“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Sometimes I fear that I’m the only almost-thirty-year-old who still doesn’t have an answer to that question. Is this uncertainty uncommon?
When you’re small and an adult asks you “What do you want to be when you grow up?” everyone smiles at your answers. A truck-driver, you say. They laugh. Why do you want to be a truck-driver, little so and so? Because I like roadtrips. Oh, that’s so cute! What else do you want to be?
But when you’ve grown, the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” changes to “What do you do?” And when you take a few minutes to consider your answer, no one’s really smiling anymore. In that moment, a couple years out of grad school, after drifting from one forty-hour-a-week job to the next, you’re wishing you had stuck with one answer to that question when you were a kid and clung to it your whole adolescent life. Because then maybe you would have pursued the necessary route to success—gotten the degree, the internship or apprenticeship, the entry-level position—maybe you wouldn’t hesitate when someone asks you “What do you do?” Maybe you’d be on the right track, if there is such a thing.
Last night I watched a movie called Away We Go, co-written by Dave Eggers. The two main characters (Maya Rudolph and John Kasinski from The Office) wonder if they’re fuck-ups because they’re thirty-something and they live in a house with a cardboard window. Their wanderings take them to Madison, Wisconsin, where they visit another couple (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton). Both are portrayed as over-the-top, slightly neurotic hippies. The question is posed: “What do you do?” and a scathing answer follows: “You mean, what do I do… for a living? You mean, what do I do to make money?” This scene clicked for me (even though it was seeping with sarcasm). Why do people identify so much with their jobs?
So instead of asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up and expect them to offer occupations as answers, I wish that people would be more specific, like “What do you want to do to earn money?” Or, better yet, “What do you want to be like?” Because isn’t that what we’re asking?
This next interview presents an artist who has chosen not to settle for the typical forty-hour-a-week job, who instead has taken a creative approach to life and this idea of making a living, despite the struggles that accompany her choice…
TG: I thought we should start with the question, if you could, of what creativity means to you.
SE: What creativity means to me. By Sarah Ervine, age twenty nine and two weeks. Creativity is the essential thing about being human. In our culture we have this mystique about being an artist… and that’s something that’s waaaay out there, something that ordinary people couldn’t do because they haven’t received the divine fire. The muse hasn’t spoken to them. And I think that’s a lot of bullshit. I think that humans were made to create. We’re supposed to bring that creativity to whatever we’re doing, whether it’s selling tea or selling insurance or cooking a meal, whatever it is I think you’re supposed to do it with creativity and do it with joy if you can possibly manage it.
TG: How do you enter into this world of creativity? Since you believe it’s something that anyone can access…are there any particularities to your creative process?
SE: Do I have a process? What is my process. I wish I could say that I have visions or the muse really speaks to me, except I don’t believe in the muse. Mostly I believe that you show up, and that you’re faithful to that work, whatever that work is, and you just do it. My inspiration comes from the natural world, paying attention to the people around me, it comes from listening to people’s stories. And that’s true whether listening to people’s stories is a painting about someone’s grief of losing a child, or if it’s paying attention to a new idea for making chili. It’s the act of intentionally listening to the world around you. Of intentional observation. How do these people work? What’s driving them? Why is that bird doing that? What plants are in season? What’s fresh and good at the grocery store? We can go around with our blinders on and always reach for the apples, always treat people like objects to be worked, like vending machines, or we can…you know, there’s that sort of word…maybe it’s not in English…There’s that pre-packaged mentality—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you know, you don’t necessarily want to have a meaningful life changing experience every time you go to the grocery store although that might be fun, but sometimes you’re just there for a half a gallon of milk.
TG: So you’re talking about mechanical numbness?
SE: Yes. In order to function as an artist, to function as the person who as far as I can tell I’m supposed to be, you have to be open to the idea that yes, you could have a life changing experience when you go to the grocery store for your half gallon of milk. There’s really cool stuff happening around you all the time, you just have to pay attention to it.
TG: This act of observing the world around us is something I talked about in the introduction to this series of interviews, and you articulated it well. How does observing the world from Alaska, one of the most extreme places in the US (as far as climate goes), influence your work?
