Dan Eastmond says artists and makers don’t tend to earn very much because on the whole, the public don’t buy very much.
I’ve tried to resist jumping into this week’s hot debate in the arts - how much artists earn - as it’s one of those areas that is so filled by personal experiences and passions that it is hard to engage a 360 degree debate without being burned at the stake. Offering a counter view is a lose/lose scenario. But since the story now seems to be popping up in every arts journal, blog and feed going, fuck it. I’ve been working in arts and entertainment for over twenty years now, I’m comfortable with losing.
My first thought is that whilst there are a huge number of artists and makers who are underpaid or not paid at all, it isn’t anyone’s fault. Suggesting that haggling venues or metropolitan focussed funders are to blame is entirely missing the enormity of the problem. Artists and makers on the whole don’t earn very much because we, on the whole, don’t buy very much. We don’t buy very much because a lot of what is made doesn’t speak to us, is out of date or just a little bit crap. There is some good stuff out there, but not nearly enough to feed all of us who think we deserve it.
Then again, most people don’t buy what we make or turn up to our things simply because when they were little, maybe 4 or 5, we began to wean them off creativity and free thinking altogether, preferring instead to feed them measurable skills and employment focused learning. The result is that when most people - them - those who are not us - have enough money in their pockets to buy our stuff, they don’t, because we spent 10 to 15 years telling them it wasn’t really important.
I’ve tried to resist jumping into this week’s hot debate in the arts - how much artists earn - as it’s one of those areas that is so filled by personal experiences and passions that it is hard to engage a 360 degree debate without being burned at the stake. Offering a counter view is a lose/lose scenario. But since the story now seems to be popping up in every arts journal, blog and feed going, fuck it. I’ve been working in arts and entertainment for over twenty years now, I’m comfortable with losing.
My first thought is that whilst there are a huge number of artists and makers who are underpaid or not paid at all, it isn’t anyone’s fault. Suggesting that haggling venues or metropolitan focussed funders are to blame is entirely missing the enormity of the problem. Artists and makers on the whole don’t earn very much because we, on the whole, don’t buy very much. We don’t buy very much because a lot of what is made doesn’t speak to us, is out of date or just a little bit crap. There is some good stuff out there, but not nearly enough to feed all of us who think we deserve it.
Then again, most people don’t buy what we make or turn up to our things simply because when they were little, maybe 4 or 5, we began to wean them off creativity and free thinking altogether, preferring instead to feed them measurable skills and employment focused learning. The result is that when most people - them - those who are not us - have enough money in their pockets to buy our stuff, they don’t, because we spent 10 to 15 years telling them it wasn’t really important.