FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY ..... OR ART?

Strolling through unread emails I stumble across this, an excerpt from a column written by a fellow writer/mama/artist:

Up until now, I've had to do a lot of work on not confusing money and art....
The value of the work and the earning power of the writer do not necessarily go hand in hand. I believe it is essential for every artist to have a clear, unwavering self-definition of their work outside of the marketplace. And whatever is done for the marketplace should be seen clearly as something that has been bought and sold. I choose not to create work based on the whims and rewards of the marketplace. I choose to privilege my own art-making instincts and interests over the requests and demands of the marketplace. That being said: what if you do want to make a living off your work AND you want to be completely loyal to yourself as an artist?

My coworker believes it impossible. Just the act of trading art for money, he believes, corrupts the art. Being paid for artwork has the power to influence the artist’s choices, and when external forces encourage the artist to change the thrust of the work, then the art-making environment is dirtied.

::SNIP::

Her view is:

Corruption occurs when the marketplace is there on your shoulder as you're defining your art and yourself as an artist. Learning to participate in the marketplace and not leave your identity up for sale is an essential skill for an artist.

AND LATER IN THE ESSAY SHE ADDS:

So a new quandary is born. How do I pursue that financial success while not getting art and money twisted? How do I put my efforts into production and marketing, while leaving art in its own house calling the shots as far as
art-making is concerned? How do I reach without grasping, stretch without abandoning, make a leap without getting turned around? And if I don't claim it for myself, how will I bring it all down?

:::SNIP:::


And I say:

When I first started writing my novel, a good friend (a poet) urged me to keep at the forefront of my mind that what I was doing was creating art. Though intrigued by my frequent trips to Iowa for writing conferences, working overtime to pay for workshops, subscribing to various journals and purchasing all kinds of texts, we always faced the end of our conversations with her stating that I was "overworking"; that essentially I was doing too much psychoanalyzing of what was supposed to be "art." She would tell me over and over, "Angel, there are no rules when you're creating art." And I would always beg to differ.

To begin with, I never set out to write a novel that only I and I alone would want to read. I set out to write a good story that would, by it's quality and merit, catch the eye of a good agent and net a reasonable book deal. That being said, I realized that to accomplish that goal the story would have to have solid form. It would have to follow the essential and very basic rules of storytelling, of fiction writing. There were things I needed to know about dialogue and setting, point of view and pacing in order for my novel to have shape. Much like a potter has to learn just how much water to add as the wheel spins so that the clay does not clump nor wash away, so too does the writer need to understand the literary devices of fiction and be aware of when and where the rules apply as much as when and how then can be broken. This is what separates novels that work and novels that don't. Notice, I didn't say novels that get published, I said novels that work. OVer the past ten years I have set out and committed myself to the mastery of my craft. That also being said, I was then and now, very clear that writing is my life's work and I do not have any problem being (or desiring to be) compensated for my work.

One of the principles I have adopted is that the greatest acts of all that we humans perform are acts of love. When we share love with our lovers, with our children, with nature and with our friends; when we are engaged in meaningful work that we love we are in turn fulfilling the purpose that the Great Creator has put us here for. When we are rising everyday with excitement, filled with new ideas and the means to fulfill those ideas we are living in a space of love. When we are compensated for doing what we love, it enables us to create more of the good that we desire to create, be that art, music, books, animal rescue, space discovery of new life forms -- whenever we are engaged in activity that we love we are at our best and we are in turn filling the world with peace.

To me, a true road to suffering is one in which you head to work everyday doing work that you despise simply because you have bills to pay. Dragging ourselves out of bed, bickering the whole way down the steps and out the door to the car or train, disengaged all day because we're lamenting being behind that desk, missing out on all the good and wonderful experiences that come with mindful living. Jesus taught that he wants us to have life and have it abundantly. Buddhist teachings are such that we should resist all modes of suffering both in ourselves and in others. To that end, it only makes sense that compensation figure somewhere in that equation. I don't think the Creator was so unwise as to give us gifts and talents without means. This is why I urge my children to play, to discover, to color and paint, to read -- all so that they might find the road that leads to what makes them most happy because as is clearly evident with many financially successful people (many but not all) is that those who are happiest are those who are doing what they are most passionate about, what they love to do. Above all, I tell young people to give serious consideration to what they truly want to do and give no thought to the income because if you have to leave your house for the next thirty years to work, you'd better be doing something you really love or you are going to have a very miserable existence.

Do I think that compensation dirties the art? Only if you let it. Nothing has power over your intentions but you. I think of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison both of whom have been asked time and time again, "When are you going to write about white charachters?" And Gloria Naylor who was asked the same after she put out The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Place, and The Men of Brewster Place. (I will be satisfied when someone thinks to ask John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates the same questions). I admire Alice Walker and Toni Morrison immensely because of the conscious decisions they have made about their art, their unwavering commitment to the art of storytelling and to writing about black people and the net result of those decisions being solid commercial success. I believe that writing and finding their bliss through writing is what is first and that like the age old spiritual laws decree, the money is sure to come.

I have no desire to work as a nurse/cook/waitress/teacher/marketing person whatever, all my life, struggling to find enough mind space at the end of the day to give to my life's work. What I am after, like this mama-writer posits in her essay, is that union of all things -- the art, the love and engagement with life, my children and my husband; compensation in some large way so that I can in turn do something good for others, be it publishing other indigenous women, building a new public library in Rwanda, traveling to Cuba to install literacy programs --- whatever I can do to leave this place better than I found it, that is what I seek to do. I wish to use my life in such a way that the Creator has only to hold my face in His hands and smile when my soul returns.

**********************************************************************

On another note, two quotes from the same mama/writer/artist:

ALSO: Ghandi quote

"I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction. Therefore there must be higher law than that of estruction. Only under that law would well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living. If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily existence. Wherever there are wars, wherever we are confronted with an opponent, conquer by love. I have found that the certain law of love has answered in my own life as the law of destruction has never done."


"It takes a fairly strenuous course of training to attain a mental state of nonviolence. It is a disciplined life, like the life of a soldier. The perfect state is reached only when the mind, body, and speech are in proper coordination. Every problem would lend itself to solution if we determined to make the law of trust and nonviolence the law of life."
----------------Mahatma Gandhi


ALSO: Baudrillard quote

"In a culture based on consumption rather than production, the meaning of an object derives not from its use but from its acquisition. Need is no longer the result of actual scarcity but a simulation, a fraudulent fabrication designed to perpetuate itself through the endless acquisition of objects to satisfy inauthentic, and thus never satiated, needs. Culture is defined not by people but by simulacra -unreal images- and commerce becomes a means of social control; there is no more "society," just the "mass." ------------Jean Baudrillard



Thank you to the mama/writer for such insightful words.

ANGEL