January 28, 2009

Artist: Will Work for Food


Poetry was the first love of my life.

The rhyming, the crafted verses, ABAB schemes, the singsong quality, the various forms it took. It had it all. And I just knew, at the age of nine, that I had found my calling.

Except for one thing.

When I announced I wanted to be a poet, a grade school teacher summarily burst my bubble and explained there was no money to be made in poetry. Once I discovered, or rather was told, that I couldn't make a living from composing couplets, I quickly amended my life dream/goal to read "writer" instead. It seemed to make sense. I was a pragmatic fifth grader and had been told that my short stories and class compositions were well well written and that I had a "natural talent" for writing.

Although I didn't know or understand it at the time, writing was an art. And a form I had embraced and warmed myself in once I realized how well it suited me. I regularly zoned out during class to write stories or doodle lines or outline characters. I started keeping a notebook in my bag, just in case, so I could writ whenever inspiration struck. Besides, how different was writing stories and essays from poetry? With my revised goals in mind, I marched forward.

Except for one thing.

No one explained how difficult it is to make a living as a writer either. Aspiring/frustrated laureates can spend their entire lives creating and never make a dime. Alot of the biographies I read talked about how 'this one died penniless' or 'that one couldn't get published until after they were in the grave.' So I rolled back and considered what it all meant...could I amend my purpose in life? Could I not be an artist? I knew intuitively the answer was no. So I carried forth and followed my obsession with words, and by this time my addiction to magazines, to college, post grad and journalism school.

Except for one thing.

No one told me that most writers and journalists become editors, who get to work with words all day, to sometimes write but mostly edit (which is mostly rewriting anyways) largely so they can have a stable check. I learned it quickly enough during my first magazine internship. So yet again, I edited my calling to include a slash: "writer/editor."

But I never stopped considering myself an artist. The definition and even the title itself may have changed over the years but I am still--at the core--in love with words, giddy over language and proudest when imagery spills to the surface in inspired flashes. I have happily added slashes to my occupation as I've acquired new skills, experiences and information. But I'm still the nine year old kid who wants to grow up to be a poet.

So imagine my dismay this past sumer as I sat in a room filled with writers, listening to media professionals and publishers, discussing how writers "come cheap," how some magazines spend more money on photography and design than writing, and how it didn't matter whether you had trained and experienced writers and editors because you could find someone to do the same work for less.

I looked around the room and had to ask myself why the skill that writers (specifically) and other artists (in general) deliver is so undervalued? Are we really a disposable corps of "dime a dozen" creative types with no intrinsic value? Are there so many hungry autors out there that one can easily, quickly and cheaply take anothers place?

And what about the range of us with different skills? Some of us are poets, others essayists, others still journalists or playwrights. Is that not ever taken into account? It seems that we're lumped together like one homogenous group, undervalued for our skills and devaluated if we dare speak up.

I was reminded of this experience yesterday as I saw an email battle between fellow jschool alumn. The outrage erupted over a start up news site that was seeking top notch contributors but had "no budget for content" asking folks to contribute for a by-line and exposure. The furor that rose seemed like common sense to most of us: how do you have a news site but no budget for content? It was also insulting to know that professional writers who have spent years working on their craft could not be appropriately compensated.

The truth is, art, can't and shouldn't ever be given a sticker value. While the need for original ideas, opinions, interpretations, encounters and perspective are still hungrily requested and even demanded to be displayed, published, broadcast and exhibited, artists continue to scrounge together a living so that they can simply exist and create. I don't know how many painters, singers, filmmakers, dancers, MC's or designers I know that hustle to make a living from their art OR conversely know those who have a "job" that pays them or have taken up other skills to make a living and spend their other hours creating. There is something wrong in the grand scheme of things when those who make artistic contributions are so undervalued and undermined for their gifts and talents.

Grita si me escuchan.....