An article came out in the Guardian about the status of music in the United Kingdom. Specifically working acts that tour and attempt to do the impossible: bring their music to as many people as possible. One quote really got me thinking about my own life as a multi-disciplinary artist.
“Artists are the biggest employers in the industry. They pay for the tour manager, session musicians, agent, manager, crew, insurance, travel, accommodation, equipment, rehearsal space, production. Everything. I don’t think people know this is all the stuff that the artist pays for and does.”
That is so true.
Almost every working, independent artist I know understands the Catch 22 they are in. The costs associated with pursuing one’s art is, well, expensive. It can be compared to having a physician paying for the drugs for their patients. Or a lawyer paying to be able to enter a courtroom. A grocer paying people to buy their groceries. Nothing exists elsewhere in the world that is as crazy as the upside-down world of pursuing art as a calling.
Some people understand the gravity of the current situation.
Most do not.
I once looked at the “Go-Fund-Me” sites as a sign of desperation.
Not really anymore.
They were created not because the playing field needs leveling, but because most independent artists need a playing field. The mega business of the music, visual arts industry has taken every field there is. And if they could take over Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee, by golly, they would.
And I won’t be surprised when they do.
Well-meaning friends once told me that if I wanted more money to pursue my art maybe I should get a job. In other words, a real job. What they didn’t understand is that what I am doing is my job, my life work. To not work at my job by taking on another job in order to support my job is insulting. The insult comes from an ingrained notion that art is a privilege, an indulgence that society doesn’t really need. It’s already free. And deep down, my suspicion is that my friends don’t wish to change the status quo, even if it is wrong.
I think the mega-business-of-all-things-entertaining loves for us to think that as well. I think they have successfully brainwashed us all to their way of thinking, too. For such businesses, their success relies on the idea that what they offer is the best for consumption. If it was the food business, they would be the company offering the processed, packaged and highly advertised product that “is better than homemade.” And they would do their damn best to get rid of the homemade.
It’s why I won’t watch the Grammy’s or swoon over who is up for an Oscar.
They are not homemade.
I don’t wish to knock the artists who are part of the machine. A lot of them are great talents. But their acquiescence to that machine is akin to an overcrowded life raft. Not everyone will get on.
Some will drown.
The article in the Guardian questions whether there needs to be some sort of financial support for artists in the UK. A living wage perhaps in order for someone to create without worry. I personally am uncomfortable with that notion as well. In some ways, it is a life raft of a different nature. Perhaps it is my own pride that if I can’t make it, then I don’t deserve to be in the arts.
I like to think that those who do send some money my way not only believe in me, but they believe in a larger understanding that supporting independent artists will keep art independent. Such support as seemingly unimportant as it may seem, ensures their own spiritual independence. Legislating and taxing it into existence doesn’t seem to be the answer. Nor the current model of a brutal gladiatorial world of art = suffering the right answer as well. The answer comes down to if we truly believe in the artist as a necessary element in our own personal world.
That takes a bit of belief in oneself as well. That you are worth having art and artists in your life.
If you understand what I am writing here, brother or sister, can you spare a dime?
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