A theater director had a child and struggled, as many artist parents do, to recalibrate her artistic life. She thought—assumed really—she would move on from making performance, maybe get one of those so-called real jobs.
“But,” she said, “I have not managed to become less interested in art-making.”
And so she persists.
Artists persist.
Artists everywhere are making art right now in spite of the arguments against it, in spite of the doubts and the doubters, long after a “reasonable person” would move on.
We keep at it, often with few resources and scant acknowledgment, often for decades.
The world cannot fathom this perseverance when our tangible "return on investment" is slight.
"Why do you spend so much time on that art stuff?"
The why is hard to answer in the terms it is often asked. We are not getting rich or famous. The deeper why—the calling, the lifelong practice—is something artists all over the world know and experience daily.
And that is what I want to tell you: Art makers everywhere persist in work that fails rational sense and fails capitalist logic.
I want to say: We are right about this, artists. The world is wrong.
The flame inside you burns in artists across cultures and across time. I cannot explain it. And I don’t know what you should do with it. I can only say that I see it everywhere.
You are not crazy. You are not wrong. You are not wasting your time. You—we—are tapped into something true.
I don’t know what you should do. Obviously. If you are questioning whether you should stop making art to focus on something else, I have no advice. I have only this: You are one of many, many who are called to make art. And one of many, many who wonder how to continue when it can be so difficult, so unsung, so misunderstood.
If making your art feels unreasonable and untenable, you are, I daresay, doing it exactly right.
Art is a form of devotion, and, like all acts of devotion, it is not functional or sensible. It is a kind of tending, a cultivation. It is medicine. It is both price-less and priceless: a poor fit with monetary value and beyond monetary value. What art making earns is best measured in invisible, invaluable currencies. Connection, awareness, reverence. Reinvention, possibility, truth telling.
And yes, none of that is helpful as I eat my breakfast, facing another day as an artist called—but not hired—to make art. My coffee mug leaves a steam ring on the table and warms my morning-cold hands. A jumble of to-dos and urgencies crowd my artist brain. And yet. I too have not managed to become less interested in art-making.
I want to make that table as large as it truly is. Thousands—no, millions—of artists seated at a table that stretches out the door, down the block, and over the horizon. We all hold our mugs, all called to this dazzling and demanding practice, all wondering how to make it work today.
Good morning, artists.
It is very good to see you.