disdain and envy -- other people

Few people around here understand art, but even less than that get artists -- who do they think they are? They won’t hitch up, refuse to define themselves by assignment in the great corporate machine, won’t chase the carrot and always trying to avoid the stick. Misfits by choice, mostly, although refugees innately allergic to the conventions of daily life where they came from, harboring varying degrees of post-stress, wander in. As Freud supposedly suggested, it’s a community invested in self therapy.

In-laws assume incompetence straight away, and business people, even part time employers, give the artist a fishy look, unsure if some ordinary gross superlative concerning the local sports team would elicit more than a smirk, such sulky superior assholes. It takes thick skin, a willingness to show up with paint on your pants, to drive an old car, to live with the inconveniences a lack of money provides, just to make art on your own time. It’s always going to be easier to make more money doing something else, or even to make art that’s easier to sell, but once out this far why compromise? Serious artists tend to be stubborn and self-driven, not unlike old school farmers in a GPS world.

There are compensations for a life in art. Expectations aren’t just low, they’re commodious. It’s difficult to imagine what deviancy, in dress or behavior, would be considered out of bounds for an artist, a great cover for a simple private existence of one’s own choosing. Social pressures are minimal, and the sincerity of friends isn’t questioned since no one expects even an expensive meal in your company. Rich folks will understand. As a fact, ordinary people have a soft spot for artists, and sometimes trade services for art, tear up lunch tabs, and even look intently at their artwork.

There’s a land that I heard of where artists are respected for the life choices they’ve made, the risk they’ve taken, and for their calling to express in the raw the anguish and joy of existence, before it’s pressed out, prepackaged as entertainment, and thrown away. It isn’t someplace else, it just isn’t now.