Essay | Let the Career Simmer

Reflecting on the messy beginnings of a creative journey

The year was 2013. I was listening to a variety of indie singer/songwriter types from around the world thanks to YouTube. Young women roughly my age who had done the thing. They were creative and ambitious while I was wearing galaxy print leggings, working at an ice skating rink in San Diego, and picking at the breakouts on my face due to smoking weed, eating ice cream, and almost never washing my face.

The ambition I did have stemmed from years of daydreaming and blind confidence. The only problem was that all that ambition stayed in my daydreams and never made it into the real world.

My energy at the time was frenetic with these spurts of hyper-focused painting. I felt like I needed to move but didn’t know how or where so I started asking anyone around me if they needed help. Thanks to the handyman at the rink, this is how I laid tile in the new locker rooms after work. I learned how to sharpen skates, run the Zamboni (poorly), and even set up the new skate shop from POS system to merchandise displays. I think I hated it.

It was like I was hungry but didn’t really know how to feed myself outside of imagining a feast like in the Robin Williams classic Hook.

Then, somehow, I convinced my boss to let me paint a mural in the ballet room. It was a floor-to-ceiling landscape of Central Park in winter.

After the first few hours on the clock, when my boss saw how much he’d have to pay me to complete the roughly 8’x10’ wall, he decided to offer me a small flat rate and allow me to finish on my off-time (but hurry up, of course). I was more than happy to finish it and have since often undervalued my work financially because it’s just hard to convince the average person to pay for creative work. And frankly, I just enjoy the work, so I’d rather do it than not.

One day, two people from a printing company came in to update the ads you see around the edges of the rink. In my mind, the guy had dark, spiky hair, circa the late ‘90s. I also recall him wearing baggy jeans with maybe a wallet chain and a puka-shell necklace, but he must have looked more normal than that.

With him was a girl my age with hair that would rival Rapunzel’s in length, giant sneakers, and even bigger, gold, hoop earrings. They were better than just gold hoops; they were golden ropes with a lion head in the middle. She was the coolest person I had ever seen.

I showed them to the rink door and where they could put their materials and returned to the cashier’s window. Then, there was just an opening. The store was quiet, my boss wasn’t around, and neither were my coworkers. So I walked back to the printers and asked for a job. I figured it was closer to a career being creative than what I was doing at the rink. He told me to come in on Tuesday for an interview, so I did. He seemed surprised and unprepared. I made him interview me on the spot and then I got the job.

Blind confidence has its perks.

On my first day at the printing company, I sat at the girl with the lion earrings' desk. She was at her brother's wedding, so I was allowed to use all of her things. I think they just didn't want to invest in a new station until they knew I would stick around. The first thing I noticed - there was gold tinsel around the old computer monitor like a lion's mane... who was this girl?

I came to know Cameron very quickly after she got back from the wedding and realized how much more proactive she was in her creative career. She was working on multiple photo documentaries while also being an accomplished (and incredibly talented) photo-realistic artist. I wanted to be more like her—a real artist who practiced every day and worked at their craft for the sheer love of it. Meeting her felt like fate; 2013 wasn’t just the year I met Cameron—it was the year I began my creative career in earnest, setting my ambitions into motion. Cameron was my catalyst.

By 2015, I was working at a talent agency as their media director, doing graphic design, video editing, and whatever else needed to be done for their website and the roster of tribute bands. Cameron and I talked every day and she became my counterbalance. I had an idea and she would say, ‘let’s do it.’ Or she would have an idea and I would say, ‘let’s do it.’ We pushed each other and pulled each other forward as friends and artists.

We had also started a Facebook page called The Art Department where we would share art, music, and videos we thought were cool as a vehicle to also share the projects we were working on together and individually.

I was very into finding artists on YouTube and had collected some real stand-outs like Christine and the Queens, MØ, AURORA, Ella Eyre, and Tove Lo. They were doing the thing.

Hayley Kiyoko’s “This Side of Paradise” was one of the last music videos I shared before we both moved away from posting and focused more on just making things—turns out, we weren’t the influencer type and didn't care to make content over making our own art.

Hayley’s ethereal, dream-pop track resonated perfectly on my playlists alongside the other artists who were singing about knowing and not knowing about themselves or their futures. I just liked being in the company of young adults figuring it out and making art (or music in this case) that felt untethered to anything but themselves. Christine and the Queens’ song “Tilted” (which still hits my Spotify Top Songs most years) is about feeling out of place and being ok with it. MØ’s “Walk This Way” is about stepping to the rhythm of your own drum (literally the lyrics). Ella Eyre’s “Deeper” is about realizing you’re not in the same place as your partner and needing to dig a little deeper.

All these women were talking about figuring themselves out and making great music while they did it. I wanted to be in their company. I wanted their creative ambition to rub off on me. I wanted their drive and hard work to inspire me to do something myself the way Cameron did.

Ten years later, I’m a producer at a creative agency when a coworker shares an article about Hayley Kiyoko’s song and music video, “Girls Like Girls” being picked up at Focus Features as a movie, written and directed by Hayley. My coworker adds, “So proud of you Hayley!”

“OMG, do you know her?” I type back.

Apparently, this is my coworker’s best friend. I furiously scroll backwards across any Facebook page or post I might still have to prove that I shared her music a decade earlier when I was dreaming of being where I am now. As if that would make any difference to their friendship or ours. But the intention was ‘Wow, that’s amazing, tell her congrats because this is years of work adding up and it’s so impressive to see how far someone can go when you just give them time.’

I think I summed it up by sending a photo from my phone of my computer screen of a private YouTube playlist titled, “Spring 2015” with the song nestled in between Phantogram’s “Black Out Days” and “Changing” by Sigma feat. Paloma Faith.

The longer I live and work towards a creative career, the longer I see people I know succeed. This is both inspiring and frustrating.

Here I am, objectively doing the thing. I've painted on the walls of every employer I've worked for (except for one) and have been commissioned by two other companies purely because they saw my portfolio. I've photographed some of the biggest musicians like Post Malone and Carrie Underwood. I worked at events for the Super Bowl and written scripts for fake hotlines that Rian Johnson approved and Natasha Lyonne read. My writing was even called funny by someone who didn't know me! And yet, it still feels like I haven't eaten. I'm still hungry.

Maybe this is just the paradox of creativity: you’re thrilled to see other people succeed—really, I am—but there’s this sneaky little gremlin in your brain that keeps whispering, ‘Cool, cool. But…when’s my turn?’

And 'my turn' for what? I have no idea.

It’s not jealousy. I mean... it is, but it’s more like existential dread dressed in a cardigan, holding a mug that says, ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ telling me to bless my heart as I pat my sweaty forehead and pretend to be thrilled for everyone else, which I genuinely am. Mostly.

But what’s the alternative? Quit and take up bird watching? (Actually, that doesn’t sound half bad.) No, I’ll keep showing up, making things, and weaving together my own weird little quilt of almosts and not-quites. Maybe one day someone will say, ‘I knew they’d go far,’ about me.

Or maybe not, and I’ll just keep going anyway, patting the jealous sweat from my forehead, letting my creative career simmer, acting like it doesn't bother me at all. I’ve made a playlist of some of those songs that still inspire me from The Art Department days so maybe I’ll just play this on repeat until something big happens.