HOW I PAINTED MYSELF OUT OF A CORNER AND MADE A LIVING AS AN ARTIST
by Zephora Haddon, as recalled by Salvatore Principe
After several months, and my father rightly challenging the soundness of my choice, I had to figure how to do ‘this thing’ that I now loved so much in a way that made me a living. I began by using “the city” as my resource once again, this time as my own gallery. I’d carry pieces of sculpture and later canvas’ through the streets – propping them against trees, the sides of buildings, whatever. I’d make a lot of sales this way, blurting out prices I guessed the client might want to pay. I’d also stand back and watch people viewing my pieces and examine their reactions, feeling out what they gravitated towards. I was quite fortunate in that what I created was mostly well-received, I was never forced to deviate far from what I was drawn to create in order to make a buck.
I learned I had to get gutsier and make bolder moves – my first big-break taught me this. I, one day, grabbed my portfolio (snapshots of my sculpture’s and paintings taken in my bedroom) and politely talked my way into the Visual Manager’s office at Bergdorf and Goodman’s. I left an hour later with a one-week contract for my new pieces, giant relief’s, to be placed in every window of this prestigious department store. They ended up extending the period another week, paying for a truck to deliver them to Sacks Fifth Avenue where they complemented another display for two MORE weeks – and then the entire collection was bought by a passer-by. Sacks paid to have the pieces brought to the clients’ home.
When my mother died of ovarian cancer, about five years into my “career”, I had to pick myself up the way she had taught me. It was the hardest time of my life and I had to get out of the city. Moving to Delray Beach, Florida gave me access to the wealthy
I was around six or seven when I recognized that my mother was a klutz. It wasn’t that she broke things or dropped things as much as she herself would trip and fall – mostly over seemingly invisible objects. My mother Anita was a classic beauty, always impeccably dressed, yet I recall more than one instance walking with her along Madison, heading to lunch at ‘Eat’ and she would just fall over. Once she even fell out of the passenger side of the car as my father turned the corner; she had inadvertently pulled on the door handle. She lay there in the street unhurt, unembarrassed and unashamed and laughed hysterically with the totality of her tiny frame. This is how she was every time: she would pull herself up, still laughing, and my sisters and I would join in - the bond of love thick between us - and me in wonder at how she wasn’t embarrassed by her public spectacle. As a boy this amazed me, as I knew I would have been mortified. This lesson in resilience with a positive attitude is what has made me the artist I am today.
Deciding to become an artist was exactly that: a decision. It was absolutely the only profession I could think of that fulfilled my two requirements: to bring me enjoyment in decades to come and to be able to be my own boss.
Without ever taking an art class, hell I hadn’t even graduated from high-school, I had little idea of how to begin. Using “the city” as my resource I grabbed up found items, paper mostly, and took great satisfaction in shredding, tearing, painting, and fusing them into shapes that were pleasing to me. In this process I came upon the works of Louise Nevelson, my first hero, who would forever top the list that would later include Rauschenberg, Warhol, Johns, Pollack and de Kooning.