art’s plaintive plea -- the last day

Today is the 'last day,' just like three days ago they told me there were only three days left, times a running out, better place my bet, get my order in, for what? Why to give them my money, of course, and for a worthy cause I’m sure, my civic duty, a community responsibility. They have a motto, ‘arts everywhere,’ slightly reminiscent of the local art league’s ‘art for everybody,’ and a self-promotion strategy emerges. They say, ‘And when art is everywhere, good things happen for everyone. Good things like supporting 1,185 full-time jobs......' and maybe we can guess whose jobs they mean. I think they must mean their own.

Charity can be a great business, there’s no product and no objective standard for success. Art seems a benign cause to latch onto, no one sick or dying, but still, hiring a lot of people to think up catchy phrases may not be the best use of those art dollars. These are simply not the metrics that I care about, since I don’t got a degree and wouldn’t be hired on full time anyway, and maybe attitude. I want to know how many artists don’t have full time jobs, or even part time jobs, working in the studio all day. I’d like to know the economic impact of actual art bought and sold on the local economy, and I’d expect non-profit art agencies to be concerned as well. Mostly, I’d like to know how much original art is up in all the otherwise well-appointed homes here about, and how much of that was acquired locally from artists we’d all recognize.

We don’t have numbers, we have eyes, and in those terms there’s not much to show for dispersing all those ‘funds.’ The awful truth may be that a vibrant, self-sustaining art market, with local, regional, and tourist interest just might put the non-profits straight away out of business, the patient recovers and walks out the door. Let’s talk about money, your money and how to spend it, my humble suggestion. Money spent directly on art may not be deductible, a pittance anyway, but there’s a premium involved. You’ll become the owner of an actual piece of art that will probably remain in your possession right through old age, still looking at it years from now. Do what you want, but this logic is gaining traction all around the town, and someday soon will begin to seem obvious to just about everyone, take your time.