True Vocation
Jun. 6th, 2002 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkTonight someone used the "ask seller a question" function on ebay to ask me if it is "really worth it" to sell my bad chess poetry book on line for an auction minimum of two cents. Leaving aside the ebay phenomenon that microscopic auction minimums can stimulate bidding and actually drive up price sometimes, I felt that my correpondent was making a good point. Is it ever really worth it to put one's creative work on sale?
I believe strongly that people can and should sell their art, music and literature, and that such sales ideally should take place in a small-business model independent of the corporate megaliths. I have no trouble with people wanting to be paid for sharing their work. As an owner of a small law firm, I certainly believe in the determined though ethical pursuit of profit.
The problem for me comes, though, when we define
the value of all our artistic activities in terms of *profit*. This takes two forms, both dangerous. One is the "I'm gonna be discovered and this big publishing company/well-connected gallery/record label will make me famous". The other, a bit less pernicious, runs something like "this cold, cruel, uncaring world has no real appreciation of the arts, otherwise talented people like me could make a living". In either case, one becomes a slave to the market, a slave to profit. Hell forbid that we create art as absurd acts of random joy. I may have been a free man in Paris, but now I need to be stroked by the starmaker machinery, or I am nothing.
That's why I feel that the arts should be avocational, hobby businesses and side pursuits. It's not that they aren't important--it's that they're too important to be tied to market forces and people who care only about profit. It's not worth it. It's worth far too much. I want to see more singing welders, novelizing horticulturalists, and nurses who read poetry at the Friday night open mike. This sort of thing is not merely a means to an end--a way to fame and profit. This is the end in and of itself: the destination is in the travel itself.
It's not that it's immoral to earn one's living from one's art. I know artists and writers I wish were marketers as well. It's just that the construct is fraught with peril that we will "get" what we have now--mega-corporate controlled media, artists punch pressed into the lowest common denominator, and this dynamic of the market v. the creator of art. A better construct, the artist as small business person, the Ani DiFranco or Trout Fishing in America construct, is alive but not as well as it should be.
The fault is not with the artists per se. The fault is how we all act as audiences. I buy major label and major press, and will always do so. But now I try to buy as much self-produced work by independent producers in the genres I like as I can find and enjoy.
Although marketing and small business are fun, it goes beyond merely "let's start smaller companies and put on a show!" thinking. I believe that we've got to break the whole construct and start pouring in new molds. That's why the 'net, including especially LiveJournal, media exchange such as postcardx, print on demand publishing, and cheap recording technology are so important. Ultimately, we have to earn our livings in other ways, and figure out ways to get our artistic expression(s) in the hands of others and get others' expressions in our own hands. This is the way of liberation from profit. The love of fame and
mammon may indeed be the root of all evil; for certain, though, the beginning of our destruction of this poisonous way of looking at the arts is to liberate ourselves from our fear of the self-published and self-promoted and try to exchange around the megalithic marketplace. It's not that I fear capitalism, in the way those misguided 60s theorists did. I just fear handcuffs upon our dreams.
I am not a "real" artist, and I'm not even sure I am "velveteen". I write bad poetry which I then enjoy marketing with kitschy ad copy on line. But all the fun in who I am and what I do would be gone if my work had to conform to some economic expectation and model, other than perhaps the model of spend little, have fun, and try to break even.
I'm not a particularly original thinker on all this, but I keep wanting people to realize that their true vocation is to write, and not to *write for profit*. What profits a person to fit a mold in order to publish her book, and lose her soul? Better 15 of the right readers, and artistic satisfaction, than 15,000, and "publishing expectations". I have a job, I do it well. But my dreams, however slight they are, are not owned by the daemons of profit. We are not called to lose our souls to gain a profit. We are called to lose our lives to gain our souls. If that means we are to hold jobs and write on the weekend, but write what we wish to say, then show me the clock to punch. The other way, lost in fitting expectations, that's the true hell.
I believe strongly that people can and should sell their art, music and literature, and that such sales ideally should take place in a small-business model independent of the corporate megaliths. I have no trouble with people wanting to be paid for sharing their work. As an owner of a small law firm, I certainly believe in the determined though ethical pursuit of profit.
