On art though, my sister said to me the other day: ‘I think artists should only create art for themselves’. Now how does one justify/explain a statement like that? Firstly, does one not have to appreciate the artistic work of others in order to be able to create your own? And how else do these artists earn money. Although artists may earn something filthy, I am not with Marx on this one. By all means try write for the purpose of making money. Keep in mind, few writers do.

And when they do make money for being talented, we complain. I am sick of complaints about writers pushing boundaries – Coetzee writing about nose-picking is despised – when visual artists are continuously challenging the frontiers. If you don’t want to read Coetzee, don’t read Coetzee.

But writing is work, people, talent or not, it is work and that work needs to be rewarded. Perhaps, if only, with support.

Ask Groucho Marx?

“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.” Karl Marx

I think that in some sense corroborates with what your saying, artists create for the public and once they barter their works for money produce a commodity and should approach their work once ‘commodified’ as such.. Marx would have commented on the manner in which we’ve severed ourselves entirely from our species – being, but hell at least some of us are luck enough to be creating and earning concurrently..

Maybe the solution to this problem is a path toward the privation of art, artists should either bow out of society altogether and create for creating sake or sell their art as if it were a book destined for the bourgeois’s coffee tables.

Here, go read…

http://blog.acton.org/index.php?url=archives/2153-Natural-Capitalism.html

Learn a bit about the pyramid scheme called capitalism, and thus learn that not all of us are members, condoners, or promoters… of THAT servitude-infested religion-o-competing. Some of us, and some of the world, are/is still Christian socialists. Some of us know better than to allow our parents to force us into joining the church-o-competers… or die of starvation. The elders of THAT felony slavery’n'classing system… are under investigation for felony pyramiding. I expect to see a cease and desist order on the free marketeers pyramid scheme… within five years. Those who don’t want to do (possible afterlife) prison time for felony pyramiding… better renounce it soon. Get rid of the cancerous tumors called economies… they just cause tug-o-warring/pyramiding. Definitely… DON’T cheer for an economy’s “growth”. Such “growth” will kill animal-kind and planet. Other than the capitalism comment, I agree wholeheartedly… and I am a singer/picker, and coder… all volunteer…. donations only… or just for fun. I never bill or pricetag. I don’t do demandings/timecardings. I also don’t hold-up well against “the (AmWay-American Way) cost of living” rationing gates (pricetags) on all the survival supplies.

Larry “Wingnut” Wendlandt
MaStars – Mothers Against Stuff That Ain’t Right
(anti-capitalism-ists)
Bessemer MI USA