The Direction of Intention

235.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

[continued from 234]

From the archives as I mine previous writing to inform my current pondering, here is part 2 of a remake and an update of a ghost-of-rants-past:

What if you will never be valued? What if other people find no worth in what you do? Does that mean it is not worth doing? Should Van Gogh have put down his brushes? He was a pariah in his time. To what post do you hitch your story of value and self worth?

It is a story.

We all want to be valued for what we do. All of us want to be paid; it is how our culture demonstrates value. However, as an artist, the odds are against it regardless of the scope of your talent and dedication to your craft. If you’ve ever been to a casting call in NYC you’ll know what I mean.

We live in the age of technology and that affords everyone with a mouse and a keyboard the opportunity to design, to photograph, to movie-make, and to manipulate images and sounds and perceptions. It opens the artist door broadly; it overturns the mistaken notion that artistry is only for the few.

It is the rare arts organization (or artist) that makes a living through the sales of what it produces –ticket sales will never pay for cost of the play. Donations, grants, not-for-profit status and cheap payrolls make the arts viable in a free market economy. The artist is the last to be paid and is usually paid the least. If you are an artist, you will create anyway.

We live and create in a culture that has managed to link morality to money, to make a commodity of it’s prophets and sacred days, and that has convinced itself that the greatest act of citizenship is to buy stuff. It is upside down and that is precisely why we need artists! Think about it, in this nation of immigrants we yammer on and on about things like family values as if those values were simple, absolute, articulated and expected from all people in every family, regardless of ethnicity, religious preference or sexual orientation. We celebrate the individual but insist on conformity.

What we value as a culture is at best conflicted and complex and as artists we are meant to embody, engage and explore that conflict and complexity. So value your art and do your work. Stand in the conflict. Put your fingers around the complexity and begin to mold it. Launch your work out into the world because you value it – it’s your responsibility to maintain the balance between what you create and how it is offered. Focus on what you bring and not on what you get. The rest is out of your control and fretting about it takes energy that you could otherwise use to create.

Filed under: Art, Truly Powerful People |