The problem for me comes, though, when we define
the value of all our artistic activities in terms of *profit*. This takes two forms, both dangerous. One is the "I'm gonna be discovered and this big publishing company/well-connected gallery/record label will make me famous". The other, a bit less pernicious, runs something like "this cold, cruel, uncaring world has no real appreciation of the arts, otherwise talented people like me could make a living". In either case, one becomes a slave to the market, a slave to profit. Hell forbid that we create art as absurd acts of random joy. I may have been a free man in Paris, but now I need to be stroked by the starmaker machinery, or I am nothing.
That's why I feel that the arts should be avocational, hobby businesses and side pursuits. It's not that they aren't important--it's that they're too important to be tied to market forces and people who care only about profit. It's not worth it. It's worth far too much. I want to see more singing welders, novelizing horticulturalists, and nurses who read poetry at the Friday night open mike. This sort of thing is not merely a means to an end--a way to fame and profit. This is the end in and of itself: the destination is in the travel itself.
It's not that it's immoral to earn one's living from one's art. I know artists and writers I wish were marketers as well. It's just that the construct is fraught with peril that we will "get" what we have now--mega-corporate controlled media, artists punch pressed into the lowest common denominator, and this dynamic of the market v. the creator of art. A better construct, the artist as small business person, the Ani DiFranco or Trout Fishing in America construct, is alive but not as well as it should be.
The fault is not with the artists per se. The fault is how we all act as audiences. I buy major label and major press, and will always do so. But now I try to buy as much self-produced work by independent producers in the genres I like as I can find and enjoy.
Although marketing and small business are fun, it goes beyond merely "let's start smaller companies and put on a show!" thinking. I believe that we've got to break the whole construct and start pouring in new molds. That's why the 'net, including especially LiveJournal, media exchange such as postcardx, print on demand publishing, and cheap recording technology are so important. Ultimately, we have to earn our livings in other ways, and figure out ways to get our artistic expression(s) in the hands of others and get others' expressions in our own hands. This is the way of liberation from profit. The love of fame and
mammon may indeed be the root of all evil; for certain, though, the beginning of our destruction of this poisonous way of looking at the arts is to liberate ourselves from our fear of the self-published and self-promoted and try to exchange around the megalithic marketplace. It's not that I fear capitalism, in the way those misguided 60s theorists did. I just fear handcuffs upon our dreams.
I am not a "real" artist, and I'm not even sure I am "velveteen". I write bad poetry which I then enjoy marketing with kitschy ad copy on line. But all the fun in who I am and what I do would be gone if my work had to conform to some economic expectation and model, other than perhaps the model of spend little, have fun, and try to break even.
I'm not a particularly original thinker on all this, but I keep wanting people to realize that their true vocation is to write, and not to *write for profit*. What profits a person to fit a mold in order to publish her book, and lose her soul? Better 15 of the right readers, and artistic satisfaction, than 15,000, and "publishing expectations". I have a job, I do it well. But my dreams, however slight they are, are not owned by the daemons of profit. We are not called to lose our souls to gain a profit. We are called to lose our lives to gain our souls. If that means we are to hold jobs and write on the weekend, but write what we wish to say, then show me the clock to punch. The other way, lost in fitting expectations, that's the true hell.
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no subject
Date: 2002-06-06 04:41 am (UTC)So yes, thanks for the post above!
yes...
Date: 2002-06-06 05:52 am (UTC)what you correctly call "the great art that is around but may not necessarily have a big name supporting it". The problem with earning a living does get to be ethat the paycheck is primary.
thanks for commenting!
Hmmm....
There's a lot here that meshes with some thoughts I've been having lately. When they take form, I'll express them.
Re: Hmmm....
Date: 2002-06-06 05:46 am (UTC)Re: Hmmm....
Date: 2002-06-06 06:26 am (UTC)a bone to pick
Date: 2002-06-06 06:54 am (UTC)Re: a bone to pick
Date: 2002-06-06 07:18 am (UTC)As for that quote from Tom Sawyer...that is what happened to me and indie rock. I was only at Southern for 2 years (Mammoth for 2 also) when I got sick of it and turned back to only music made between 1955 and 1985.
