49: Showing Up

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel at the University of Chicago for humanities students who are about to graduate, and who are considering entering the tech industry instead of a more traditional career path for their field of study. I studied linguistics in college and grad school, and for my day job I work in the publishing department for an industrial supply company, a position that is tech-adjacent. I've navigated the territory that they're starting to survey. Most of the students I talked to had the same questions: how do I convince an employer that my educational background is valuable? And how to I find meaningful work?

The meaningful question has always haunted me. I suspect that the real question is "can I do what I love, the way I was trained to do it, and get paid for it full-time?" I won't say that it's impossible, but it's hard enough for artists that the option is off the table for most of us. We're stuck in the in-between, working at least one job to pay the bills and put food on the table, and finding the time for creation in the cracks in between work and obligations and living the rest of life.

Kelly Reichardt's newest film, Showing Up, finds meaning in those in-between cracks. Lizzy (Michelle Williams) is a sculptor preparing for an upcoming show. Life goes on in the midst of her last-minute rush to finish her artwork before the show: her cat needs food, she needs to work her administrative job at the local art school, her hot water's out. She has familial obligations to attend to. Each obligation is a negotiation: how much must she do before returning to her garage studio, and how much time can she spend away from the work that gives her life meaning?

Reichardt doesn't focus on the calculus of everyday scheduling. It's understood that Lizzy has to figure out the details, but we get a sense for her obligations and concerns as they crop up, and we're just along for the ride anyway. Reichardt dwells in the small moments–Lizzy finding materials for her work on the side of the road, an exchange between with another art-school admin about coffee, the unloading of ceramic sculptures from a kiln. As the film unfolds, Reichardt pauses to focus on brief shots of art students around campus: painters, dancers, fiber artists, a life model. The movie's pace is laconic, but not lazy; the pacing is deliberate, spending judicious, precious moments with the denizens of Lizzy's Oregon town. Any sense of urgency stems from the outside pressures of Lizzy's looming deadline, and from her complicated relationship with her landlord Jo (Hong Chau).

Lizzy is a quietly struggling artist; Jo, an art-school classmate of Lizzy's, is by all accounts much more successful. The two clearly care for each other. But where Lizzy has to find time to make her art in between other obligations, Jo is a full-time artist. Jo's shows are grand, the kind that take up space in central galleries, and that have printed catalogs. Where Lizzy has to make room in the midst of the rest of her schedule to sculpt, Jo neglects her property-management duties in favor of her own work. Michelle Williams plays Lizzy with a sense of quiet resentment, an envy that stems from feeling as though she'll never catch up with her peer. Lizzy respects Jo's work, and she's concerned that she'll never be able to live up to her own potential: a potent cocktail of emotions that Reichardt layers lightly on top of her film's slice-of-life plot.

Showing Up is a process movie; there are no sudden flashes of inspiration, only the work, and the outside work that stands in the art's way. We don't have to solve Lizzy's problems for her because there is no one way to solve them; it's all in the doing, in the "showing up" of the movie's title. When we sit with her as she sculpts, we get a sense of the peace she's chasing whenever she isn't at her studio bench. The resulting artworks are almost an afterthought in the wake of the work it took to create them. Reichardt finds meaning in that work, and in the in-between spaces.

Showing Up is currently playing in limited release.

What I wrote:

For Tor.com, I wrote about the horror film Skinamarink as an analogue for fear of the Rapture. I'm still deeply ambivalent about the movie, but it's got its hooks in me, and I can't stop thinking (or writing!) about it.

What I talked about:

For this week's Seeing & Believing podcast, Kevin and I reviewed Renfield (the Nicolas Cage Dracula movie) and paired it with Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark. If you've been reading this newsletter for a while, you probably already know how much I love Near Dark; if it's new to you, I've also written about the movie for Bright Wall/Dark Room.

What I'm listening to:

Normal Gossip is back! I'm nosy and like hearing stories about completely unimportant drama between people I'll never know!