SE: It no doubt affects my art. There’s a quality of light here that I’ve not seen anywhere else in my life. The light here is like nothing else. There’s that wonderful low angle light where the sun rises due south and by ten o’clock the sun’s not even over the shoulder of the mountain and then it comes up and it’s pale pink and gold at the same time and all of the shadows look like they mean something. There’s an intensity and clarity that comes with that sort of light. I went outside for college for four years, and the thing I missed most was the light. Partly because I was in Tacoma, which is gray, and when it’s not actively gray it’s rainy, and you desperately feel is what you want is to be warm and dry. Can someone please put you in a flat rate box and mail you to the desert?
TG: Do you ever feel isolated working as an artist in Alaska?
SE: I do. There days when I want to say fuck it, I’m going down south. I’m going to move to uh…uh…uh…. Talk about the pathology of place. I love it here so much. I love the culture of Alaska…except for the fact that most of the people in this state are a bunch of conservative nitwits. But I won’t talk politics because nobody needs that…
TG: You mentioned “shadows that meant something” when you described Alaska. There was another point where you said that you were searching for a word but the word might not have been in English. Considering how we need language to describe our experiences in the world, do you suspect there are things you can’t put into words and instead have to express visually?
SE: I think that’s why I paint. But at the same time I’m not a landscape painter, I’m not an “Alaskan style painter.” I think where I wrestle most intently with the Alaskan climate is in my writing and my poetry, particularly because there aren’t words for it, because you can’t do it at all, yet you feel compelled to try and do it anyway. Every since I was little I always thought I would try to do something I was bad at on a regular basis, that it would be a good idea to do something that I would fail at. For a lot of years that’s been martial arts. I’m not athletic; I’m the world’s biggest klutz. But there’s a really important sense of discipline that comes with doing something that’s impossible for you, even if you fail at it, even if you keep failing for years on end.
TG: So you were a wise child…
SE: I was just a weird kid. But I’m pretty hungry for new experiences and I realized pretty early on that there are a lot of things that are easy. I’ve also always been a klutz, but at the same time, I loved running as a child. I have arthritis in my knees and my hips, I have asthma, I have no cardiovascular endurance, but I loved running. It was a valuable lesson to keep trying things, to keep pushing the boundaries to keep doing something I’m bad at, because doing the thing that I’m bad at is good for me.
TG: I’m thinking of this idea of pushing boundaries and extending the talents that come naturally. You said earlier that you believed that you were meant to be an artist. Do you believe that it’s an innate part of your identity?
SE: That sounds counter to what I said earlier, how art is accessible to everyone. Art’s the counter to doing things that I’m bad at. Of the things I do really well, I can sell people stuff. I can cook, and paint, and draw, and I can write. And of the things that I do well, the things that give me the most pleasure, the most joy, are the writing and the painting, and I do all the other stuff to support the bad habits of the writing and the painting. They’re what I live for. It’s being able to take that willingness to listen to people’s stories and make them into something meaningful.
TG: You said you were a good saleswoman, and that you do all the other things to support your bad habits of writing. Being able to market products is helpful in selling your own work, but when you consider what’s marketable, does that inhibit your creativity?
SE: Yes. I don’t think my best work is often marketable, outside of the gallery. Let’s face it. There’s a failure in the market for nude pregnant woman or eight foot long heavy necklaces. That’s the stuff I do for me. At the same time there’s work I enjoy doing that’s [considered] commercial. But when I’m actually doing the work, and I start thinking of it being commercial, I suddenly have this check in my spirit. I lose interest in what I’m doing [if] it’s “only” commercial, but if I can manage to not think about it as a commodity, then I can bring the same kind of intensity and joy in doing what ultimately would, say, look great on a wall at Starbucks.
TG: What are these bad habits of writing that you mentioned?
SE: Bad habits in the very American sense of…I’m a very bright woman, humble too…(laughter) I’m very intelligent, hard-working, and I’m twenty nine and I live with my parents. And it’s not because I’m saving up for a down payment on a house that fits the American dream, it’s because what I’m really good at is painting, and I would rather do that than work a 40-hour week and sit at a desk. I did that for years and I was miserable. There are possibly environments in which I could work at a desk and not be miserable, but at the same time, in that kind of environment, would I be giving that part of me to something else when I should be paying attention to the world that I ought to be painting? So from the North American [point of view] more is better, life liberty and the pursuit of property, or life liberty and the purchase of happiness, then yes, my writing and my painting are bad habits. I’m choosing something that’s antithetical to living a productive American life. It’s a weird tightrope to walk, that line between thinking of myself as an artist, cultivating that part of myself, in a culture that does not understand, that thinks that if I’m going to behave like that I should also be crazy and chop my ear off or be a dead white male.
