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I do think it's possible to work in a creative field without falling under the title of a starving artist. The path is not as laid out yellow brick road style as it is like a corporate career. It really is something that you build for yourself. But I also think that's why, as an end result, that the path of an artist is such a fulfilling one. My name is Zoe de la Paz. I'm 26 years old. My rent is $96 a month. I make $19.25 an hour, and I live and work as a seamstress in Yellowstone National Park. So I live in Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, but I work in Montana.
Living and working in a national park it is like, honestly, sometimes emotionally overwhelming for me just because it's just so indescribably beautiful. Really just feel like I'm connected and living with nature and not this separate being. Living outside of nature that then chooses when to dip her toes into it. My rent is $96 a month. I have one roommate right now, and I do live in the biggest dorms that are available in Mammoth Village. Coming to Yellowstone I did not have a car with me. I do make use of the fact that being in a national park, I feel quite safe to
hitchhike around. This sign lives in my bag at all times. It also says park employee so that you know I'm not dangerous. Good old hitchhiker's thumb. I pay a monthly meal plan which is $359 per month. This meal plan gives me access not just to my EDR, employee dining room, but also to the other EDRs that are across the park. I do spend my money on food outside of what's available to me at the EDR. I do love cooking and I don't have access to a kitchen here, but that's also one of the benefits is that I don't have to carry the mental load of my groceries.
My July spending was a little higher than usual because it was my birthday week in July. I had all of my friends and family, or at least the main bulk of them, visiting me almost every single weekend. And then in July for two weeks, they provide us with a 40% off discount on everything in the gift shop. And as a result, I wanted to get all of my Christmas shopping in early. I don't have health insurance right now, but I do have access to a very low cost employee clinic, which is right across my dorm.
I have $11,000 in savings, which is a nest egg that I've built for myself. Every day at 6:45, I board the employee shuttle. The same shuttle drives us back for lunch, and it drives us back at the end of the day for dinner. Welcome to uniforms. I mend and tailor all of the uniforms for any of the concessionaire employees you see in the park. Lots of button repairs, snap repairs. If we get jackets that are damaged, trying to find a way to mend them so that we don't have to toss them. There are days sometimes where I'm hemming and maybe repairing up to 40 pairs of pants.
I've never had an official sewing class before. Everything I've learned was self-taught. I started sewing when I was 14 years old, and I got my start in sewing through something called cosplay. Growing up in a really small town with not much to do, I was just left to my own devices in my basement and with my grandmother's old Singer sewing machine. Sewing can be quite meditative for me. I love how technical it is. I love that I get to use not just my hands, but also my brain. I truly love my job here. My friends will be like, man, I hate my job today.
Like work was just so difficult. I just, I don't want to show up for work tomorrow and I'll have to awkwardly be like, oh yeah, I also just hate my job, you know? Which is just not the truth. Because I really just like, love what I do in this position. I do earn less hourly than I did in my former corporate job, but honestly, the trade off is really worth it to me because I get to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. In my opinion, one of the perks of being an employee of the park is that you have access to this employee activities group that does any range of activities. All of these activities are available to the employees to sign up for, at either no cost or very low cost.
We did an Elephant Back full moon hike last month. That was $4 for me to get a ride there and back. One of the other activities that I got to do this month was my friends and I went to Cody, Wyoming for the Cody Rodeo and the cost of my bus ticket there and back was $6. I never thought that my hobby could become my career. I was making $75,000 a year as a mechanical designer living in Chicago. All of my work was behind a computer. I didn't have any sort of emotional connection or tie to the work that I was doing, and that's what made it so hard to be fulfilled by it.
It definitely was almost reaching at a point of burnout, but it really was one of those moments for me that felt dire of, I need to act now. That's when I first reached out to the local nightclub and music venue and started working for them part time, because I just had this vague idea of, I want to work in the art scene, but I don't know where. So I would leave my corporate job at 5 p.m., take the train or take the bus and go clock in as a caterer. We were working as caterers for the crew of different concerts. My first sewing job officially came from The Weeknd. The wardrobe team, they ended up bringing me on at the time because they needed some last minute sewing done and they just needed somebody who could
sew. I scrawled my name and number and then passed it to them over the breakfast line, and I was like, I can sew. I promise I'll be there if you need me. I was like scraping together all of my PTO, all of my sick leave to go work ten, 12, sometimes 14 hour days sewing, which I absolutely loved. It did feel like I was living a double life because I was pursuing this thing that made me feel so alive. I realized that I wanted for myself this life more than I wanted the comfortability that a corporate job gave
me. There was a quote that a friend shared with me that really stuck with me. Leap and the net will appear. And I felt like I reached that point where I was just at that edge, and there was nothing left for me to do. I just had to, I just had to leap and the net would appear. This is truly one of the most beautiful, unreal places in the world. Just like being here has changed my life. After my contract is up in Yellowstone at the end of September for me, I plan to continue my work as a seamstress.
That world is looking for me to either be in LA or New York, but I know regardless of where I end up, that the work I will be doing will continue having me be behind a sewing machine. I'm excited for what comes next. It's still scary. Like it's scary to think about the fact that less than six months ago, I was working my corporate job, clocking in with my badge, and now it's like, oh, what comes next? But I think having come out here and just being able to be out here has really helped me to feel one, that the world is so large, there's no mistake so great that I can make that I can't come back from.
I can trust myself to leap and the net will appear.
