17X17: A Series Of Lists Of 17 Things About Living In The Mission, Part I.

17 Ways To Become A Mission Hipster Artist


1. Arrive in San Francisco from the anywhere but here, as you do not have a very strong accent except NYC, in which case you will always be the person from New York who relocated to San Francisco.

1A. If you visit San Francisco from eastern states or Europe, or anywhere else in the world, it is cool to accept a kind of limited engagement in a variety of milieus as long as it is temporary.

2. Eat burritos excessively when you first move here.
2A. Make fun of newcomers 1 year later for being so obsessed with burritos.
2B. Become obsessed with food trends.
2C. Make your own kombucha.
2D. Befriend someone that raises chickens.

3. Have certain San Francisco idols: quasi graffiti artists, bad boy artists, and experimental writers and filmmakers.

4. Attend art school.
4A. Possibly drop out of art school.

5. Create a tentatively-stable living/working place to live in the mission. “Tentatively” means that the following series of events could cause you irreparable damage in terms of being able to ever get a below-market-rate place in the mission again.
1. Building is probably going to be condemned.
2. Landlord is aging and when they die the building is sold.
3. Co-op is rented not owned.
4. Roommates do things that may lead to eviction.
5. Your lack of income may lead to eviction.
6. You do things that may lead to eviction.
7. [Accidentally] start a fire.
8. You sublet your apartment to do a residency and your subletters refuse to leave.
9. Your very public break-up forces you out of the neighborhood/city/state/country.
10. Your landlord finds a loophole to the lease and legally evicts you.
11. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/colleague works for a tenants rights organization and this somehow backfires.
12. The master lease holder to your place raises everyone's rent in order to cover their and a tenants rights organization does an expose which leads to eviction.

6. Host concerts in your “space,” preferably to make rent.

7. Have some story that involves escorting or hair modeling.

8. Make work that will never sell. Examples include:
8A. Performance art.
8B. Ink drawing.
8C. Typewriter art.
8D. Photos shot in Balmy Alley.

9. Make “street art” or “outsider art” whilst in art school.

10. Try to sound academic.

11. Put down academics.

12. Put down Dot-Com-ers.

13. Develop strong opinions about Burning Man and discuss them loudly at your neighbor's/employer's Burning Man parties.

14. Date someone of a gender you do not usually go for.
14A. Experience genuine heartache over said person when things don't work out.
14B. Date a quick succession of people that are not logical choices for you.
14C. Become jaded about love.
14D. Move in with your life partner/get married two years later.
14E. Put down young jaded hipsters.

15. Become socially alienated.

16. Join a gym and/or get a pet.
16B. Decide to move and donate your pet/ship pet home to your parents to take care of while you do some soul-searching.

17. Put your possessions indefinitely into a storage locker, either because you do not have a stable living situation or because you have become homeless.