TG: Or have twenty cats.
SE: I’m allergic to cats unfortunately.
TG: What about this act of expression? Would you choose one form of art over another for certain subjects?
SE: In general for whatever reason, my paintings tend to be more fantastical…I enjoy doing still life’s or styles that are theoretically representational, yet I still get comments about my oil paintings like, “your squash look erotic.” My paintings are funny, for whatever reason, they’re goofy, they’re expressive, they’re joyful and funny and bright, off-the-wall even when I’m trying desperately to stay on the wall, so to speak. For example, I end up painting still life’s with small rubber chickens in them. My poetry in particular tends to be more serious and tied to the natural world. My paintings are more emotional than objective. The cooking is definitely surreal (more laughter).
TG: I’ll remember that if you offer me something to eat.
SE: I think of cooking as an emotional language. I was raised by my father who was the son of Swedish and Irish immigrants. From the Irish side he has all these deep upwelling passions and from the Swedish side he just can’t bring himself to talk about it. Very very very stoic, seriously stoic. And I finally realized in college that if I was always stoic all the time people had no idea what was going on inside. None! But because of the Swedish side of the family you feel that if you’re being really expressive you’re somehow invading other people’s space. So at the age of 19 or so I started practicing having facial expressions in the mirror. (It was drilled into me as a child that it was okay to have feelings but you just didn’t want to let them show.) I’ve gotten better about expressing my emotions, but a lot of that emotional content goes into my cooking, my paintings, my jewelry. The cooking is how I express love or concern and if I’m really upset I’ll bake bread. If I’m really upset with you I’ll go make bread for you, because I can’t stay mad at someone if I’m baking bread for them, I can’t cook for somebody and do it with anger.
TG: If you believe that every action has energy, and that this energy is transmitted into your food or art and thus passed along to someone else, then it’s important to make things with love…
SE: That’s something I deeply and profoundly believe. Food made for you with love is better for you than food not made with love.
TG: I’m thinking of art in that same sense. That if you’re not loving what you’re doing, that some sort of sincerity is lost.
SE: I know I sell things much better if I love the thing I’m selling. I’m much better at selling spices and teas than I am at selling insurance. But ultimately people hear what they want to hear.
TG: I agree with that. And people often see what they want to see at well, so thinking of art as an act of sharing and communication, are you ever concerned that your work could be misinterpreted in some way?
SE: I think that art is something that shocks us out of seeing and hearing what we want to hear and see. I think visual arts or the dramatic arts are some of the most effective ways of getting past that sense of “oh yea, I’m having my biases confirmed again.” People hear what they want to hear, so the job of art is to shock people out of that, shock them a least a little bit, open their perspectives, see a new point of view…
TG: And what’s the value of those things?
SE: The value of those things is that none of us are the only person here. There are six and half billion people on this planet. All of us have stories. All of us grieve, all of us have joys, and the more open we can be to each other’s grief and joy and suffering and happiness…on a strictly functional level, the better it all works… But it’s also a much richer experience to get behind the eyes of somebody else, to see the world through [another set of] eyes for a little while…
TG: Did you challenge yourself with the insurance job or the tea store?
SE: The insurance job was a bad idea… It was a bad idea I kept going at for four years because I’m really stubborn. I learned some valuable things from it. One of them was that I should have listened to my gut and quit the first week. The tea store is a joy. I know very few people who when asked how work went consistently answer, “It was fun.” I’m one of them. I get to help people cook better. I get to help them feed their families. I get to hear about the trials and tribulations of finding authentic Persian ingredients in America…
TG: You just mentioned the word “gut.” I’d like to talk about this idea of instinct or intuition in art. How does that play a role in what you do?
