Posted on 03/04/2009 4:08:39 PM PST by Selkirk
I really need to learn to relax. I read this interview with Jane Alexander, former chair of the National Endowment of the Arts, about an hour ago, and I'm just now starting to get my blood pressure to a safe level. I don't really know why it made me more hot than I usually get about these things, but it did. Did Ms. Alexander really defend the appropriation of $50 million for the NEA as a sound economic policy?
She argues that there are 2 million professional artists in the country, and without the NEA and the funding it provides a great many of them will be without a job. What she doesn't quite address is the necessary follow-up question, which is, to put it as gently as I can, "So?".
I understand that there are a great many starving artists out there who are dependent upon public funding. I also understand that there are a great many artists out there who aren't. It's a market economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.politicalcastaway.com ...
>> She argues that there are 2 million professional artists in the country
Art is an avocation, not a “profession”. As an artist, if you can cause folks to willingly give you their dough in exchange for your “work”, good for you. But taxpayers do NOT owe artists of ANY KIND WHATSOEVER a freaking living!
Not one penny should ever be used to fund, or “teach” “artists” of any type.
REAL artists have no need for outside funding or publicly funded education.
PS: I was referring to funding to artists by TAX dollars.
My husband’s aunt has been an artist for many years. As long as I’ve known her (45 years) she has painted well enough that she has been able to teach people to paint for money (except for me), or to paint murals for money in places of business, or to paint hundreds, probably thousands of paintings good enough to put in a show and sell for pretty good money to ordinary people. She’s almost 90 and is still teaching for money at a public park building. While I suppose that her teaching is paid for technically by state government, she probably earns her salary. She also dances several times a week and teaches a dance class (don’t know how good a dancer she is, but ought to be by this time). Her art is sensible; but there are many that aren’t sensible and are only sucking off the government. You can tell which ones they are, too, when you see them making “sculptures” that some kid could easily do and blowing off about how “important” their “work” is.
In order to be any good at it, artists must suffer for their art.
Something we can either do without or provide for ourselves.
If it has utility people will pay you for it. They will pay you what they think it is worth.
The Constitution does not provide for Art.
Of course, my druthers would be for most Professors to teach and not pimp for research money. If research is needed the money will be there.
See what else we are funding...
https://www.safelinkwireless.com/EnrollmentPublic/Home.aspx
In other words, “our” government is using “our” tax dollars to pay a Mexican Company to provide cellular phone service for people who pay little, or no, taxes.
i am an independent artist and technical illustrator and i make good money because i am good at what i do and have good interpersonal skills. i don’t need government help and i don’t want government help. zero is a socialist marxist like hugo chavez. sa you can imagine i am not the most popular person at AIGA (american institute of graphics artists) meetings.
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