Here's my little art booth set-up, on Hollywood Boulevard, near Highland, last December. The skateboard decks are my Sharpie drawings mounted on skate decks, which turned out to be the best form of art to catch people's attention, and to actually sell there. The big white tent on the left is on Hollywood Blvd. itself, that was part of the set-up for the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie premiere.
So the plan was...
When you're homeless, like I am right now, the main priority is just surviving day to day. When not doing that, over the last year, I've worked to draw my unique Sharpie "scribble style" drawings, and promote and sell them online, and in person on Hollywood Boulevard. As I struggled through the chilly and rainy winter, I looked forward to this spring. The general plan was to simply survive the rainy season, then focus on selling my artwork mounted on skateboard decks on Hollywood Boulevard during afternoons and evenings during the spring and summer. Then I'd do my blogging, social media, and promotion in the mornings at McDonald's or the library, to sell what I could online. As I did that, I'd start spending one day every week taking my art around to galleries and other art happenings in L.A., to show off my work, and see what opportunities that might lead to. Between all of those, I was pretty optimistic that I could be making enough money to rent a weekly room by mid summer this year. That was the general plan. But, as we all know, things never go as planned.
And then the Covid-19 pandemic hit American shores. A couple weeks of rainy weather in March, and confusion about the virus, led to the business shutdown. That killed the tourist industry in Hollywood, for good reason. The thousands of tourists on Hollywood blvd. that I planned to sell a few art skate decks to, were gone. So selling art in person went out the window.
At the same time, all the art galleries were shut down, and art shows are not happening now. Obviously, this affects artists at all levels, not just me. Visual artists, musicians, and the whole TV/film industry in this area shut down, along with most businesses nationwide. This hit everyone hard, as we all know.
In my case, this whole pandemic mess happened right at the time period I was looking forward to good weather, and a chance to finally promote my art here in the L.A. area, and likely make enough money to finally get a room, and start getting back to making a "real" living again. So that was a bummer.
Instead, most of the bathrooms I use (restaurants, the library) closed down overnight. Yeah, that becomes a serious issue real quick. The places I did most of my drawing (fast food restaurants) closed. As I mentioned, the place I could set-up a "booth" and sell art in person, Hollywood Boulevard, near Highland, lost all the thousands of daily tourists, shutting that source of income down. The place I charged my laptop and phone, the local library, and did most of my blogging, social media, and other art promotion, the local library, it closed, too. Pretty much everything I relied on day to day, to survive and work, as a homeless small business guy, shut down. That hit like a baseball bat to the gut.
While the majority of people, including all of you readers, I imagine, were "sheltering at home," I was wandering the streets, searching to basic necessities to simply survive. Bathrooms. Places to clean up. Places to get out of the rain and cold. Places to charge my laptop and phone. Places to draw, blog, and work. Like everyone else, I was adapting to a new, crazy set of circumstances, REAL QUICK. I honestly didn't think could survive a month of business and public building shutdowns. I'd lived nearly 12 years in various forms of homelessness up until then, nearly 4 years fully on the streets, and I'm pretty damn good at survival at this point. It seemed that crazy, at first. I honestly thought I would not survive March and April. It looked that bad when the Covid shutdown hit.
Luckily for me, a couple of people asked me to do drawings, which helped tide me over. I signed up for food stamps, which helped me eat and survive. And some friends, and blog readers, have sent me a bit of money now and then, which has helped me survive. So thank you to everyone who has helped me. It made a huge difference. Obviously, I'm still here.
After those first couple of orders, the orders for art dropped to almost nothing, and my already limited income dropped to almost nothing. As tens of millions of people have been laid off, and tens of millions struggle to simply pay rent and everyday bills, it's obvious art sales won't be a major source of income for quite a while. I started focusing on selling my artwork 4 1/2 years ago, because I couldn't find ANY job, where I was living in North Carolina. I was never trying to become a famous artist, my Sharpie art was simply the only thing that made me any money. So I doubled down on it, and it's kept me alive since. But not much more than that.
So I'm looking for other options, thinking up some more practical ideas to earn money in the future. I have a writing project I'm working on. I'm still drawing, I'll keep doing it, I love doing it. But I'm adapting as best as I can since art sales are lagging, like most everything else these days. But I'll keep plugging away and being creative... Onward!
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