Re: a bone to pick
Date: 2002-06-06 08:14 am (UTC)It's funny. I think the indies are the future, and yet
I have been unimpressed with their ability to "take the reins" so far.
Re: a bone to pick
Date: 2002-06-06 07:27 am (UTC)so I'm thinking disability (I actually qualify now that I've spent time in a mental hospital-- YAAAYYY!!)--and also I'm thinking the *grant route*-- I know that's a crap shoot but what the hell, I've got nothing to lose. The other alternative, which I've already proven I can do, and which was quite satisfying, is to start a small business of some creative sort-- I just haven't figured out what so far. Banning together with like minded people is very helpful in breaking free-- but I'm living proof you can do it all on your own too.
storefront
Date: 2002-06-06 08:08 am (UTC)sorting out the bones
Why "should it be" so that the creative arts "should be" avocational? Yes, people "should" be able to make a living at the things that they love. There's nothing wrong with that idea. This is how the world "should" be. The problem is that we don't live in a world in which there is an established order in which these things always happen. We live in a culture in which the business of creative work is handled on a mass-consumption, profit-centered basis. I don't believe that my view that we do live in such an economy is anything more than merely acknowledging what *is*. I'm for change. The change will be driven by lean, independent media resources. From the vantage point of the individual creator of art, the issue is how to deal with the fact that many wish to sell interesting creative stuff, but the market ain't buying most of it that much of it.
I know what it must be to be compelled from the very core to do one work thing, and then find oneself doing something else. My "things" are different, but the analogy is close enough to permit me an idea of the comparison. Must it always be the fate of writers and other creative folks to have to earn money at things other than their passion? I don't know. The past few hundred years certainly suggest it must for all but a very few.
The truisms do say something in this situation.
I'm not Anais Nin's biggest fan, but the reality of her publishing existence was that she independently
printed many of her works. Wasn't the first Jane Austen a private printing? How many of the poetry and literary journals soldier on with 1500 readers, most of them at library pricing, funded inadequately on grants?
As an aside, all hail academics who write about things nobody reads, to audiences of other academics.
It's so easy to just say "the public are all philistines", but I think that the truth is that this is just another grant-driven way to avoid "true connection".
The human situation is frustrating. That's not an exclusive province of the writer. The question is how can the writer best adapt his or her gift to the realities of the world in which s/he lives. In an earlier time, the means of production were so expensive and the possibility of marketing so forelorn, it was a moot point. Now anyone can write, anyone can market, anyone can find an audience.
The question is which lottery ticket to play.
Does one play the ticket in which 1 out of x,000 times
one might move beyond a short story here and a poem there AND sell a book AND have it sell enough copies to pay a living royalty AND have it true to one's own vision, or does one play the lottery ticket in which one holds down a job, saves money to fund small ventures, and remains to one's ownself true?
Of course, if one can get a nice advance and publish one's own work from a large corporation, that's fine.
Yes, it is agony to *know* one should be a writer or painter, when one is in fact stuck being a somethingelse. But one *is* a writer or painter,
whether one sells or not. My point, I suppose, is that the definition of whether one is doing something worthwhile is not defined by whether one makes a living at doing it.
It's not that I believe that all art is equal, or anything like that. It's not that I only buy 'zines or keep my television in the attic. It's just that
when things are as they are, one either withers or one deals with the challenges of one's own time.
The "shadows" come to each time in their own way,
with their own cool looking rocket ships. The question for each age is how to defeat them. In our time, I vote for print on demand, 'zines, and day jobs. I may be wrong, it may be horrible (fighting fascists always is), but it's my view.
I hate the "yes, but" way this sort of reply sounds, but I'll send it anyway, and just say it's not that I disagree with you so much as this is the facet of the jewel I see. As an aside, you know I think you're apt to be a "real" writer in the occupational sense someday, so maybe the analysis differs.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and getting right down to the bone.
Re: sorting out the bones
Date: 2002-06-06 08:33 am (UTC)Your example of academics is a good one. That's the life. Somehow they manage to make a living doing something they are passionate about and that most of the rest of the world doesn't care about. Perhaps "artists" should take this as their model. I don't know. I'm not an academic (I don't have the ego) or an artist.