SE: Part of growing up and being a good little stoic Swedish Northern Irish American is a relentless curiosity with just about everything. I’m analytical and logical. This is not something people expect out of an artist. It’s always a startling thing to make that shift from the left-brained intellectual to the severely right-brained intuitive person who communicates symbolically rather than through signals. My favorite professor, in a class called the history of Christianity and the arts, talked about how signals have only one interpretation. Symbols, however, have multiple interpretations and speak with many voices. The left-brained person in me who loves the nitty gritty evolutionary biology is the part that’s content with communicating in signals and just wants to go to the grocery store and get a half gallon of milk. The right-brained person creates something that intuitively communicates a whole range of things to people, and it always startles me when people actually get it. Because to me the right-brained part of me is the weird part. And I think that definitely speaks to the sort of schizophrenic take I have on the fact that I’m an artist who’s almost thirty and lives with her parents. There’s the part of me who shouts, “I’m an artist!” And then there’s the part of me that says, “yea, and you’re almost thirty and you live with your parents.”
TG: I was thinking of this shifting you spoke about, from left to right brain, and I wonder if there’s anything in particular you do to activate that shift, to move into that creative space?
SE: Don’t think I leave the analytical part of my brain behind. A lot of what makes effective visual art is being able to analyze what affects the design. It’s saying, okay, what makes an image dynamic is diagonal visual lines and balanced asymmetry. There’s a part of you that has to know how this stuff works just to make all of the intuitive, creative stuff possible. I have to have a basic grasp of chemistry to be able to make a cake. And even if I don’t have the words for the chemistry, I have to understand how the ingredients work together, particularly if I’m going to write my own recipe. So the left brain builds the foundation for the right brain to play on. I’m not sure it varies by medium so much as how willing I am to engage with it. The stuff I’ve characterized as more “commercial” definitely has more left-brained content.
TG: I just wonder if you’re one of those ah ha! moment artists, an artist who has to wait until they’re “moved” in order to work, or if you think being creative and producing art is just being there, every day, making art a part of your daily routine?
SE: I think you are moved more often if you practice discipline. Whether or not it’s going to be any good, I’m going to do one thing that’s creative today. And then you get better at the ah ha moments, you get better at being moved. I’m a fairly devout Christian and part of what that means is that it’s the practice of my faith. The practice. Faith is something you do. You get better listening to God by listening. And God is more likely to speak to you if you’re listening. I think the same goes with the artistic impulse, “the muse” if you will, though I reject the idea of the muse as a sexist construct… In the midst of all that practice is when you’re more likely to get the ah ha moment of insight. You can’t write well if you’re not writing. You can’t cook well if you’re not cooking. This goes back to what I said about doing things that you’re bad at. You’ve got to be willing to suck. You’ve got to be open to the possibility that what you’re doing might be completely lousy. But the fact that you’re doing it is the important thing. And the wonderfulness will come with time, or the right audience, or whatever.
TG: So that stubbornness, that discipline, is what gets you through the bad times?
SE: Or money. It’s really fun to take commissions. It’s another way of pushing myself, another way of trying to find my way to that place on the boundary where I feel most free.
TG: Is it your goal to some day fully support yourself through art? I ask because some artists say that their passion wavers when they begin to receive payment for it…
SE: I don’t think I ever want to be divorced from the world. I would love to make my living through art. But at the same time I don’t think I’d ever want to be just solely a painter, or solely a writer. And I get so interior that I need more perspectives, I need interaction [with people]. At the same time, if I could provide more of my income by painting, would I take that? Hell yes.
TG: Do you feel like you need those interactions with other people so that your creativity isn’t exhausted?
SE: Yes. And psychologically I think it’s healthy for people to be around others. At least some people…(laughter)
TG: Thanks for showing me your paintings. Earlier when you said that your art was always slightly fantastical, I guessed these weren’t your watercolors hanging on the wall.
SE: They’re my grandfather’s.
TG: So this again brings up the question of adaptation versus inclination. Our innate proclivities to do one thing in life over another. We’re surrounded by your grandfather’s watercolors in this room. They seem to be of a completely different aesthetic, but certainly they must have influenced you?
SE: My grandfather died before I was born, but I grew up with stories about him. He’s the Irish immigrant. As a young man my grandfather went to the art institute in San Francisco. This is back in the 1920s or so. And when he completed the program, he received an offer from a young businessman to work for him. And my grandfather said “No, I don’t see any future in this.” Unfortunately that young businessman was Walt Disney. And my grandfather worked menial labor his entire life. Worked like a dog loading boxcars. And the trade-off is this roomful of his paintings. The trade-off is that he raised a family, and he had his art, too. And that’s that willingness to say “I will have my art on my own terms.” It’s giving into the artistic impulse instead of doing something sensible with your life… That’s what I learned from him.
