So, I am always wondering, why make art? What value does it have for an individual, a family, a community, a culture, the human race through time immemorial? In our culture, profit is surely not a wise motive, nor even the idea that art will provide the average artist with a comfortable living, winter vacations skiing at Chamonix, or unfettered access to whatever artistisan cheeses and microbrews one might wish to buy at the local boutique grocery store (but at least we get free CheezWhiz and box wine when we go to each other's gallery openings). I really want to believe that art comes from the most wondrous reaches (heights and depths) of the individual human psyche, that it is vitally important to our worth and uniqueness as a species, that we communicate with pictures, sculpture, film, and music in a way that is more direct and visceral than what we can do with spoken and written language. If I were trying to explain humans to an alien species, I would want them to see the Lascaux cave paintings, a Vermeer, that book Fruits, so I know art is important. But still, in the USA in 2008, how do we justify making art? Do artists need to justify it?
In my quest to figure out the answer to this - is it okay to make art, not money, (or can one do both?) Lewis Hyde is now on my reading list. Instinctively, the idea that art is a gift, both in the sense that we can make art in the first place, and in the sense that sharing it with others is what gives it value, appeals to me. So, not being old enough to be aware of his book, "The Gift" when it was originally published, I will read it and see what he has to say. Bill, I think you will also perhaps be interested in his upcoming book on copyright issues and the commons (referring back to your interview and the comment about culture being like a roiling stew).
10 comments:
why make art? what makes one an artist at all? all are good questions, but none seem to be all that simple. for me its easy, i make creative visuals and designs that others consider to be artistic for money. on paper i'm an artist, nuff said.
but something tells me that's not any kind of an answer. it is merely a description of how i make money. or is it the description of an artist? is it? i dunno, but i do know one thing saying you do it and doing it are two different things. so are people who do it not supposed to do anything else? or are folks who do other things and do art in secret without showing any less of an artist?
i say yes. is that harsh? dunno, i'm militant like that. i honestly do admire the artist in us all us (the poets and mad men as well), but all are not artists. i guess its kinda like what it takes to be carpenter, you must carpent!
as to WHY i do it? i cant even begin to comment on that, maybe a bad reaction to algebra?
i'm just getting over the fact that i get do it at all!
plus i have worked the majority of my life and spent countless hours trying to be good something that i can barely define ;)
now let's art! ;)
Cat I am ordering those two books.
I don't really know about the value of making art, it's helpful to get the perspective of someone like you - who I know is thoughtful and sincere. I have had some terrible anxiety in my studio after drawing silly cartoons all day, and realizing that I could have gone to medical school or have been an astrologer or something that had any kind of objective societal value.
It's a confidence struggle against living in a way that has only subjective value.
Jean Michel-Basquiat and Pablo Picasso both had intense confidence, and I was drawn to them during undergrad because reading there biographies it was easy to copy their demeanors and feel that confidence. As an adult though it has been a little more difficult, also when you realize that the people you knew in undergrad are all teaching high school - or have quit making art all together and your competition is a lot stiffer, that is a sort of doubt too.
I guess a lot of my studio practice is looking for things that seem important.
Interesting.
Deryke,
you hit on the question of how one defines an artist. Is it a job, a calling, a state of being? If you make art and never show it to anyone, are you like the proverbial tree falling in the forest?
You wrote:
"saying you do it and doing it are two different things. so are people who do it not supposed to do anything else? or are folks who do other things and do art in secret without showing any less of an artist? i say yes."
If people who make art don't do anything else, there will be a lot of literally starving artists. Being "an artist" in the commercial gallery sense is terribly competitive, and you need some talent, some luck, and patronage (gallery owner) to don this mantle. And even then, you might wait until you are 55 years old before you can make a living solely from your art. So, I would disagree with you that the people who work construction, teach, or do set design for Hollywood movies, but paint or make their own work at night are not artists.
COnsider the proposition that what makes an artist is the practice, not what your resume says, not how you earn rent money or get your health insurance. Sustaining, continuing to practice, this is what makes one an artist. If you make art just for the money, are you an artist or a factory? At that point, does making art become functionally the same as laying bricks, managing other people's money, or providing geriatric nursing care?
In grad school, sometimes I would look at other people earnestly cranking out piece after piece and think it just looked like so many little rabbit turds. Busy for the sake of looking busy. How crummy when making art turns into an obligation.
But, maybe it's like my old boss at the pottery studio said, "I knew I was a potter when I came into the studio even when I didn't feel like it." But discipline and obligation are two different things...
And now, discipline meets obligation, and I had better get back to my day job!
And Bill,
I think it can safely be said that art has more objective social value than astrology!