I don't believe "the public are all philistines." I do believe we're mostly too tired at the end of the day from working thankless jobs to be creative and appreciate whole-heartedly the creative efforts of others.
Yes, the realities of the human condition are frustrating. And I'm whiney. And you're right about the risk factor. If you want to be successful at anything (including creative endeavors) you have to take risks and make sacrifices. With creative endeavors I think you have to take riskier risks...Deciding which cards to play is what it's all about.
What should "should" mean?
Date: 2002-06-06 09:16 am (UTC)Good point re: too tired. But I guess that "create amidst the fatigue" is the card I'm advocating.
Funny you mention academia. That's what I "should" be doing. :)
no subject
Date: 2002-06-06 08:55 am (UTC)Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I've always been satisfied working on my own arty-things independent of my chosen career. It's only really recently, for me, that the two things seem to come closer to being one (at least as close as is financially possible).
I can tell you that 98% of science fiction writers who are published regularly have jobs outside of writing that they need to stay afloat. The mathmatics of our genre just don't allow most people who are not Le Guin or Silverberg to solely write without other income. Often a spouse makes up the difference, too. Are they living for their art? I think so. But most of them have jobs too, some out of necessity, others because they want jobs.
I tend to appreciate the second view anyhow. I like the idea of having a career and family life as well as the private art life I maintain. I'm not trying to make any real point here, but I think it's broadening to have some "concrete" life along with all the aether of creation! I like going to the office, coming home, having credit and purchasing power....
I only know the things that are right for me, of course. Perhaps a "Nacowafer-version-of-Brian" or "Bizarro-Gurdonark-Brian" might be miserable with my setup.
I wonder how much individual job satisfaction plays into this also.... Any thoughts?
the bizarro gurdonark reply
Date: 2002-06-06 09:10 am (UTC)I have a rudimentary understanding of publishing through my wife's magazine years, so I know the puffy and the less puffy parts of those dream clouds to some extent.
I look at the artists on that Hypnos label that you and I both listen to. Those folks do incredible stuff, but essentially all either have day jobs or are supported by sig. others who do. Yet the work that they do is simply wonderful. I like their particular play at the lottery ticket.
It may be "easier" for me to take the positions that I take, because I don't have the "core compulsion" to create that drives
I just think that most folks, like the sci fi folks you work with, don't live that life. I hate to see people do the "I coulda been a contender", when, damn it, the game is still in play. I'm not saying
I agree with you, too, that solutions have a way of being right for a limited set of people. That's why we have to talk about these things--to help understand the conceptual barriers which disparate assumptions create.
I've a chapter in a book coming out (at least theoretically, you know small presses) on an arcane law topic in the next year or so. I won't be paid, it won't sell many copies, it's essentially a conversion of a seminar paper I did, and it won't "get me noticed". But that doesn't make the effort worthless. Books are basically printed ink on paper. It's what we do with ourselves in books that makes the difference.
I think I agree with your points, but I'm mostly glad you shared them!
Re: the bizarro gurdonark reply
Date: 2002-06-06 05:47 pm (UTC)Re: the bizarro gurdonark reply
Indeed, I just shoulda cited him as rebuttal and rested my case.
I wish Mr. Darnielle had answered my question re: mikes, but life is too short to expect e mail from musicians. I'm miked-up now anyway.
Have you read Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth?
She was this wonderful 20s feminist, peace activist and novelist. She came from a non-educated Yorkshire family that really didn't "get" her at all, and she had a slow burning rage for her vocation. Testament of Youth is about how she volunteered as a VAD (field nurse) in France during WWII, while the war claimed her lover, her fiance, and her brother and then picked up her life and pushed herself into becoming a writer. In some ways, I think you'd find a resonance with her.
If you haven't read her, I may have a copy here, and I'll send it to you. Her challenges were certainly different than yours, but there's some "synchrony" there. Her novels are fine, but Testament of Youth (the WWI and 20s), Testament of Friendship (the story of the loss of her best friend, writer Winifred Holtby, to cancer), and Testament of Experience (how she ultimately "settled into" a life as a peace activist, xtian convert, and "established writer" in later days) are far and away her strongest work. Testament of Youth is
much more about that point where you are now.
