What can a transvestite teach the rest of us about careers?

By Neil Patrick

Quite a lot actually as it turns out. And here’s why.

Sometimes, when we are trying to solve a problem, it’s really helpful to take some inspiration from something which is far removed from the immediate context of our own experience and our own world.

Like for example, art.

I think the career world of the artist is relevant to the rest of us. Yesterday I talked about the ‘P’ word - passion. And why you could never have a truly great career without it.

We all know that typically, artists have lots of passion. They eat it for breakfast. They also mostly have no money…unless they get real lucky, a cynic will say.

Do not be fooled though into thinking that therefore P=PP i.e. Passion = Professional Poverty.

Artists provide several valuable reference points for the rest of us. But the one that is relevant to what we talk about here, is that many of them quite literally starve in order to pursue their passion. That’s dedication.

And it’s also relevant because their single-minded pursuit of their passion is how they channel their need for self-expression and self-realization.

So a couple of weeks ago, when I was listening to the Reith Lecture by Grayson Perry, I wasn’t particularly surprised to discover he spent the first twenty years of his adult life virtually penniless.

In case you are not familiar with his career, here’s a brief synopsis.

Born in 1960, as a child, he suffered from an abusive stepfather, which led to his attempts to escape this abuse by assuming the alter ego of a little girl. In his teens, he realized that he was a transvestite.

As a young man, he spent several years living in squats and survived (just) by working as a sandwich maker.

Perry had his first pottery lessons in 1983. For a while he made only glazed plates with text because he could not make anything else. No-one wanted to buy his work, which many viewed as crude, lewd and unsophisticated. But he persisted. For years.

Grayson Perry

Finally, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam mounted a solo exhibition of his work in 2002. It was partly for this work that he was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003, the first time it was given to a ceramic artist. He attended the award ceremony dressed as a girl, his alter-ego Claire, wearing a little girl party frock. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to contemporary art.

Today, his pots fetch between about $30,000 and $80,000 each at auction.

And he still wears frocks.

But Grayson Perry isn’t successful because he’s the most famous transvestite in the world of ceramics. Or because he chose to create work which some viewed as shocking. Grayson Perry is successful because he developed his own unique commentary with all its peculiarities. He did the things he could, the things he felt he must and the things he chose. Not the things that other people said he should do.

I don’t think he would ever say he has a job. But he sure has a career.