Let's see if this gets any play...

[sen_no_ongaku]

Proposal: Art should be created without the expectation of material compensation.

True or false?

Commonplace attitude or not?



[EDIT: This is not intended to imply that something created for with such an expectation cannot be art, though I may propose that sometime later.]

Comments

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I do believe that the truest/best art comes not from the hope of making a living at it, but from the sheer need to create. If you get paid, it's a bonus.

I'm certainly with you here. That's the attitude I've taken, anyhow.

---

the romanticization of the "starving artist" notion which, I think, keeps artists societally devalued.

This is something that's always both intrigued and distressed me. I don't know if this attitude is particular to America, but my impression is that artists are generally portrayed as on the fringes of society, disconnected from everyday life...and so detached from the material needs of "normal people". As such, there is no need to give them something they don't wany anyway...

I think, also, the artistic life is seen (appropriately or not) as a calling not dissimlar to choosing a life of spiritual contemplation; and, as such, are more interested in the ineffable than the material.

Most of the composers I know are just cool, but regular folks who happen to love and be good at writing music.

I wonder whose fault this is, if anybody's.

(I recall a movie I was told about, in which a modern composer is put on trial for murder. The jury is ready to let him off the hook until the prosecution plays a piece of his -- after which they find him guilty.)

[magdalene1.livejournal.com]

I don't want artists or myself as an artist to think strictly commercially when they create - I want the art that needs to be made no matter what, in some form, in some way. Artists are truth-tellers, and most of us would do what we do even if it never makes us any money.

Still, I want money. And I want to be an artist full-time. Does that make me less of an artist? Or does it make me focus my time and my attention differently in a way that makes my art suffer? I'll let you know if anyone actually pays me for anything I do.