What an incredible book.
But I digress. Whining is not a bad thing, when it is used to help get what you want. I can't tell from a novel/journal what you do and don't do, but I do think that when you feel you should be on the ramparts, it's probably a good thing to climb the steps. But then again, I chose law school (grin).
Mountain Goats as rebuttal
Date: 2002-06-06 07:37 pm (UTC)When you punish a person for dreamin' his dream, don't expect him to thank or forgive you...the best ever death metal band out of Denton, will in time both out pace and out live you.
Case closed.
And I have read Testament of Youth. I have a copy on one of my book shelves!
never litigate with librarians
Date: 2002-06-06 07:45 pm (UTC)The benighted libraries and bookstores of our disparate southern childhood towns must have purchased their literature from the same misplaced Brit author remainder bins. I still cry at the poem that Roland wrote her ("Clematis"...and the line "it will be better so"), and I'm not one of those big cry during books people.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-06 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-06 07:14 pm (UTC)in which, like a lawyer, the author posits a theory without proof
Context: nationwide shortage of librarians
Geography: librarian lives in relatively urban area surrounded by libraries
Minor Obstacle: a few years' experience in a particular groove
Goal: peace of mind so that weekends can be devoted to writing/fun until student loan paid off and consideration can be given to writing vocationally/
getting that damn MFA one should have gotten in the first damn place
theorem: This is a solvable problem.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-06 09:17 am (UTC)Personally, I've been writing for a long time it feels like -- the second that big, fat kindegarten crayon nestled in my fat little 5 year old fingers, something magical happened. I've written horrible poetry, pretty-damn-bad poetry, and had one or two pieces that were sort of, kind of decent and the same goes with my prose. Not once, in all the writing of words did I ever think "I want to be famous with this!" -- but I always thought it would be grand to make a living doing what I love.
But the values of our society are insidious -- when a man can make a bazillion dollars a year shooting an orange ball through a little hoop, when a pretty face and no acting skills can earn a woman a bazillion dollars per sitcom episode, it's hard not to feel the gimme-gimmes and it's even easier to rationalize it with the whole "oh, but if I had enough money to buy a Greek villa and write there, OH what art I would produce!"
And now, without Oprah...I just don't stand a chance; without her telling the masses what to consume, my Greek villa goes back to being nothing but a pipe dream.
:: removes tongue from cheek on that one ::
thanks
You can be a professor AND a star! That would be cool.
bones and dust
Date: 2002-06-06 02:56 pm (UTC)i can speak from experience as a working artist
art is my vocation, hobby, therapy and source of income. all at once.
profit is the desire to obtain more than another
commerce is the exchange of goods, energy, etc.
i do not seek to profit from my art, galleries do. in exchange, hopefully they provide good exposure and representation.
in their profit, i lose half of my potential income
probably half of the art i sell, i sell on my own, thus a more fair exchange for me
it is not difficult for me to sell my art anymore, it was a process getting to that point. much like parents who see their children grow and move away. i still struggle assigning a monetary value as, to be practical, one must evaluate the "market" and what it will bear.
the bad news is that artists are not respected, neither is their work. not socially. not politically. not economically. the good news is that the "value" of my work does continue to increase.
the trouble is that corporate and individual greed has diluted the art world. exports of third world ethnic "art" and crafts (think of those craftspeople earning $5 day if they are lucky just so someone else over here can maintain their plush lifestyle.
i made a conscious choice to give up big salary and many things in order to live with the freedom that i do now. i am more content and more happy than ever thought possible. the trouble with the job is that i did not have enough time and energy left over to make the art i needed to. truly needed to. like vincent, he painted because he had to. some of us are made that way, thank goodness.
i am not susidized and am beholden to a few who have helped when necessary. i have great encouragement from friends when i'm ready to give up and get a job cleaning toilets in a bank just for the security of a paycheck.
i am grateful to mentors who modelled this possibility and the practical nature of it. i am grateful to know other artists who have not sold out. we attempt to maintain some purity. i'm known for the purity of my art and lifestyle and my self-discipline.
never thought i would be seen in those terms ever.
those are their words not mine and i wear them proudly today.
i made choices. i think it is all about priorities.
and my art will be worth so much more when i am dead
grinding the bones to make bread
do not understand half enough about the art world, and of what I do understand, half doesn't make any sense to me. It's always good to hear from someone in the trenches.
