#foreignartists

You seem to be backed into a terrible corner, and I can feel the waves of overwhelmed radiating off you right thru this post. There’s a lot in this question. Let’s unpack this a bit:

A—Self-Esteem: Many many people, and a hell of a lot of artists, suffer from both anxiety and panic attacks. And the ones who don’t, in my experience, have just a hard a time with the opposite end of the spectrum, depression. I don’t even like to call these issues mental illness, because it’s just mental reality. I can tell you, after 4 decades on this earth, that no human I have ever met does not deal with some type of anxiety or depression. When it’s crippling, it is definitely an illness, but everyone has some level of it. You don’t get to be a successful adult without learning a method how to cope with your own mind and emotions. So don’t let the fact that you’re struggling with this eat your self-esteem. Everyone has their baggage. If you figure it out now, then congrats! You’re early! You’ll have less baggage to deal with when you hit middle age.

B—Anxiety and Panic Attacks: There’s 3 levels of dealing with this, and you’re going to have to work through them on separate layers at once, but I find it helps to think of it in artistic terms:     Foreground: Panic Attacks. There are methods to defuse a panic attack as you feel it come on, and they are all variations of first distracting yourself from focusing on your own panic, then taking a step back and looking at what’s happening from a teeny bit of distance. Like “Ok, I’m having a panic attack. I’ve been here before. I will be ok. I can ride this out and I will be fine. Is there a safe place I can stop and chill for a few minutes?”     Midground: How your body copes with Anxiety. Your body can’t deal with an endless time of flight or fight response – because that’s what anxiety and stress is. Your body is processing stress as if it’s in a battle, fighting to survive. And while that’s an important skill in short term, it’s totally untenable long-term. So your body is loading up on as much stress/anxiety as it can possibly take, and when it hits a certain threshold amount, it’s going to ditch it in a giant panic attack, and reset the clock to zero. Now, that’s super fucking inconvenient. Wouldn’t it be better if you taught your body to work through stress when you chose? Not when it chose? There are many methods to do that, but if I were you I would focus on the ones that have a physical component (yoga, working out, martial arts, deep breathing, runs, long walks, etc.) because your body is already dealing with it physically, so it’ll be easier to channel it into some other physical thing.     Background: What’s causing the Anxiety. Now, there’s stress you can reduce, and stress you can’t. Life is really fucking stressful, and while you can certainly reduce some by shifting things in your life, change generally comes slowly over time. There might also be family problems, traumas, or situations like stressful jobs you can’t get out of right now. It might take therapy. Actually, if there is anything you can do to afford therapy (in your case colleges usually have free therapy for students, ask around) then do so. It’s like personal training for your brain and completely ignore any social stigma you think is attached to it. Some of the most successful people in the world go to therapy every week. And I do too. And I will as long as I can afford to. It can help with all of the above. In fact, I’m not a therapist, so anything I’ve said above is just hearsay, and you should listen to your therapist’s advice if you have one. Everybody: if you don’t have one, go see if you can get one.

C) Finishing School: The end of school is scary. Do yourself a favor and try to get any job you can when you’re done. If it’s an art-related job, great. If it’s not, then take it to make ends meet and make art on the side. Keep working on your portfolio and network and making great art, and eventually you will get freelance jobs and/or an art job (depending on what kind of art you are doing). You are still an artist if you need time after school to figure out what you’re doing. Most people do. Don’t stress yourself out even more by insisting your baby art career has to support you 100% as soon as you’re done.

D) International Artists: Yes, people work in art fields from everywhere in the world. Your career does not die if you leave the US/UK. The magic of the internet makes it so everyone can network through social media. Since I don’t know what country you are talking about going back to, and I don’t know what kind of art you make, I can’t make specific suggestions. But there are art jobs in every country, but more importantly, you can freelance from anywhere. As for staff jobs, again, I can’t talk specifically without knowing more about what field you’re trying to get into, but there’s many companies all over the world that use artists. And again, when you’re a freelancer, usually people only care about the languages you can understand, not where you’re physically located.

Whew, that was an epic post, but I wanted to help your seriously stressed question as much as I could. Sending your hugs through the internet. Good luck!

—Agent KillFee

We've already looked at the moon through the eyes of Russian artists — Kramskoy, Aivazovsky, Levitan. Now, let's travel across Europe and America to see how foreign masters saw the very same moon. The comparison turns out to be very revealing!

1. Vincent van Gogh — "The Starry Night" (1889)

The Moon as an Inner Storm.

Van Gogh creates not an image of a celestial body, but a whirlwind of his own emotions. His moon is part of a boiling, unreal cosmos.

· Comparison with the Russian tradition: If for Levitan or Kramskoy the moon is part of nature's harmony or quiet mystery, for Van Gogh it is the embodiment of personal drama and expression. This is a view from the inside out.

2. Albert Bierstadt — "Mountain Landscape by Moonlight" (1871)

The Moon as an Epic Hero.

The American Romantic artist uses the moon to glorify the power and grandeur of the New World's nature. Its light is like a spotlight, heroically illuminating majestic mountains.

· Comparison with the Russian tradition: It's interesting to compare him with Ivan Aivazovsky ("Gibraltar at Night"). Both are masters of the Romantic landscape. But if in Bierstadt's work the moon reigns over unshakable, monumental cliffs, emphasizing the eternity of the land, in Aivazovsky's it reigns over the changeable sea element, illuminating the path for ships. Bierstadt's moon is the grandeur of the land, Aivazovsky's moon is dominion over the sea.

3. Atkinson Grimshaw — "Silver Moonlight" (1880)

The Moon as an Atmospheric Constructor.

Grimshaw is a virtuoso of atmosphere. His moon is cold and precise, transforming the industrial landscapes of Victorian England into frozen, magical scenes. This is the moon as a director, building the perfect composition.

· Comparison with the Russian tradition: Both Grimshaw and, say, Kuindzhi are masters of light. But if Kuindzhi strove for an almost mystical, "otherworldly" glow, Grimshaw, with photographic accuracy, builds the illusion of a real, yet incredibly poetic, moonlight in the city.

So what's the main difference?

Of course, this is a generalization, but it helps to see a trend.

· Russian artists more often see the moon as a co-participant in a lyrical or philosophical experience of nature. The moon "lives" the moment together with the landscape; it is organically integrated into it.

· European and American masters (especially in the 19th century) often use the moon as a tool — to create an epic spectacle (Bierstadt), express an inner world (Van Gogh), or as perfect atmospheric decoration (Grimshaw).