The Roller Coaster

I was a ride operator at Magic Mountain. I can totally vouch for this analogy.

There’s a moment on a roller coaster right before it pulls into the station. The ride is over. You’re slowing down. Everything that was moving so fast a minute ago is just... coasting. Neither here nor there. Not the climb, not the drop, not the part where you’re upside down screaming and you don’t even know which way is up because the excitement is too much.

Just the flat part. Coming in slow.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I’m watching so many artists I know and love sitting in that flat part right now. And I want to say something about it.

The roller coaster is who we are. The ups are real. Getting into a show you’ve been dreaming about. Selling a piece to someone who actually gets it. Having a conversation with a curator that opens a door you didn’t even know existed. Those highs are real and they’re worth everything.

The downs are real too. The rejection. The show that didn’t sell. The studio rent that’s due and the bank account that says no. The feeling of putting something you made from your heart and your soul out into the world and hearing silence back.

And sometimes you throw up. That’s okay too. It means you got on the ride.

But right now a lot of us are in that in-between place. And the world is making it worse. Galleries are closing. Sales are down across the board. Artists are struggling to pay bills, keep studios open, figure out health insurance, hold it all together while still somehow finding time and energy and belief to make the work.

I don’t want to pretend that isn’t hard. It is hard.

And I also want to say: you are not doing it wrong. The flat part is part of the ride. The coming into the station is not failure. It’s just where you are right now. The roller coaster doesn’t end. You don’t get off permanently. You slow down, you breathe, you let your stomach settle, and then you go again.

Community matters most in the flat part. Not because community fixes anything. It doesn’t pay your studio rent or get your work into a gallery or make the world less chaotic. But it means you’re not sitting alone in the slowing-down part wondering if you’re the only one.

You’re not the only one.

The artists I talk to every week in this community are navigating the same things you are. The same uncertainty. The same question of what success even means right now when all the old measures feel shaky. The same middle of the night wondering whether to keep going.

They keep going. You keep going. We keep going together.

That’s what community is for. Not the highlight reel. Not the ups. The flat part coming into the station where you’re neither here nor there and you just need to know that someone else is on the ride too.

We’re here. Come find us.