Y'all, the nonprofit arts orgs are not ok. I just accidentally fell down a ballet YouTube rabbit hole because I needed to destress... I was accidentally doing barre stretches for 90 mins. It's 11 pm. This evening my boss (and her co-manager who isn't my boss but IS an asshole) were awkwardly hovering at the exit to my office to force me to leave because they know I'm stressed and they're probably worried I'm about to quit because I had put in a 12 hour day, forgetting to eat.
I mean. To be fair, if that motherfucker interrupts me in the middle of a sentence one more time, I might. I've quit jobs for smaller offenses, but until 6 months ago, I loved this one.
And I think my coworkers are in the same boat. In the last 5-6 months we've all been on the edge, it's just my turn.
We take these jobs with the understanding that we'll have the flexibility to make our art outside of the day job parts of our work (sometimes taking up time during the regular Monday-Friday) ... and realistically the job doesn't pay enough, so it's a decent trade off. Until such time as there's not enough time for that.
We know we'll have busy weeks or months, but they should be tempered by the weeks and months that AREN'T. The times when we take breathing space to make art or work other paying gigs.
But as the funding (at least in the States) dries up for the arts, we MUST do more, reach further, host extra events, collaborate, EXTEND. But we're the same seven people, underpaid, overworked, trying to balance the admin with the soul of it all ona shrinking budget with higher costs.
And we're increasingly not ok. It's not what we signed up for. Every day, there's less art. Every day, it's less of what we love and more sucking up to the right rich guy. Every day, we watch our colleagues descend into The Stress ™️ and hope we're not next. We ask what we can do to help, knowing that it's more work to explain than to DIY.
And every day we wonder if it's worth all this. And we get closer to saying "no."
Today? Today, I'm a hell of a lot closer to saying "no."
I'm also fuckin sore because I accidentally did 90 mins of ballet stretching on a hyper-extended knee at 11 pm, but at least I think I can close my eyes and sleep tonight because I'm not clenching my jaw. And when I force myself to stop clenching my jaw, my shoulders don't tense. And when I force myself to stop tensing my shoulders, my abs don't tense. Etc, etc, etc.
Check in on your nonprofit arts friends in the States. We're not ok.
