacks and stacks of manuscripts he has written. Labors of love he wrote at night to counter his bleak existence as a clerk. None of his writings had ever found a publisher.
“What should we do with these?” one official asks.
“Throw them out,” is the reply.

Sometimes I feel like that guy.

I’ve spent many years writing screenplays, sending them out, trying to market them… hoping some day to see one on the silver screen. Not one sale.

Realistically, it’s a very tough racket. Tens of thousands of screenplays are written every year. Only a few hundred films are ever made. It’s got to be top-notch for someone to want to invest millions in making it. So the rest… forty-thousand or so, give or take… lie moldering in the closets of despairing screenwriters in shabby, unkempt dwellings.

“Don’t quit your day job,” they say. This is the voice of experience speaking.

I’m not sure how many other Bubblers have nurtured dreams of fame and success in the marketplace. Hoped to be accorded some measure of worth for their artistic efforts by actually being paid for what they love to do. But I would suspect I’m not the only one who has dreamt such dreams… instead of ending up like the clerk in Il Posto.

So how does one come to terms with obscurity? In my case… two words… Small Victories.

Yes, I have come to live with anonymity by finding fulfillment in the process of creation itself. “Against the darkness there is but one defense… the creative act.” Wisdom from the Beat Poet Kenneth Rexroth. Penning a well-turned phrase. Capturing a pleasing image with the click of a shutter. Applying paint to canvas with a beauty that stands on its own. Something you can stand back and say: “Ah, yes! This I can leave to humanity with a sense of pride. My love letter to the universe.”

And in my most Zen moments I ask: “What does fame and fortune get you anyway?” (other than that nice Lamborghini I’ve always wanted). Fame is basically an ego-fix. As we’ve seen from the supermarket tabloids, it alters one’s personality. Lives turn brittle and restless with dissatisfaction. Rehab facilities thrive on the rich and famous. And who needs that horde of jackals snapping photos of you every time you go to the store for a Twinkie.

Small victories. I store them in my memory. Fill scrapbooks with moments I can savor. Like Marcel Proust, I have turned memory into an art form. Small, intimate details that are mine to keep. Lovers… voyages… fantasies. These are the essence of our days.

And Red Bubble. That is a small victory, too. A global village of fellow artists who strive for some kind of perfection in their art… exploring ways to express their vision. Offering kind words… sharing their experience… knowing they are not alone. And even achieving a bit of fame within this cyber world… becoming not quite so obscure as one may have thought.

— Gary Crandall