Chelsea Martin: On Art School, Money, Self-Promotion, and Her New Novel, "Tell Me I'm An Artist"
Chelsea Martin’s Tell Me I’m An Artist follows Joey as she tries to navigate art school’s intense social stratification, female friendships, mothers, sisters and the wide gulfs between the haves and have-nots in America, all while trying to find her own identity as an artist. Chelsea writes with wry observational humor about both her internal and external worlds in a way that is deeply warm, relatable and utterly hilarious. Tell Me I’m An Artist is a campus novel of sorts, but an art school campus - a place many readers have never had the pleasure of visiting. And it’s such a fun place to visit when the reader gets to do it through Chelsea’s brilliant writing.
Chelsea took the time to answer my questions via email about her path to writing Tell Me I’m An Artist, the pleasures of the editing process, if art school is really worth it and what comes first for her now - writing or art.
BM: Congratulations on Tell Me I’m An Artist! It’s such a brilliant, warm and hilarious book. I didn’t go to art school, but I did live in North Brooklyn for about fifteen years, so much of the world that you created rings so true. I felt such an affinity for Joey - I’ve always been Joey, that feeling of being an outsider looking in and wondering, “are these people for real?” while still really wanting to be accepted by them. I’m still like that!
How did the character of Joey come to be? What was your path to writing Tell Me I’m an Artist?
CM: Joey is the person I most fear asking me for advice about whether to attend art school or not. I have a running conversation in my head about the value of going to art school, and people ask me for advice about art school pretty regularly and I always say something different. Personally, art school gave me a path out of my small town and access to ideas and options for life that I never even knew to look for. I experienced a lot of growth and started having goals for myself for the first time ever. But I think a lot of that growth was just from moving into a big city and entering my 20s rather than the experience of art school. I did find my way to writing through art school, but I might have found my way there eventually anyway. Was it worth $100,000 for someone to tell me to read Borges at that specific point in my life? Maybe!!! But maybe not!!!
So Joey, someone with no direction and no safety net, has a lot to potentially gain from moving to a city and finding people and ideas that she actually relates to and feels inspired by, but there is an equal chance, because of that same directionlessness and lack of safety net, that she’ll financially ruin herself for basically nothing. I wanted to explore the pressure of that experience doubled with a family crisis that make the whole idea of personal fulfillment seem like a selfish waste of time. I thought that would be a cute set of problems for a 20-year-old to try to work through.
BM: A lot of your work explores themes of class. Is that intentional or do you just go where the characters and stories take you?
CM: Def feel like all my characters get pulled in that direction, probably because I’m obsessed with money. I think you have to be when you don’t have any. But I also don’t value it enough to, like, work a real job or whatever. And I do not take for granted what an utter luxury it is that I can survive without a full-time job. I’m very aware of the weird poverty/privilege zone I’m in, and that was definitely a jumping-off point in writing Tell Me I’m an Artist. The time-suck of being poor is another aspect of class that I was thinking about while writing. There are so many extra things you have to worry about, so many calculations, so much to remember, and everything could collapse around you at any moment. It isn’t even about not getting to buy stuff or go places. Being poor is an incredible waste of time and mental energy.
BM: You also write a lot about family dysfunction and dynamics in both your fiction and nonfiction work. And you’re really candid when you write about motherhood and pregnancy - your article in Nylon about getting pregnant. Preparing For A Baby On The Brink Of Apocalypse is one of the most moving and true depictions of trying to get pregnant/pregnancy that I have ever read. Do you feel like becoming a parent yourself has influenced the way you write families?
CM: TBD, really. My kid is almost 3 now, but I finished the first draft of this novel before he was born, so most of the story and character development was already in place before I became a mother. I’m curious to see how my writing will change. Being a parent is absolutely no joke, so I feel more compassionate towards parents in some ways, but I also feel more judgmental too, like PLEASE do not do this if you are not ready to be responsible in this relentless and thankless way?! Lives are at stake.
BM: Can you talk about how you found “your people” within the writing community? Is it a different vibe from the art world?
