Live rent free as a house sitter, all over the world
I make my living as an artist and as a single person I learned that taking care of other people’s houses allowed me the time and space to make my art. This lifestyle has taken me to extremely beautiful places, with my rent, utilities, and depending on the situation, food, wages, vehicles, and pool use all part of the deal.
When I was twenty years old, I traveled the world, finding wonderful work exchange opportunities along the way. In Australia I lived for a couple of years in the outback where I rented a house on a 200 acre farm for the low rent of $80 a month in exchange for guarding my landlord’s cows. In Bodh Gaya, India I spent a couple of weeks in a Thai Buddhist monastery, in exchange I spent an hour every day helping one of the monks with his university studies (in English). In Israel I lived on a kibbutz for three months and did a variety of jobs for whatever I needed. I learned that honest, loyal and hardworking people are highly appreciated and can get a job anywhere in the world.
At thirty I finally settled down and worked as a computer programmer until I sold two of my short travel stories to a magazine and a piece of art I had created was accepted for a major juried exhibition sponsored by the City of Los Angeles. I quit my job and began looking for ways to survive as an artist, which in Los Angeles meant being home for the long haul and doing the occasional stage painting for movies.
When I was forty years old, my first creative work exchange was as a scenic painter for the New Hope Theater in Pennsylvania. I spent the summer painting scenery in the Pocono Mountains while living in a beautiful resort hotel. I stayed for two months in an apartment in Venice Beach, CA, in exchange for doing all the black and white photography for a video project an artist friend was working on. On vacation in Jamaica I met a woman who lived in a beautiful hillside villa overlooking the Caribbean and ended up taking care of her for a week when she had to leave. While I was there I learned how to carve wood from a local artist.
One of my favorite job exchanges was for a real estate investor in Bel Air. For three years I worked two days a week as his office assistant for salary and a nice little apartment in a wing of his house. I had full use of the gardens and pool. While living in Bel Air, I began carving large wooden sculptures for Treepeople Park in Beverly Hills. I eventually left Bel Air to do a summer work exchange as an artist-in-residence at Avondale Forest Park in County Wicklow, Ireland, where I carved a large sculpture of a famous tree that had died. After this experience, many of my work exchanges were related to art. I carved a large standing Quan Yin for the Los Angeles Zen Center; a statue of Jizo Bodhisattva for the Zen Mountain Center near Idyllwild, CA; I made my first good money when I carved two large angels and an intricate mantel, including corbels, for a specialist home in Thousand Oaks, CA; In Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico, I carved a Saint Bernard with his Saint Bernard dog for the Hotel Saint Bernard while staying in one of his spacious suites for over two months in the off-season.
When I was fifty I discovered The Caretaker Gazette. After 9/11, I decided I didn’t want to wait until I had enough money to buy my own piece of land in the country. I found the perfect solution in the Gazette. I lived for two years in a very remote bird sanctuary in southern Ohio, taking care of all the birds and other creatures, as well as a large organic garden. After that, I spent a year and a half as an Artist-in-Residence at a women’s retreat center outside of Cincinnati.
I came to California last fall to deliver a statue I had carved of Quan Yin to the Zen Center in Sebastopol in Sonoma County. I was house-sitting for some friends in Santa Cruz when I saw the ad in the Gazette for the Sacramento Yoga and Meditation Center. I spent a month there and carved a statue for them of Krishna’s favorite girlfriend, Radha, and also lost 10 pounds. I have been living for the past six months on top of a mountain in Mendocino County. It started out as a carving job, but ended up as a caretaker situation. I have a cabin with a huge deck around it in the middle of a strawberry tree forest. On my terrace I am carving a six foot tall Buddha for a local Buddhist monastery. In exchange for the cabin, utilities and meals I work 25 hours a month, tending to the extensive gardens of flowers and animals. The owner travels a lot and feels safe knowing that I am here seeing things. I love it here, but that doesn’t stop me from perusing every email I get from The Gazette.