My studio is now for rent on Craigslist and I'm talking to my immigration lawyer in 40 minutes to discuss the work visa, etc. My friend S, who is a native German speaker and just happens to work as an executive assistant at a law firm, is reading over both the English and German versions of the contract to make sure there is nothing that was left out in the translation. As soon as she gives me the thumbs up I am signing this thing and faxing it back to them.

I've been cleaning but my studio is still a mess. I need to mop the floor and sanitize the kitchen and bathroom. When you work 70 hours a week and do not have maid service, things can get out of hand.

I also need to craft a polite letter of resignation. For all the BS that my job here in Chicago has been, and for all the hours of my life it has sucked into the void, I've built a great portfolio, won awards and gotten opportunities that no one else was willing to give me. Seeing everyone in upper management pull together to send me to Hamburg was truly amazing, and I still feel in their debt. It was that little bit of German work experience that made the agencies in Berlin more receptive to me.

This afternoon I'm having the bondings on three of my front teeth removed and replaced with new ones. This is basically going to give me a brand new smile, which is always kind of fun. After 10 years the bondings become stained, chipped, and eventually fall out in an unfortunate manner, typically in public when one least expects it. So replacements are always a plus. Unfortunately, they are also always expensive. Good bye, $2K!

"Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?": America's misguided culture of overwork
Germany's workers have higher productivity, shorter hours and greater quality of life. How did we get it so wrong?

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My Skype interview is set up for Tuesday at 12:00h their time, which is FIVE IN THE MORNING^#@! my time. This really sucks, but I'll do anything I have to. I really really hope they just extend an offer at that point so I don't have to go through the hassle of flying back over to help out with a 1 or 2 day project. It sounds like they need me to start asap, so perhaps we can skip the formalities and just get me over there.

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Thank God! When I didn't hear anything for over a week I was beginning to fear that they had decided against me.

Today's interviews went well.

The first one was with the placement agency and it was encouraging. Unfortunately I've already contacted most of their client base, so they can't do as much for me as they'd like. There is one place they're going to try to schedule an interview for me with, and I'll hear back about that on Monday. I asked the agent what he thinks my prospects are in Berlin and he told me, "with your work it will only be a matter of time. Berlin is slowly becoming the center of advertising in Germany. The agencies are finally realizing that they need to have people in-house who know interactive, and you go even further than that with a 360º background. All you need to do now is to be patient and wait."

At the second interview, with a company with an open position, everyone seemed really pressed for time and a little bit distracted. It didn't help that I was the third interview of the day, and there must have been some big deadline or something because people kept having to excuse themselves to run to other meetings, and other people joined in halfway. I did my best to go through my portfolio quickly and calmly, highlighting my achievements, etc, etc. The company does a lot of work for the government and has a contract with them, so they're actually doing pretty well despite the tough economic situation. There's a bunch of other English speakers in the company, mostly from the UK, although one is from Canada and one is from the US. They asked me when I could start and I told them a month. They told me that's about how long it would take them to get a work permit, so it works out for both sides. They asked what kind of salary I'd like to make, and I told them I didn't really know because I was unfamiliar with the cost of living in Berlin compared to Chicago, so they're going to see what they can come up with.

They're going to show my website and portfolio to the Creative Director (along with the work of other applicants who have made it this far). I'm interested to know what will happen now. I can't tell if they liked me or not – they were too focused on other things. I get the feeling that this meeting was more of a vetting process before showing my work to the Creative Director, who will ultimately decide. I feel like the Creative Director should have BEEN there though, or that they should have at least scheduled the interview when things wouldn't be so busy, but it's advertising and I know how it can get.

Anyway, here's hoping that something will work out.

Most people don't really understand where I'm coming from when my eyes burn and I tell them, "I've got to get the hell out of Chicago." After all, this isn't a bad city at all. It's not too expensive, I've got a great studio here, and I know some amazing artists in town who I can chum around with. I have connections here, and I have friends and family here. I just had a show of my work this spring and tons of people came - why would I want to leave? Because Chicago isn't an artist's city.

It's not that artists can't live or create great work here, but their art careers certainly aren't going to go anywhere if they confine themselves to the Chicago city limits. In order to be shown at one of the better galleries in town (note: there are no great galleries in town) they must belong to a very small clique of individuals that graduated from one of three academic art programs here (although if you don't have an MFA, God help you). So we're talking about a VERY small number of artists here that are accepted as such. They all know each other, they all support each other, and they all ostracize anyone who isn't in their clique. Here's the really fucked up thing, though: Despite having spent an insane amount of time and money on art school, not a single one of them has any real artistic skill. They can talk your ear off with big words and run art theory circles around you, but in the end, their actual ART is crap because they were never taught how to make art, they were taught about art theory. That's okay, though because their main objective isn't to make great art, it's to climb the art world ladder. So, in summary, the Chicago art world consists of a small number of emperors, all wearing no clothes.

The gallery owners here know the professors and help to promote the grad students when they graduate; it's a closed system, and I have no chance of breaking in. Besides that, my art isn't trendy enough, and it's too aesthetic. I don't deal with all of the conceptual drivel that the emperors were taught in school, so my art isn't relevant here. If I remain in Chicago, I will always remain on the sidelines, showing at alternative spaces, garden walks and cafés, and never allowed to play with the big kids.

And aside from all of that, there are other big problems for an artist living in Chicago.

People who live in Chicago don't buy art. This is a town of hard working people who don't have time for culture. We go to the bar, we watch the game, we drive our cars, we go to the movies... we don't buy fine art. And the tiny handful of eccentrics with deep pockets that do, certainly aren't going to buy a piece from the guy down the street, they're going to get their art from New York or L.A. or London or Berlin, because then it's For Real. And really, who can blame them, with all the nude Chicago emperors running around calling themselves artists? I wouldn't want to buy art here either if I didn't know better. But the bottom line is this: if you're an artist living in Chicago, you're either showing your work in New York or LA, or you have a day job you're never going to give up.

I've seen what this town has done to world class artists who have tried to stick it out here and make things work, and I'm getting the hell out now. Why Berlin? Well, why not. I don't see myself living in either L.A. or New York, so I'm looking to other parts of the world. London's expensive, and Paris doesn't interest me. I love Germany, I love Berlin, and I feel at home there more than any other city in the world besides Chicago, so Berlin it is. People tell me the art scene isn't what it was 10 years ago, but that's no reason to give up and remain in a City that pushes me to the sidelines. I refuse to be overlooked because I didn't spend $100K on an art education that doesn't teach anything about how to make art, and I refuse to grovel at people's feet and beg them to accept me and let me join their awful little clique.

While I'm sure Berlin will have it's own issues, and I can't imagine they'll all great me with open arms and a red carpet, it's at least an international cultural hub with a lot of stuff going on. Chicago will never be culturally relevant as long as the ruling clique continues to squash original thought and look to bigger cities to give it cues. It's turned into a city of ambitious imitators, one of which I could never be.