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this isn’t to incite an argument but i’m going to play advocate for the other side of the thirty-year olds out there…
what is it about our generation that has disconnected themselves from “selling out” (whatever that means) or getting a traditional “job”? it’s almost the same thing you run across with 30 somethings at phish shows: they don’t work, they live for the “moment” or the “Art” or the “music” but fund themselves and live entirely off of society or off of their parents or significant others?
i have no idea if this is the casse with the person you interviewed, but just the whole passage: “I’m a very bright woman, humble too…(laughter) I’m very intelligent, hard-working, and I’m twenty nine and I live with my parents. And it’s not because I’m saving up for a down payment on a house that fits the American dream, it’s because what I’m really good at is painting, and I would rather do that than work a 40-hour week and sit at a desk. I did that for years and I was miserable.
i’m a musician that finally had to get a day job because i couldn’t stand bilking off of people or living at home at the mercy of my parents and taking advantage of their household and chairty? does that mean i’m a normal, typical American life after a big house and whatever? not at all.
it’s just very interesting to see people in our generation that have effectively said no to working, no to “establishment” , no to “government” or the rest of society, or INSERT REASON HERE to do what they feel like doing, but hard to justify what they are doing to sustain themselves?
again, i don’t know this person from a hole in the wall. but several times, from someone not working or providing for themselves to mention throughout the article that i will just be “found” or the “wonderfulness” will come with time…is this a generational thing, or did i go back to school all for nought? :)
just musing…sorry if that’s sexist…
First of all, I love your interviews Tara.
“What do you want to be?”/”What do you do?”…it is ingrained in us by parents, teachers, etc. that this necessarily means, as you said, Tara, “What do you want to do to earn money?”
We (Americans) live in a career-centric society that stifles creativity and individuality. With that said, it is important for me to note that I consider the production of wealth to be virtuous. Having a career, earning money, and sustaining one’s own existence are important aspects of life, but those aren’t the only important things. There is more to being human than putting food on the table. We as human beings have the capacity to go beyond simply sustaining life, we can enjoy it. Thus, I ask (myself and others) not “What do you do?”, but “What are you passionate about?” What defines a person is not what they do for a living, what defines a person is what they love about living, what they live for. For some that passion may be channeled through a career, and that’s fine. For others, that may not be possible, their passion may lie outside of any profitable endeavors, and that’s fine too.
adelsig: “Selling out” is sacraficing the integrity of one’s work, creative or otherwise, to the pressures of the outside world, whether it be for popular acclaim, money, acceptance, or otherwise. “Selling out” is abandoning one’s true self in favor of being more palatable to others. Getting a real job and becoming an independent person doesn’t constitute selling out, if someone realizes they can no longer in good conscience live off of the fruits of others labor. Creativity and productivity are not mutually exclusive.
By the way, I’m a 21 year old recent college grad who’s jobless and postulating from my parents’ desktop. These issues are the central struggle of my life right now: Pursuit of passion on someone else’s dime vs. Earning a living.
THANK YOU jordy….much better at explaining what i was trying to feebly explain.
Hey, thanks Jordy and adelsig. Good to hear from you both. I agree: ultimately the gist was to find balance. If being happy means pursuing your passions and earning enough money to get by (without taking advantage of others), then so be it…Like that thought of earning money to live instead of living to earn money. Good luck with your choices, Jordy. :)
When I first graduated from college, I was paralyzed by the fear of what comes next. I had always followed the next logical step in my life (after high school go to college). My problem was that, while in college, the light-bulb hadn’t gone off. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. The world was my oyster but I wasn’t sure where to go. I did the whole move-in-with-my-parents thing while I tried to “find myself.” I was doing the corporate thing when it finally came to me that I really liked being around kids and that I should be a teacher. Teaching is definitely not the most financially rewarding occupation but I’ve found that what it lacks in pay I make for with feeling like I’m doing what I am meant to do.
The life of artistic leisure, of letting someone else pay the bills and all of the other expenses your existence incurs, is only an option for privileged, entitled rich children.