CM: I find it easier to make friends with writers than normal people because you can kinda know what a person is like before you talk to them by reading some of their writing. So I find I have a greater success rate with friendship attempts within the writing community than outside of it. That said, I’m flattered that you think I have people. I’ve always felt like a loner, even when I’m on book tour with writers I love. Going on book tours with writers is a good way to get close with people, actually. All my closest writers friends are people I did tours with. I don’t know anything about the art world!
BM: There’s this one scene in Tell Me I’m An Artist that I love, where Joey says, “Isn’t it funny how when you’re young and just deciding that you want to be an artist, it feels simple, that you can show up to art school like, I want to paint!... then in the real world, artistic success is all about connections and who do you know and do you have representation? It’s completely the opposite of what you expect when you’re young.” (This is one of the most poignant scenes in modern literature.)
You’ve been writing and creating and publishing for a really long time now. I remember my first job out of college - this was in the fall of 2000 - was as a publicity assistant at a Big Five publishing house. I was so terrible at my job that I got demoted. That aside, there was no social media then, and I remember that the marketing and publicity departments did all the promotion for authors. They weren’t out there promoting themselves. Have you felt a major shift where you feel like writers really have to hustle to get their work out there, no matter who your publisher is?
CM: My first few books were on small presses and I had no agent, so there was never anyone on my team other than my editors. So the move to Soft Skull, who has a publicity and marketing team, and with my agent Monika Woods behind me to help strategize and market my work, are such incredible gifts. But yeah, a lot of work falls on authors to promote their books, I think in large part because of the nature of social media right now, and how much competition there is for people’s attention. But it sucks because marketing is a really difficult and awkward thing to do, especially if you are not interested in it. Have you seen me begging my Instagram followers to preorder my book? Humiliating.
BM: Elizabeth Ellen once told me that she barely ever had to edit even one word of your work! What was your editing and revision process like for Tell Me I’m an Artist? Is it a process you enjoy?
CM: I find editing my work really enjoyable, especially when I have an editor working with me. Figuring out the ideas and structure and voice of a project is a slow, grueling task, whereas editing a finished draft feels creative and fun and full of possibility. I worked with Kendall Storey on Tell Me I’m an Artist and we had a few rounds of edits. 3 or 4, I think. It was definitely the most I’ve ever been edited and it was very cool and exciting. Kendall is so smart and had so many good ideas and feedback that ultimately made the book much better.
BM: I know you get told this all the time, but your writing is hilarious. It’s one thing to say “oh, I just read a funny novel”, but it’s another thing to read a book that makes you laugh so hard that you are doubled over on the Q Train and other passengers are looking at you with concern. Do you think you might ever dip into writing screenplays or TV writing? This is a selfish question - I would just really love to see a movie or TV show that has been written by you.
CM: It never gets old to hear that I’m funny! I would love to write a TV show or movie someday. I did write a screenplay with my friend Hannah a few years ago but we didn’t know what to do with it once it was done. It seems like a fun thing to get into but I’m also really happy writing books.
BM: Which came first for you, art or writing? What comes first for you now?
CM: I went to art school to study visual art, but for some reason it never really clicked for me. I liked looking at and making art and could see myself gaining technical skills over the years, but I never understood the point of what I was doing. I moved from the painting department to illustration to textiles trying to find something that felt right. Only once I started taking literature and writing classes did I start having revelatory moments with my work, or feel at all like I was succeeding at what I was trying to do. I do art and design stuff still, but it doesn’t feel like a good way for me to express ideas at this point in my life.
CHELSEA MARTIN is the author of the novel Tell Me I'm An Artist, the essay collection Caca Dolce, and the novella Mickey, among other books. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband and child.
About the Interviewer
Barrie Miskin is a teacher and writer whose work has appeared in Hobart, Narratively and elsewhere. She recently completed her first book, HELL GATE BRIDGE, a memoir of her journey through maternal mental illness. Barrie lives in Queens, New York with her husband and daughter.