I meant astronomy! :)
this place is fun!
that being said...
there is something missing from the article and from your response that i know is there that is not even in my current rational.
i feel that you want to mention the what seems to be considered the intrinsic specialness of being an artist. i feel there is no intrinsic specialness to being an artist. its is a job and a skill. just because its hard to quantify as a skill it doesn't mean we are special. it means we worked hard to hone a skill and then if we get lucky enough to elicit a response from a viewer that garners a cash reward we merely doing our jobs, not unlike a good hot dog vendor.
did i just compare art to hot dog vending? i did :)
as an undergrad brimming with skills i too felt i was special, i felt the world just didn't get it, but it was me. my arrogance was my downfall. now that i'm more (not completely) over that i can see the artistic landscape for what it is. EMPTY AND FULL OF HACKS!
the idea that gallery work is the only way to be an artist is insane in my opinion. there are so many ways to skin that cat its nutz.
art is above all a form of communication and as artists we have a calling to highlight that, an idea that seems to be lost on most so-called fine arty folk. most of the reason that artist cant sell or don't think they can sell for a long time until they are accepted, need to change up their game, and get back to the idea of the old tree falling in the woods conundrum and realize that no body aint gonna hear shit.
i know i'm busting balls but when i see my students go forth into the art world i hate to think that they think that the art world belongs anyone else than them. i mean i know a bunches of artists who's work you will never know or see in some gallery that fully support themselves in much finer fashions than their real world counter parts. you can make a living you just need to actually do it and not wait for it.
i just hate that whole 'pretty woman' scenario of being an artist.
THE GALLERY SYSTEM WILL MAKE AN HONEST WOMAN OUT OF ME!
it's often just the opposite.
I ordered two of Lewis Hyde's books, the gift, and another one: Trickster Makes the World... Plus I ordered "the pimp" by Iceberg Slim, so I could qualify for free shipping. Figured I would stick to the economic/identity theme.
pimp will teach you more about the art world than ant of those other books!
You know, it's not that I think there's an intrinsic specialness of being an artist, but I think it is special that humans make art, that we have an urge to create, to interpret, to share our internal landscapes with each other. It's not the job title, it's the impulse, and it is unfortunate that it must be so often divorced from daily life and our experience of the world and further, that it must be connected with money at all.
I wonder if a hundred or 500 or 2000 years ago, when people had to make their own clothes, tools, and dwellings, if we were all happier. Making stuff, generating something from nothing, having an idea in your head and manifesting it in reality, is immensely satisfying. I bet stone carvers in medieval cathedrals, cobblers, wainwrights, not just painters, all derived satisfaction from their work in a way that few people today get to experience. Really, the category 'artist' in the way we think of it is a fairly recent historical development. Artists used to be considered artisans, they belonged to guilds, they were much more like...well, not hot dog vendors, but sausage makers. Now, when people think artist, they think maybe more like an Andy Warhol rockstar type artist, a naughty guy like Damien Hirst.
Unfortunately, hot dogs cost $1.99 apiece and lots of people can afford to buy them and support the hot dog vendor. Not so much with a hand-crafted painting that took a painter 200 hours to finish. This would be as if the hot dog vendor kept some sows, raised the piglets, slaughtered them and processed the meat himself, grew the wheat for the buns, made his own ketchup and kraut...those hot dogs would not be so cheap.
So, Deryke, is your point that if you want to be an "artist" you should dive in and make a place for yourself, in the gallery scene, in an ad agency, selling velvet bullfighters out of the back of your van? Are these people artists or hacks?
i mean i know a bunches of artists who's work you will never know or see in some gallery that fully support themselves in much finer fashions than their real world counter parts. you can make a living you just need to actually do it and not wait for it.
So, are the artists supporting themselves in finer fashion not real world artists? I am confused!
i think you hit the nail on the head, and i could not have spent my tuesday doing anything finer!
that being said ... ;)
the guild, the artesan. i love these two idaes. first, the idea of hangin' out with a bunch of folks who do exactly what i do sounds fun as far as gang fights with potters, and baseball games against post dekooning abstractionists up the street goes.
the aritisan is another idea that just makes remember something about the hot dog guy and the art world. now as a rule that i learned early on is that mediocrity is the norm and that the bell curve makes sense. most stuff out there is shite, its cool to be nice to them and enjoy their spirit but lets get real, if it wasn't for the people that suck and the people in the middle, the top wouldn't be so hot. this concept is unfortunately the reality that maybe only i live with. which brings me back to the hot dog vendor vs. my 200 hour plus oil extravaganza.
when i think of a great hot dog i think of a single place, a single namw, and maybe even a single face to buy it from. now how many hot dog guys are out there? a gillion and a half? maybe more! but i only think of only one. and a lot of folks would agree! this simple hot dog was the $1.99 result of possibly a life time of honest craftsmanship, creativity, and love of the perfect doggy experience from the name to the table clothes to the sweet lil napkin illustrations of the happily eaten dog. a million dollars, tons of skill, and a lifetime of doggy reverence disguised as a novel treat for the not so elite to eat on the street. that's a pretty relevant $1.99 to me.
i guess that was more about hot dogs than art. or was it?
i'm hungry.
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