Monday
morning weekly planning session time again. All go well until I list my monthly
monetary dues. Let’s just say; its time to start thinking creatively.
I am faced
with a two-fold dilemma, which, I know, I’m not alone in. I have a difficult relationship
with money. I believe mainly in its bad boy status and try my best to avoid it’s
company. I feel shame when I ask money for my art, because it seems wrong to want to earn a living with something which awards me with such enjoyment. It feels
as if I’m asking for double pay!
We somehow got the message that money pays for worldly things and
causes. It belongs “down below”. It is either earned with much sweat and hardship, or come by through luck or dubious means. But everything that has a
higher purpose, or is done in response to a higher calling or passion, be it
caring for the sick, raising children or monkhood, is done for love and paid in
kind.
Artmaking
falls in this last category in the warped system where we place money and love or
passion in opposing corners. All through the ages dedicated artists were
notoriously poor.
The other leg of my dilemma is due to a purely practical observation: Worldwide money is running low. Art in your house might feed your
soul, but not your body. Which brings me to many questions:
Do I stop
making art? Do I need to look differently at what I deem to be art? Can it be
that the sunny pickles I make from Leon’s farm fresh vegetables, my healing lavender cream, my herb flower
tea or the nutty buttermilk rusks I bake, are my Recession Series? Or do I just go out and find myself a job as a bookkeeper?
What do you
think?
Matilda
It is nearly the end of the year. Things happen when one year closes and another opens. During the transition, several stay behind, others prevail and fresh ones enrol. In the new mix, an answer will emerge.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, it is not in your hands to decide whether you make art or not. Art is central to who you are. As long as you inhale and exhale, art will flow from your being. (I am curious to see how you mould bookkeeping into a form of art).
You may prefer to be anonymous, but I know you're God. Thank you for these words that I can always go back to when doubt sets in.
DeleteAnd yes! To balance those books and come up with the magical 0.00 after days of juggling numbers, does feel a little like opening up a kiln after firing. The expectation of the desired result of the effort is the same. The satisfaction at achieving it also. Numbers, maths, clay, words, all building blocks of beauty. Thank you again.
Matilda