Q&A with Justin Heazlewood
Justin Heazlewood – AKA The Bedroom Philosopher – talks about his rogue self-help book.
In Funemployed, you look at the actualities of being a working artist in Australia. Can you tell about your motivation to write this book, and how the process unfolded?
I was down and out! I was thousands of dollars in debt from an overly ambitious Melbourne Comedy Festival campaign. I was bitter and burnt out and hadn’t been enjoying live performance for a couple of years. I was suffering social media anxiety and felt resentfully self conscious on trams. I was having coffee with Martin Hughes from Affirm, the one publisher who had taken particular interest in my self-published book The Bedroom Philosopher Diaries when he said, ‘So… Do you have any ideas for another book?’ Grey-faced and slouched, I replied, ‘Someone should write about what it’s like to be an artist in Australia’. And there you go. As I say in the introduction, I needed to do an emotional audit and travel back in time via writing and deduce at what stage I let the business of my art ruin the pleasure of creating it. I unleashed my black box recorder, with jokes.
I spent a few months working on it full-time, and soon got into a 9 to 5 rhythm. I read everything I could and interviewed as many people as possible. My first two drafts were ripped to shreds, (damn cat) and also by my editor (‘Why am I reading this?’) – so that was a big learning curve. I was happy to listen to my editor’s advice as I’d never written a book like this one before. I nailed it (and myself) on the third draft by warming up the tone and being a bit less cynical and abrasive. There’s nothing like sitting in a small room with your editor while the publisher says, ‘I know the author is in the room, but how would you describe their voice - would you say they are likable?’
You mention interviewing as ‘many people as possible’ which turned out to be over 100. I’m interested in whether a common theme emerged immediately, or if you found that experiences were widely varied?
A common theme was that we are all in the same boat (alas, not a yacht, as visual artist Lyndal Walker emailed me). Everyone, at all levels, are battling away and holding their credit cards close to their chests. Artists I spoke to fanned out the peacock tail of their frustrations, whether it be the hand-to-mouth financial predicament, or the Circus Oz-grade work/life balancing act. I reckon just about everyone is feeling like they’ve fucked up somehow as well – that’s the nature of the beast – you can never live up to your own ‘catch-all’ expectations, right? Also, a lot of artistic failures are suppressed, (debt, grant rejections, poorly attended shows) which only act to amplify the trauma. That said, we work very hard and are passionate and determined. A common theme was the frustration of not learning more small business skills at art school. Also a self-loathing of selling oneself, which is a hell of a catch-22. Imagine committing to a difficult lifestyle to express your humanity, and then essentially denying that identity while punishing yourself for choosing that lifestyle! We put the ‘carer’ in career.
The book has been described as a ‘rogue self-help book’ – can you tell us how it works?
It has little to do with Rogue from X-Men, although a new X-men movie is about to come out, and Rogue is a mutant whose special power is: Absorption of memories, skills, and powers through skin-to-skin contact. You could argue that artists are society’s mutants, inflicted with a similar power. During their career a writer, musician, performer, dancer, photographer or visual artist will absorb a torrent of criticism, praise, fear, doubt, success, failure, jealousy and bitterness. How do they do process this raw emotional data without turning into a neurotic freak? A good question. You require many skills and techniques, some of which I outline in my book. Funemployed has plenty of practical advice, from embracing Excel so you can formulate a budget, to writing your fears down in a journal so you can sleep better. Like Rogue, Funemployed is a mutant of a book – it’s a traditional memoir fused with journalistic non-fiction with a hearty dose of advice. I wanted it to tick all the boxes and give the most three-dimensional portrait of this truly complex industry! The arts onion has many layers, it’s a bulb that is good for your blood and makes you cry!
If you were compiling a must-read list for other Australian artists, what are some books you’d include?
Centrelink has a range of helpful pamphlets including ‘How to disappear completely’ and ‘So, you want to work in hospitality?’ Books about Australian artists are rare - The Divided Heart: Art & Motherhood talks about the ‘double life’ of the artist mother – but there are parallels to be drawn between anyone trying to hold down a day job and a dream job. The Artist’s Way is still the go-to self-help book for artists from the 90’s, and is one of the only texts I’ve read dealing with taboo topics such as the perils of fame and jealousy (you do have to wade through some pseudo-religious American nonsense.) For writers, the Emerging Writers Festival ‘Reader’ series is fantastic, and most are available from their website. I thought Mark Seymour’s “Thirteen Tonne Theory” was one of the few memoirs that really opened up about the industry side of things – it’s surprisingly poetic and funny.
