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Few of us lead double lives. We go to work. We go home. Work. Home. Workhomeworkhome. The opera. (Just kidding.) Work. Home.
In and out of the office, our career is our passion. It’s also our source of income.
Not so easy if you’re an artist.
Before the fame and accolades come pouring in, an artist has to have a day job. Ernest Hemingway was a newspaper reporter. Greta Garbo worked in a barbershop. Rod Stewart dug graves. Even artists – local ones, too – have to pay the bills.
For photographer Jeremiah Miser, this means working behind a bar. Miser, also known as Flash One, tends bar at Biaggi’s two days a week.
Behind the bar – dressed tidily in black and white – he pours wine, mixes drinks and makes conversation for two shifts on Sunday and Tuesday.
But when he’s not there, Miser can be found with a camera in his hand, experimenting with figurative, architectural and fashion photography and sometimes documenting the local music scene.
“Working in a restaurant does allow me some more freedom and time,” Miser says. “Photography is a passion. I’d love to make money on it someday, but my style of photography is not pretty pictures of flowers. It’s a niche market, and the majority of people who appreciate it don’t have the funds to buy it. And I’m not willing to sell out my art to make money on it.”
For other artists, their 9-to-5 job fits neatly into their art careers.
Megan Mirro, community outreach specialist for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, is also a musician. Together with musician and artist John McCormick, she creates sound sculptures, installations and experimental music with the band Skything.
Her professional connection to the fine-arts community has led to collaborations between her career and her music. For instance, Skything provided the music for choreographer David Ingram’s performance in Fort Wayne.
“My art and my music aren’t two separate worlds,” Mirro says. “I’m able to collaborate in this improvisational way with other arts groups. So it’s not as difficult as people might think.”
Mirro works full time at the museum, traveling to outlying towns to research local arts groups and assist them with public exhibits such as Whitley County’s chalk walk and a photography exhibit at the Garrett Museum of Art. Her job involves a lot of night and weekend hours, which provides Mirro with a flexible schedule.
“That’s the great thing about this job,” she says. “I’ll work extra hours during the week, so if we need to take a Friday off to do a performance in Bloomington, I’m able to.”
OK. So now add a family and a house into the mix.
Ghani Zahir, also known as DJ Polaris from the local rap duo Andromeda and part of the local hip-hop collective Underground Coalition, has been making music for 15 years. He also works full time for Allen County government.
For him, keeping a balance between the two takes a lot of planning.
“Careful, calculated planning,” Zahir says. “Just making sure that the basics are taken care of. You have to carve out days for your art. If you don’t, you’ll drive yourself crazy.”
At the beginning, combining his passion for music and his family was a struggle for Zahir.
“It’s hard to focus on art when you’re thinking that you have to go over to your grandmother’s house and cut her grass, or you have to be at your daughter’s school on this particular day. It’s hard when you have to say you can’t take your child to the park today because you have to mix down an album. I’d never neglect my family, but balance is something you learn over time.”
For eight weeks, Zahir has been recording, producing and mixing “When Worlds Collide,” an Underground Coalition album due in late November. Consequently, he’s been “buried in the basement” every hour he’s had free, he says.
“I remember one specific day I was making egg rolls,” he says. “Cooking cabbage and cutting up carrots, throwing around spices – all while the music was playing. And if I’d hear something wrong on a track, I’d run downstairs, adjust it, listen to it and then run back upstairs and start cooking again. My wife even asked if I could handle it. But it all comes down to the dedication you have.”