The gallery system always seems to me to be a bad deal for everyone; high commissions, indirect markup accordingly, fickle representation, etc. I don't know enough about it to make that assessment, though, so perhaps I am missing the point.
I am pleased to hear that you can "sell direct" more and more as time goes on. I did not mean to imply (and I thought I wrote) that I am not troubled by
sales by the artist; indeed, that makes sense to me.
If enough sales can be made (of an artwork, a book, etc.), to earn one's bread that way, as you do, that's also a good thing. I do not think that
there's anything wrong in earning one's living in the arts.
My concern was rather the way in which art gets "commoditized". The way in which creators of art do not seek themselves as successful unless they are a commercial or academic commodity. I see you see this issue. It's a matter of finding one's own way--a different way.
One of my side lights as a lawyer is helping people get small businesses off the ground. One thing that strikes me over and over is how important organic
growth can be. A certain mindset of folks wants only heavy capital for a business plan, in a get rich quick sense. But the folks in it for the long haul, one mundane step at a time, those are the folks for me.
I think the analogy is the same. You do art because you have made the sacrifices to take the plunge.
I assume, based on LJ, that had your muse been less marketable, you would would work a McJob and do your art on the side, because art seeps from you.
I agree with the point that this would be frustrating to one whose first preoccupation is art.
But I personally find life is often about turning consolation prizes into triumph.
I think it would be great to be known, as you are, for purity of art, discipline and lifestyle.
That's really cool!
Re: grinding the bones to make bread
Date: 2002-06-06 03:27 pm (UTC)i dislike marketing (acutally it is just plain uncomfortable for me) and word of mouth is working well for me. my way of marketing myself is a return or maybe simply a turn to a more "female" approach if i may use that analogy. i have had others point out to me how my "system" is working for me. i do not advertise, the most is putting my url on postcardx, nervousness and here. otherwise, i place my art in galleries only where i am treated with respect and consideration and politeness. i will not tolerate otherwise personally so why should i just to make a buck? i rely on my own two feet and a mailing list.
i appreciate you standing up for the individual and for personal choice. it gives me optimism that there are business owners like yourself and hope that you have the opportunity to educate or model for others and they pay attention.
you seem a person of considerable ethnics and assuredly great depth and talent. you are a remarkable addition to my life and i am grateful.
Re: grinding the bones to make bread
Date: 2002-06-06 04:00 pm (UTC)Re: grinding the bones to make bread
Date: 2002-06-06 04:04 pm (UTC)think i'm just having a bad tree day and am quite grouchy
Re: grinding the bones to make bread
Date: 2002-06-06 04:23 pm (UTC)Maybe you can become an arbor activist. One thing noted here in TX is that even in our *very* conservative climate (makes SD look liberal),
developers who are "tree hackers" get short shrift from the city if caught red handed.
arbor armor
Date: 2002-06-06 04:46 pm (UTC)did belong to the arbor day foundation for a while but they used too much paper
i have to laugh because i sent you this big long letter and what has been posted here in the last two days is at the heart of it and much better said
synchronicity?
Re: arbor armor
Date: 2002-06-06 07:54 pm (UTC)Re: arbor armor
Date: 2002-06-06 08:05 pm (UTC)i have a box of letters written to me when i lived in paris and i've kept them all these years
my father used to write us as he was away on trips (he was a pilot for united airlines) and i thought i'd saved them as well but they are not to be found
he wrote wonderful short verse and poetry
he just went on a trip up north to reconnect with family and wrote me a letter, i was very moved. it is the first in years, aside from notes and cards on holidays
i've asked him if i could have the book of unpublished poems when he was giving away shelves and shelves of inherited volumes from generations of relatives and he told me "no"
which reminds me, i have a grand old volume of "Bambi" that i'm considering altering, can't think of any better story than that to change.....may have to check out that group at nervousness
Re: arbor armor
Date: 2002-06-07 05:56 am (UTC)