Artists are stuck in menial jobs all around you. They started out devoting their main efforts to making art, and tried to earn a living with what was left. This technique, known as “earning a living with the left hand”, has been a common device of long tradition among artists. Some bail pretty quickly, finding sustenance with diminished aspirations in advertising, if blessed with degrees they teach, and still others dive into the state-funded, non-profit art apparatus where they crush the dreams of others for meager but regular pay. They most all flirted with the notion of life as an artist early on, but sensed the butter was on the other side.
Some artists took up a manual trade, figuring they’d be tired but could save their mind for reading and thinking about art. “Just another construction worker with an art degree” the last time I saw a friend. Some became cooks, clerks in art supply stores, whatever it was, they went home and made art, at least they did in the beginning. Soon they found the wide-open territory of visual expression was narrow and restricted, after all. Their straight-ahead sincerity was casually dismissed by academics who favor the stylish offhandedness of art made on a salary -- derivative, contrived, good enough to get paid.
They found the cost of studio space, the equipment they needed, the stuff to make art – canvas, paint, brushes are all bought at the sacrifice of everything else beyond bare necessities, when earning a living with the left hand. If they wanted the companionship of another person, that person had to make all the same sacrifices – a lot to ask. So, most of them gave up – see previous post ‘upside down’. They’re out there now, cranking out some semi-functional craft, stuck in some meaningless job, defensive and self-conscious around professional siblings at Thanksgiving. But they aren’t the hurting ones……..
It’s you, and all your fellow citizens – new houses, endless floor plans, neutral colored walls to the horizon, and what are you putting on them? Tired animal prints, florals to pick up some color from the drapes? You’ve been robbed. All the art those people would have made, if your local art authorities had not closed doors in their faces, isn’t there. The living they might have made, not as flamboyant international celebrities, but as respected contributors to community life and well-being has been diminished, diverted, didn’t happen, and they aren’t the only ones poorer.
2 comments:
Wow Clay, that is spot-on.. I am currently just another construction worker with an art degree pretty much doing every thing you mention- living in my studio, wondering how cold its gonna be come winter, watching all the mediocrity rise to the top.. clutching my dreams with the right, earning $$ with the left. Good thing I'm right handed.
Check post 'upside down' about artists who have tried and failed just in my building, and later was reminded I left one person out. My notion is that public money for art starves artists, deprives the public of owned art, and makes the non-profits glossy -- staff, office machinery, press coverage. On the other hand, your experience now might make good art down the road -- no traction in too easy.
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