Taking One for the Team: How Starving Artists Support the Economy

Bashing the “artsy” set is nothing new. More than two thousand years ago, Plato took a swing, accusing art in general of being distracting, deceptive, and responsible for encouraging would-be philosopher kings to engage their lower passions. In the eras that followed, those armed with pen, paintbrush or pipes continued to be kicked in the proverbial stones, deemed pariahs during their lifetimes, dying penniless, and then having friends and family make millions from their work thereafter. Hundreds of years after that, there lived a certain student of the Humanities who was unfortunate enough to have her “Intro to Shakespeare” class in the engineering building. A semester was spent trying to make a twenty-pound anthology look inconspicuous as she tried to fly through the halls unnoticed.

Let’s face it: we live in a culture that defines the value of art by how well it matches the sofa, or how many pairs of sneakers it sells. It’s not a well-funded venture, and in many circles, isn’t even considered a “real job”. But I can’t abide people accusing us of failing to contribute to the fiduciary well-being of the country. What many nay-sayers fail to realize, is the significant contribution that artists of all shapes and sizes make to the economy, despite the lack of steady income (or any income, for that matter). Here are but a few of the many ways in which we shoulder our financial burden:

Caffeine. Creativity does not follow a nine-to-five schedule, and as such, it requires a significant amount of supplementary brain juice. In many cases, artists work both sides of the coffee counter. I once met an architectural designer who could create non-stop for two days at a time (not a wink of sleep), with the aid of a 24 of Red Bull. At two bucks a can, that ain’t chump change. Don’t even get me started on how much chocolate goes into the production of a manuscript.

Supplies. You can’t get someone to buy a pair of jeans that doesn’t make their butt look great. You can’t sell a car that has a reputation for stalling at red lights. You can, however, get a writer to pay ten dollars for a pen that doesn’t give them hand cramps. You can also sell a painter very expensive tubes of goo that might never amount to anything special. You can squeeze a small fortune out of vocalists for sheet music that’s way out of their range. Add in guitar picks, cake make-up, head shots, etc…you do the math. There’s really no such thing as discount ballet slippers or 2-for-1 trombones.

Postage. Sad to say that most of the arts have not yet moved into the internet age. Submissions and communications are usually done the old fashioned way, using trucks, sorting machines, and brave people in uniform. You can run out of deodorant, or ramen noodles, or even laundry detergent, and your life as an artist need not cease. Run out of stamps, however, and you’re screwed. Every time I hear someone say that old-fashioned letters are going the way of the dinosaur, I smile knowingly and inform them that they probably have a ten or twenty year buffer from the publishing industry.

Not bad, for a bunch of people who live off Kraft dinner, and routinely search the couch for spare change. Vive l’economie boheme!