The very fact that this is phrased as a question – do I get a “real job”, or stay an “artist”? – is pretty hilarious. You do realize that the majority of people who don’t live in that magical bubble of privilege can barely dream of the extravagance of such a “choice”, don’t you? That most people have to actually support themselves because nobody else will?
Oh, what a dilemma!
Fazerski, Fazerski, Fazerski…(sigh)
Your obvious scorn(as expressed here and in other article comments) for wealth is a sad and far too common sentiment. Furthermore, your snap judgment of others (you seem very fond of labeling people as “entitled,” doing so on multiple occasions) is quite irratating. Nevertheless, thanks for your input!
What’s also irritating is that I misspelled the word as “irratating” in my previous post.
Moving on, and speaking more generally, “magical bubble” or not, it, in fact, is a choice for some people, thus making it relevant and worthy of discussion; hardly hilarious in my opinion.
Getting back to the interview, I thought Sarah Ervine made several great points, one of which being that you can’t just wait around for strokes of genius, you have to work for them. In her words, “I think you are moved more often if you practice discipline.”
Jordy, please go into further detail on my “hatred of wealth”, with a particular emphasis on why you think it’s a “far too common sentiment.”
Next article: Do I Ride My Pony Or Take My Diamond-Encrusted Helicopter Out Today? Oh, my stomach is churning with the anxiety!
Let me regale you, Fazerski.
To preface my argument I’ve copy-and-pasted the following comment which you (meaning Fazerski) left in response to an article by Jenny Bahn last month. And just to clarify, everything within the brackets was written by Fazerski:
[“I do not know what it’s like to be completely down and out.”
However, you do know what it’s like to be fetid with entitlement and self-delusion.
“When I pass by the same man in the median of the Laurel Canyon onramp, I like to think of him as going back to a box, not a house.”
Do you ever wonder what the man in the median likes to think happens to you when you leave? He probably that your warped sense of privilege detonates like an atomic bomb when you reach Orange County, erasing it (Orange County) forever.]
I think the above quotation along with your comments on this article make it clear that you harbor some sort of hostility toward people who you view as privileged. I characterized it as “scorn,” but apparently that wasn’t a strong enough word as you yourself elevated it to a “hatred of wealth.”
Speaking on the sentiment at large, interpreting people’s attitudes is, of course, unscientific, but I’ll try to provide a few examples of why I think your self-ascribed “hatred of wealth” is far too common.
A country’s legislation typically reflects the current of public opinion (I’m not saying it’s fail-safe), so by examining legislative shifts we can often gain an understanding of how culture and public opinion have developed. Some laws that indicate wealth (and more specifically the principles of capitalism) has fallen into disfavor in the USA are the implementation of progressive-rate income tax, the estate tax, and anti-trust laws in general.
For the record, I usually choose the pony.
First, I would like to say I thoroughly enjoyed interview and the discussion that it triggered!
My college peers still ask the seeded question, ‘What do you do now that you have been out of college for a year?” They are quick to size me up to see if I have matched or surpassed their single-minded endeavors to climb the Corporate Ladder. (Which is the only option drilled repeatedly into us in school.) I excitedly reply, ‘I’m a photographer,’ only to be cast aside by their superior tone of, ‘Well that’s nice.’ Which is usually followed by ‘My girlfriend/[enter ANYONE here] likes to take a lot of pictures too.’ I find myself stammering and blubbering on with explanations with an attempt to make my choices acceptable to their standard. The reality is, instead of living off the wealth of someone else to ‘take pictures’, I have devoted my life to my career and craft. Although I may not make a lifestyle to support diamond-encrusted helicopters, I do support myself.
As a young, aspiring artist it is a breath of fresh air to hear someone agree that art takes discipline and determination to fulfill your true potential! Sitting around and waiting for inspiration (or anything in life) as a hand-out will get you nowhere.
I love that Sarah Ervine discusses the trade-off and balance of an effective artist. ‘So the left brain builds the foundation for the right brain to play on. I’m not sure it varies by medium so much as how willing I am to engage with it.’ I have a business degree trying to make a name and market myself in an artist’s world. I find myself excited and passionate about my work and ‘switching brains’ to figure out how to make it marketable. In all fairness, marketing itself is an art that should be mastered. Then the question springs to mind, ‘Are you really selling out at all?’