Art is about efficiency most of all, a business model in the extreme. Here I’m not discussing the university mode, instructors to counsel and encourage, studios to socialize in, canvas and paint supplied, nurturing galleries and student exhibitions, all of that topped off with a degree and a teaching position somewhere. Not a bad life, warm and dry, but like many forms of refuge it comes with a price, the peer group assassination of artistic potential. Argue the point if you must, but attend the annual faculty show of festering little worm-gardens, they do so support each other, and then show us the art.
There is another way, and it doesn’t involve trust funds or any form of independent wealth, more of a detriment to artistic development than a college degree. It’s much celebrated in folklore but seldom followed all the way through even though art museums are full of it, the practice of ‘subsistence-level art.’ I can’t say if it’s easier or harder these days, but a couple of generations back Johnny Mercer wrote, ‘anyplace I hang my hat is home,’ about a time when a person with practical skills could travel about, rent a room, find something to eat -- this would be more difficult these days. The old dictum that ‘the independent artist must learn to earn a living with their left hand,’ becomes more of a challenge in a world where two may not be enough.
A fair number start out on their own, some with dreams of skyrocket success, intuitively hacking the visual depravity of the super wealthy at international art fairs, but these gravitate to advertising agencies for a regular paycheck almost immediately. Along the way more drop out -- the day job becomes an occupation, the derision of in-laws and general indifference at family gatherings becomes intolerable, and there’s the lack of money. What’s left after a few years are mostly misfits and loners, fervent neurotic people addicted to creating, who find solace and healing in connecting mind and hand, driven people willing to sacrifice just to do it.
It’s also going to require herculean efficiency, and a diverse set of semi-skills having little to do with art. Can the artist unstop the drain in a cheap rental when the landlord is too busy, reattach a muffler with a wire coat hanger, do their own cooking, shop second-hand, all such as that? Studio rent is always extra, so studio time is precious with every moment devoted to making art. Materials are scrounged, adapted, and used up totally, paint tubes squeezed dry, brushes used until splayed and stiff, and nothing of value is thrown away. Bad personal habits better be few. It’s an austere, even an isolated life, with a slim chance of finding a supportive mate, and even less hope of recognition from the warm and dry. Blind luck becomes the unknown constant in every equation, and compromises can be made with everything except the art.
A romantic backstory can be intriguing, but the point of the exercise is to produce an object that jogs the perspective and stretches the perceptual radius of the people who see it everyday, perhaps each time the visit their physician’s waiting room, maybe every five years in an art museum. How is this accomplished, what value is transferred, and why do people want to look at art at all, are the first questions that come to mind. A certain portion of the answer will remain mysterious, but one thing is plain. Art on the wall is ultimately efficient, transforming materials available to anyone, cheap and ordinary, into an unique image that communicates directly, mind to mind, without words even forming. The successful work of art finds and binds people with similar aspirations and self-concept, and helps them find each other. That’s a pretty big trick for not much invested materially, and a reflection and function of a practiced, even a lived efficiency.
There is another way, and it doesn’t involve trust funds or any form of independent wealth, more of a detriment to artistic development than a college degree. It’s much celebrated in folklore but seldom followed all the way through even though art museums are full of it, the practice of ‘subsistence-level art.’ I can’t say if it’s easier or harder these days, but a couple of generations back Johnny Mercer wrote, ‘anyplace I hang my hat is home,’ about a time when a person with practical skills could travel about, rent a room, find something to eat -- this would be more difficult these days. The old dictum that ‘the independent artist must learn to earn a living with their left hand,’ becomes more of a challenge in a world where two may not be enough.
A fair number start out on their own, some with dreams of skyrocket success, intuitively hacking the visual depravity of the super wealthy at international art fairs, but these gravitate to advertising agencies for a regular paycheck almost immediately. Along the way more drop out -- the day job becomes an occupation, the derision of in-laws and general indifference at family gatherings becomes intolerable, and there’s the lack of money. What’s left after a few years are mostly misfits and loners, fervent neurotic people addicted to creating, who find solace and healing in connecting mind and hand, driven people willing to sacrifice just to do it.
It’s also going to require herculean efficiency, and a diverse set of semi-skills having little to do with art. Can the artist unstop the drain in a cheap rental when the landlord is too busy, reattach a muffler with a wire coat hanger, do their own cooking, shop second-hand, all such as that? Studio rent is always extra, so studio time is precious with every moment devoted to making art. Materials are scrounged, adapted, and used up totally, paint tubes squeezed dry, brushes used until splayed and stiff, and nothing of value is thrown away. Bad personal habits better be few. It’s an austere, even an isolated life, with a slim chance of finding a supportive mate, and even less hope of recognition from the warm and dry. Blind luck becomes the unknown constant in every equation, and compromises can be made with everything except the art.
A romantic backstory can be intriguing, but the point of the exercise is to produce an object that jogs the perspective and stretches the perceptual radius of the people who see it everyday, perhaps each time the visit their physician’s waiting room, maybe every five years in an art museum. How is this accomplished, what value is transferred, and why do people want to look at art at all, are the first questions that come to mind. A certain portion of the answer will remain mysterious, but one thing is plain. Art on the wall is ultimately efficient, transforming materials available to anyone, cheap and ordinary, into an unique image that communicates directly, mind to mind, without words even forming. The successful work of art finds and binds people with similar aspirations and self-concept, and helps them find each other. That’s a pretty big trick for not much invested materially, and a reflection and function of a practiced, even a lived efficiency.
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