New Painting

Rachel Bone

Every morning, I wake up at 7am and walk to the coffee shop to meet up with my two fellow-self-employed girlfriends and we go on an hour long power walk before work. On this daily walk, we not only get "exercise" and spy on neighborhoods fancier than our own, but we get the chance to rant about a pretty broad variety of things (many of them to be left exclusively on the walking path for no one else's ears). Most of what we talk about, however, involves our businesses: Plans for the future, things that are working for each of us... things that are..ahem.. not working, freelance gigs we've begrudgingly taken, stupid mistakes, obnoxious situations. It is the one hour of my day that I feel like I have co-workers, and in some ways - it's often the most productive part of my day, because I can bounce ideas off my friends, and get their opinions. How could I have handled this client a bit better? How do you feel about this new style of shirt? Also, how the heck to I do my taxes?
I find this type of camaraderie more and more common among the freelancing/self employed women I know in Baltimore. Which is interesting because elsewhere (dare I say - specifically in the fashion industry) I see plenty of the opposite. Women stealing ideas from each other, shunning each other, success being seen as something achieved only by destroying the competition... not by pushing forward as a team. I say it often, that I'm fortunate to have only one of my feet in this more competitive world, and the other firmly planted on the crafter side - which might I say - is a decidedly encouraging and team spirited community. (Possibly to a fault- none of us are business minded and even know to compete. We just want to support the arts).
A new painting I made last month for a show opening June 20th at Nancy Margolis Gallery in NYC. is a reaction to that darker side to women in business. A two women team volunteering to hold a finish line banner, but quietly holding it at ankle height and watching for the competition to either trip or jump higher. I guess I'm not so much devastated that this duo might exist... I'm just glad I have my own, (larger and more diverse) team that might see the obstacle for me, and train me to do the high jump.