Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Why live an artist's insecure life without making art? Why start & maintain a full-time business that is incapable of growth & which provides bare sustainance & no security at all? All one's income disappearing down the black hole of debt & basic survival? It makes no sense to me.
When I was much younger, I was always disappointed, even angered, if an artist I knew opted out of the lifestyle for a career job & family. I saw it only as a loss to art & to myself. These were not dabblers or wishful thinkers, but gifted people who were creating wonderful, sophisticated things. They were educated & culturally cross-pollinated; the poets knew art, the artists knew music, the musicians knew poetry. Later, I came to appreciate the gains: being married & raising children in safety; driving a reliable car; owning a house. & I also discovered that the little blue flame, once lit, keeps burning. Although their art tapered off (but never completely), the creative vision remained, a way of seeing & experiencing. The frustration & anxiety they sometimes felt over not doing art could be as intense as what I felt about existing on the edge of a financial & emotional abyss. Their support & counsel became even more valuable as the years passed. In a sense, they never left art. & I've never stopped hoping that they will eventually wander back to a more active arts life, even if it has to wait until their kids grow up or they retire or move on to less demanding jobs.
For only a few artists I've known have been able to manage a dual career through their twenties & thirties without seeking refuge in academia. & if one goes into academia before enduring manual labor, or being poor, or punching a time clock, or carrying an M-16, one will likely not be strong enough to resist the power of orthodoxy, jargon, cynicism & bloodless detachment in that insular world.
[I attended a panel discussion some years ago at a large university poetry conference, on the topic of Vietnam War era poetry. Only one of the panelists was a Viet vet / professor. The others were merely doctoral niche "experts," clueless to their own absurdities.]
Even a struggling , aging artist moves forward; art is one's solace & one payment for sacrifice. One may suffer to make art, but making art is not one's suffering!
***
"There’s something very oppressive to people who don’t have a sufficiently strong and independent personality, and mind, to resist the blandishments and the “drying-out” process of the academic world." Composer George Rochberg
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
When I was much younger, I was always disappointed, even angered, if an artist I knew opted out of the lifestyle for a career job & family. I saw it only as a loss to art & to myself. These were not dabblers or wishful thinkers, but gifted people who were creating wonderful, sophisticated things. They were educated & culturally cross-pollinated; the poets knew art, the artists knew music, the musicians knew poetry. Later, I came to appreciate the gains: being married & raising children in safety; driving a reliable car; owning a house. & I also discovered that the little blue flame, once lit, keeps burning. Although their art tapered off (but never completely), the creative vision remained, a way of seeing & experiencing. The frustration & anxiety they sometimes felt over not doing art could be as intense as what I felt about existing on the edge of a financial & emotional abyss. Their support & counsel became even more valuable as the years passed. In a sense, they never left art. & I've never stopped hoping that they will eventually wander back to a more active arts life, even if it has to wait until their kids grow up or they retire or move on to less demanding jobs.
For only a few artists I've known have been able to manage a dual career through their twenties & thirties without seeking refuge in academia. & if one goes into academia before enduring manual labor, or being poor, or punching a time clock, or carrying an M-16, one will likely not be strong enough to resist the power of orthodoxy, jargon, cynicism & bloodless detachment in that insular world.
[I attended a panel discussion some years ago at a large university poetry conference, on the topic of Vietnam War era poetry. Only one of the panelists was a Viet vet / professor. The others were merely doctoral niche "experts," clueless to their own absurdities.]
Even a struggling , aging artist moves forward; art is one's solace & one payment for sacrifice. One may suffer to make art, but making art is not one's suffering!
***
"There’s something very oppressive to people who don’t have a sufficiently strong and independent personality, and mind, to resist the blandishments and the “drying-out” process of the academic world." Composer George Rochberg
