Why the Arts?

Why the Arts?

I am not an artist.  I used to sketch, and I can kind of write.  I like philosophy and I love tearing apart any type of writing to find all of the layers of meaning whether the author means for them to be there or not.

But I do believe that the arts are one of the single most important parts of our society and it really stresses me that ever since our inflated economy finally busted governments have been cutting funding for the arts all over North America, especially where I live, Canada.  I recently spent a weekend in Edmonton Alberta at their world class Fringe Festival.  I try to go every year.  Now I am in a uniquely awesome situation where I know some key people in the industry but am enough of an outsider that I am not 'in it'.  I see the community though, from outside.  I see the love, the laughter and the stress of a group of devoted and passionate people giving their entire life to a cause that is greater than all of them, and I wonder if they truly see what they do for society.  For these people there is no work / life balance.  There is only life, and they live it, with every ounce of there being.  Eating up the happiness and the pain along the way, using it for fuel to keep going, but to what end.

We have to start with what the arts are.  The most obvious thing the arts are is the expression of feeling.  More than that, they are the expression of feelings when presented with our environment, society, culture.  They are the interpretation by an individual of the current state of the world.  All artists have a different world view of course, and the arts are just as varied; but there are trend lines.

 

The arts are collaboration; they are fueled by many minds and are grown from the ground up.  The arts are not mass produced, and hence they cannot make money efficiently.  Oh, some do, the painters selling in malls, thousands of prints of angels, but this is rare and to be honest doesn't have much feeling in it.  Because of this they are intimate.  The arts are a place where a story teller connects with a listener and for a brief moment they connect and share their world views, and most importantly, they feel a kinship and that they are not alone.

The arts are difficult; mastering an art takes 10 000's of hours of work.  There is art that falls flat.  There is art that turns people off and every time an artist produces something, there must be a part of them that thinks 'it could be better'.  A part that thinks, this isn't fit for human consumption.  But they share it anyways; they put themselves through the stress and fear of failure because they have to.  Because they are building something.

The arts are community.  The ratio of artists to consumer is much higher than any other industry.  50 engineers may developed a piece of electronics that is sold to millions.  While a group of 12 artists will put on a show for 20 people.  It is this community that is most important in my mind, but we will get to that.  Because of this ratio the artists make a modest income.  I am talking about the majority of artists here, not the Hollywood, record label stars that get a lucky break.  (No matter what Oprah says, they are lucky).  The modest income means they rely on each other for support.  Sticking together allows them to live past their individual means and share the costs of production.  It isn't very romantic, but it does matter I think.

So if this is what the arts are, why is it so important?

The answer, as I hinted at, is community.  The arts foster community.  Through the telling of so many individual tales of love, woe, action, comedy etc. artists give the rest of us a view into parts of our world we are not familiar with.  They hold a magnifying glass to our society and show us what we miss everyday because we are too busy to look.  They remind us through their art that when we collaborate we can create beautiful and terrifying things.  Art adds emotion to these stories and for me at least inspires me to create my own art.  To write this blog for instance.

I believe that the human condition requires us to be useful to others to be truly happy.  We require validation from others and when we don't have it we despair.  This is the prime reason for feeling like we are in a rut, or feeling like we aren't moving forward, producing, helping, being important.  A lot of western culture now tries to fill that void by chasing money and buying more and more things.  Artists show us that you don't need that to be happy.  To find that happiness it is much easier to build a community and be there for each other.  It makes us better people.  When we use money to fill the need to be useful we forget what the evolutionary reason is for that need.  Survival through numbers.  Every time I see a BMW blow through a red light I say to myself, they've lost it.  They've lost the respect and need for others, and I hope they are happy because I really don't think that what they have can compare to the artistic communities I have seen.  Maybe they are just late.

Artists grow the lower and middle class.  They create micro economies where people come to spend money and the money does not flow buck up to some corporate hedge fund.  Artists’ main consumers are other artists.  As long as there are enough non-artists taking a part in the community then it will thrive as all of the money spent goes back into the community.  It is invested in new projects, used to create more space, new festivals, and more venues.  Over time these economies can revitalize entire portions of a city that big business has left when the profits slow down.

At the end of the day Artists love.  They thrive off of community and foster compassion for one another.  They inspire others to reach to the stars and do great things.  They are required, and they should be supported and invested in by society lest we forget how to do these things. 

I fear the day we live in a world without them, it would be depressing indeed.  I will do what I can to prevent that from happening and I hope others do the same.

Cray