Frank Theriault wrote:
> Funny the way society values things, eh?
In many, many ways.
> Many years ago, when I was a student, I worked at Canada's largest music
> store in Montreal. Other than me, virtually every employee was a musican
> "between gigs" - although the gap between gigs seemed to often stretch into
> years <g>.
I know someone who pulled the trick of getting a waiter's attention
in New York City by calling out, "Oh, Actor...." IIRC, it worked.
> It seems that society doesn't put much value in "the arts", and other than
> those fortunate few who have "made it", most toil evenings and weekends,
> hoping for "that big break" (which most often never happens). Or, they just
> do it for the love of what they're doing, in the knowledge that they'll
> never be able to make a living at it.
Indeed, many of the most accomplished are doing it for love ...
which makes them literally "amateurs", thus bringing this thread
around to the thread that all threads must collide with on the
PDML, "Amateur vs. Pro". Whoopsie. Sorry about that. ;-)
Society fails the arts _twice_. First by not rewarding its
artists -- as a culture we say art is important and a cultural
treasure, but we don't want to pay much for it (artists who
"make it" do so by selling enourmous numbers of inexpensive
copies of something) -- and secondly by the fact that so many
people treat art as a _consumer_ item.
It's ironic that one of the forces that makes it possible to
reward the few artists who "make it" so well (a consumer
attitude, that music is something one _buys_, not something
"ordinary people" _do_ any more) also reduces the number of
people doing art for their own pleasure, and tempts those
who still feel the need to create into thinking in terms of
"that big break", that "making it" is The Goal Of The Artist
and that until one gets one's break, one has not yet succeeded
as an artist no matter how fine one's art is.
(Hey, I'll admit I'm a part of this culture. I often find
myself thinking in terms of trying to "make it", hoping I can
achieve immortality through my art and earn a living at it in
the meantime, if only I could get more exposure and maybe a
big marketing machine behind me... (which reminds me -- y'all
need to buy copies of _Spinning_Reels_ by The Homespun Ceilidh
Band, ok? ;-) ) And I'm not good at letting hobbies remain
hobbies. I set a terrible example.)
Art is being taken out of homes. Folks who don't seem themselves
becoming _performers_ stop playing the instruments they learned
as children when they grow up, and that means they lose, their
friends and families lose, their communities lose, and ultimately,
our culture loses: we lose another musician because he or she
thought being a musician had to mean music was their _job_.
I know literally dozens of people who dropped instruments they'd
gotten decently good at because they "didn't see that going
anywhere", overlooking the pleasures that simply _playing_ music
can provide even though they'd experienced -- and *remember* --
those pleasures.
Similarly, I know snap-shooters who think it's really neat that I
can make the photos I do, but listening to them talk I get a
distinct impression that they don't think they're *"allowed"* to
_try_ to actually _compose_ a photo, because that, you see, would
be *art*, and they're "ordinary people", not Artists.
...
*cough* Excuse me. It appears that my "rant" button got pushed.
I think I'll go reset that circuit breaker in my skull now.
-- Glenn
