What is An Artist?

A hobbyist will  engage in more creative activity in an individual than any of the creative professions.   That is because most of the "creative" professions are about volume sales, and the people actually doing the creative part will not share the burden.   Or, as in the case of architecture, so complicated that the creative aspect  only involves 2% of the tasks.  Lets face it, modern jobs are dull and repetitive, based on a Factory model.  (And, slaves to statistical analysts because people like to "stack the deck" and guarantee sales.  Like that's even possible.)

Traditional means of support, patronage, family money, government grants, etc. all seem to require the Artist to participate in the visions of others.  If the Artist is independent of these connections, the vision belongs to the Artist alone; and, the Artist is probably dead.  

It is possible for the Artist to have a day job, or someway of providing, separate from creating art.  Get one that doesn't have managers who demand unlimited access to your time.   Trust me, there are people, managers, clients and coworkers who are never not working and expect 24 four access to you.   

Also, some jobs are more physically demanding than others.  The Artist has to take that into account, but that is more of what an individual can handle than some broad principle.    

Supporting oneself with a day job is an old idea.  I ran across it in, of all things, the Bible.  The Apostle Paul, who was the first evangelist, supported himself as a tent maker instead of taking money from those he preached to.  

This concept is so far from the tv evangelists of today who constantly beg for money and fight for audiences.  Even in religion, the job can destroy the vision of the preacher.  

The Artist cannot ignore life.  Food, shelter, and clothing are not provided by simply having faith.  There is some effort involved.     

The words that stand out in this post are Artist (as opposed to artist), support, and vision.   There is an unsaid word, which is definitely implied, and that word is Time.

Support

That which prevents death and allows the Artist to keep exploring.

Vision 

Something that people say when they are describing the body of work of an artist.  The meaning varies from person to person.  It's also what I am looking for when I explore.

Time

The most important coin in the universe.  This musing is about how the Artist spends Time. 

Connections 

An unavoidable condition of Human Existence.   They can be cultivated or limited.  Some crave connections and others, they are more selective.  Again, connections are based on individual traits. 

Artist

The one who creates art is called an Artist by other people.  How I see it, essentially an explorer of perception.  

Study Artists like Andy Warhol and it becomes clear that what you do is not as important as how you present it.

Maybe this says it more clearly:

Painters sells paintings.

Artists sell themselves.  

 

  

COFFEE

I love coffee.  

I appreciate artisanal coffee shops; however, I don't really go to them.  They are too upper class for my taste.  Clearly, these places are targeting upper middle class or whatever we are calling people with a little money to spare these days.  

I make my coffee at home.

What I love about coffee is the scent of coffee right after I open a can of ground coffee, or when I grind beans.  

(I don't have time for grinding beans every morning.)

I love the sound of a percolator working.

I love the feel of a warm cup in the morning, even when it is summer.

I love the bitterness, cut by a little sugar and creamer.  

It's the ritual that works for me.  The beginning of the day, a drink that kicks you awake, and the slow cooling of the mug letting me know its time to work.

Coffee tastes like coffee to me.  Bitter.  It's not unpleasant, to me at least.  

The trappings of the artisanal coffee shop do enhance the flavor of coffee and do provide "an experience" for their customers.  That experience is what coffee shops sell.  

It would be a bad idea for me to open a coffee shop.  I love coffee; but, I am not a people person.  I can't give those sales pitches with a straight face.  It's just  coffee.  I love coffee, but honestly, most artisanal places oversell the product, and nothing can live up to that hype.    

I would rather buy coffee from a diner that just says its coffee.

Musing on What World I Want to Live in.

Prelude:  This is an opinion of mine.  It's well established, based on experiences, reading, and education -MArch if your curious.  I just need to say it outloud.  I do think when painting and it gets in my way.  So hopefully this exercise will help with that block.

Cross Study
Ink on Paper
2014
The power of the Cross is simply what we give it through faith.   
It is a creation of Man, a symbol of unity of belief in an organization.
That does not make it wrong, or evil, or good.
Such descriptions should be applied to our actions.

What kind of world do I want to live in?

A world which values individuals over the group think which currently infests the political sphere would be nice.  

Let's face it.  Our thinking has not changed much since the Enlightenment.  We still perceive our world through the concept of the Clockwork Universe.  In a nutshell, it's the idea that the universe is a clockwork that operates on its own and without further input from God.  And, we seek to emulate that clockwork in the things we make, including businesses and government.  

Corporations run on their own, changing leaders to fit the times.  

Marx organized history using governments tendency to control more of the economy as they age.  Not a bad analysis of history, really.  

Religious organizations, well, they are not as adaptable as government and corporations.  They can last a long time, though.  Adaptability is not everything.  

All of them are highly dependent on creating and maintaining a uniform set of beliefs and goals.  And, their organization out live humans by generations, if not thousands of years.  Clockworks that can run on their own.

I believe the fact we are human being, animals of the primate types, does not fit well in the expression of this concept.  

For example, most literature about management limits the number of people in a group at eight, which is the number of people that can be efficiently managed by one clear leader.  So the leaders of those groups are indoctrinated and organized into groups, and so forth.  

Cities are organized along neighborhoods, districts, and at large districts, zoning terms controlling density, activity and resources.  The term family unit is a political term, but I don't believe it has any relevance these days.  The neighborhoods are wrangled by community organizers, neighborhood associations, etc., into a common goal.

In business, it depends on the corporation.  There are many, many forms of organization.  They do more research about organizational efficiency.  It comes down the factory model.  Tasks are broken down to their simplest actions, and distributed among groups, who work together to achieve middle management goals, managers who work in turn to achieve  upper management goals.

In religious organizations, I only know evangelical churches fairly well.  It's basic organization is church, region, national.  But, religious organizations are conservative in nature, fighting change more than embracing it.

The massive super churches, who appear to be trying to establish themselves as a social and political entity in their own right, are something else.  

In every case, there are massive amounts of people gathered in one place, performing boring, repetitive tasks that only matter to the corporation.  Similar to a modern chicken farm, thousands of chickens either laying eggs, or getting fat for slaughter, all stacked in cages or running around a fenced in enclosure if free range.  ( Yeah, I know that's not free range; but, I don't believe most of the marketing material massive corporations put out.)

As a species, we don't appear to function well stacked on top of each other like those caged chickens that produce eggs for us.  Did you know eggs do not come out of the chicken in uniform sizes?  They are sorted and sold according to size, some for food, some for vaccine research, and some for purposes I am not clear on.  My point is standardization and breaking down tasks to the simplest movements are the go to concepts for massive organizations.  

Those two concepts work.  I can't deny that.

Corporations have produced enough food and clothing for the world, although there are problems getting the actual food and clothing distributed.  If we could get corporations to build shelters that quickly, then we have covered the three basic needs:  Food, shelter, and clothing.  (Shelter does not necessarily need delivery.)

Unfortunately, the cost to individuals working in corporations can be high.  The mines and factories of the US industrial age are a good example of the human cost as well as the benefits.  Whether your economic beliefs are Capitalist or Communist, that age needs to be remembered.

March 25, 1911, the date of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, comes to mind.  In New York City, this factory was being operated by its owners/managers on standard practises of that age.  Most of which are now illegal today as a result of the tragedy.   No one batted an eye at chained exits and long hours with no breaks in those days.  If the workers voiced any objections, the management ignored them at the very least.

What kind of world do I want to live in?  One where the individual is not ignored for "the greater good" a phrase that has justified many atrocities and excesses.