State of the Arts:Why Society Fails to Value Creativity
Tracy M. Rogers
The cliché of the starving artist is nothing new. In medieval and Renaissance Europe, artists were dependent on patrons for their livelihood. And, if no patron was forthcoming, starvation or other means of employ were the only other options. Even if an artist was lucky enough to be one of the Michelangelos or the Leonardos who found a patron, those artists were subject to the whims and fancies of their employer, having to paint portraits of some unfortunate lout who happened to be born into money or being commissioned to design chapels and other structures to celebrate the glory and magnanimous nature of said lout. And, really, little has changed. There are currently a multitude of periodicals both in print and on the internet that want contributors but are unable to pay. The only place in which creativity is celebrated and financially rewarded is in the advertising field, where artists and writers are still commissioned in much the same way to sell a product. Only the product being promoted has changed. So, the question remains – why are creative endeavors so greatly undervalued unless they involve consumerism?
The nature of artistic work is one part of the problem. Yes, artists enjoy their work, whether it be painting, photography, music, or writing. And, yes, artistic endeavors usually fulfill a psychological need to create that is implicit in most artists. But art is work. And it is not the kind of work that recognizes time constraints. Artists in many ways are always on the job, always striving to achieve greater creative heights or waiting patiently for the inspiration that could come at noon or midnight. Art is also different from other “jobs” in that it is infinitely more exhausting in some ways, even though it does not require physical labor. Artists must pour their inner workings – all of the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual matter that makes up their being – into their work. And, while some eight-to-five workers would consider this to be parallel to their jobs, an artist's work is infinitely more draining. Art is also a job that offers no vacations or respite. An artist can never come home, put her feet up, and forget about work. The art is always there, seeping into the artist's consciousness and coming into being somehow. Yes, this is partly due to the compulsion that many artists have to create, but why are artists seemingly punished for something that is beyond their control?
The increasing focus on mass consumption is partly to blame. Most of the well-known art of today and yesterday – Van Gogh’s frequently reproduced Starry Night or Andy Warhol’s series on Marilyn Monroe – is made available for the masses in the form of lithographs and wall posters. You can buy them on eBay and resell them at your leisure. Most original art from contemporary artists is not mass produced, nor does it lend itself to commercialism. So, contemporary artists are relegated to the fringe of our society for their unwillingness and/or inability to create commercially viable artwork.
Another problem is that historically artists have been undervalued. There are few precedents besides commissioned work for patrons where artists have been paid sufficiently for the fruits of their labor. Artists without commissions have always had to have other occupations to fund their creative pursuits. Unfortunately, many of these jobs render artists unable to perform to their full creative potential. Capitalism is partly to blame for the current dearth in creative positions because it rewards those who are economically motivated rather than artistically motivated. Here another problematic issue arises – what is society’s responsibility to artists? This is a complicated and politically charged question. While it would be financially impossible for any society to fully fund all artists, something is lacking in a society where more and more people watch reality television and sensationalist news, and fewer and fewer have even a passing knowledge of art history. As with many problems facing our society today, education seems to be the key. Unfortunately, as with the historical courts of Europe, our current government seems to be more concerned with military might and personal grandeur than with the betterment of society as a whole. So, what is to be done?
A political changing of the guard is the first order of business. Until there is an administration that appreciates the need to appropriate funds for PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other worthwhile artistic educational resources, artists will continue to struggle and be looked upon as atypical. Education is also necessary to learn and avoid the mistakes of history, a history in which artists have been neglected and maligned in their own time only to be celebrated centuries later. The key is to celebrate art and artists in the now and not relegate the appreciation of creativity to either the past tense or to future generations. Lastly, our society must recognize its overly materialistic tendencies and emphasis on mass consumption. Do we really want to be remembered only for our reality television shows and sensationalist news coverage, for the music of Britney Spears and movies such as Basic Instinct 2? Art is a living, breathing thing, a product of the present as well as the past. Until human beings educate themselves about art and cease to define it as simply age-old adornments for museum walls, until we all respect artists for their hard work as well as their creativity, until we turn off the television set and begin to look inside ourselves and at the world around us, the lot of artists will not improve.
Many thanks to Jonathan Mills and Lynn Schibeci for their ideas on this subject.
Artwork: Seaflower by Ione Citrin