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Monday, January 2, 2017

new year -- old fashioned support

The new president and our governor just like him think business solves everything, and then there’s me. I also agree that the government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers, governs best that governs least, and that welfare is detrimental to incentive and innovation, but I’ll stay out of politics. I’m only talking about art.

Artistic ferment we’ve got, a university town becomes a lens for it in a less than progressive state, but there’s a change of mood all over. Tenuous and arbitrary, ready to dart right of left, no one knows what’s going to be happening six months from now in the broadest sense, and we’re all a bit on edge. While the window is open for creativity and artistic expression, it might be wise to prop it up, establish a sustainability and independence that survives sudden policy changes from above.

In this moment we have the artists, multifaceted ultra-supportive media, outdoor murals and youthful enthusiasm -- what’s missing is business, the public buying art. A seed in gravel, to borrow an expression, springs up quickly but establishes no root, withering when support dries up as it does when government changes priorities. Art has to penetrate the community to actually become viable, go up in houses, be seen in public settings, become familiar and meaningful to those who’ve been showing little interest up until now. It’s a good thing art is being produced in studios popping up all around, and that’s a first step, but artists need real income and more importantly, there has to be more opportunity for average citizens to experience and own original art.

The crux is this -- life is too stupid if individual identity and expression are limited to a make of car and brand of whiskey, like they’ll try to tell you on TV. Art is the curry that makes all this manufactured sameness palatable, and it’s been missing for most folks, ironically prone to turn rancid when hoarded by a few. Its ‘function’ in this modern life is to humanize the house, to elevate the workplace, to provide a touchstone of uniqueness that endures. 


Civic entities with strong central control put up lots of public monuments, fountains, commissioned art, just saying, but democratic ideals lead to solar on the roof and art up in the house. The business of art -- individual studios producing artwork to be purchased and hung in homes and offices seems particularly feasible in the current climate. In the new year, if art becomes more accessible, more open to comparison and appraisal, a curious public may notice and begin to support art and artists the old fashioned way.

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