Posted on 03/17/2018 10:01:20 AM PDT by Ge0ffrey
I watched this process unfold when I was living in Australia. Artists focussed their attention on niche culture wars issues that meant little to most Australians (the stand-out is an ugly annual rumpus over when to hold Australia Day, but there are plenty of others from which to choose). Arts funders, meanwhile, started ticking diversity boxes and did little else. Sales of literary fiction fell off a cliff, something paralleled, I note, in the UK.
Unsurprisingly, Arts Council Englands response to the sales drop over here was to seek tax relief for small publishers, coupled with more state funding for individual writers.
This is the Australian path. Follow it too far and oblivion beckons. First, the arts evince ever less viewpoint diversity. Then they become a plaything of politics (as has happened to a large degree already in Scotland, thanks to meddling by the SNP). Ultimately, too, there is the risk of destruction with surpassing swiftness if a politically hostile government comes to power. All it has to do is turn the money taps off. Australias current conservative government is fond of doing this.
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That must have been quite an experience for you !
I took a semester of Russian history/culture at uni back in the Bronze Age.
Our peoples have much in common .. if only we’d both realize and focus on that, we’d be unbeatable allies.
Maybe because insanity breeds fantasy instead of facts.
I listened to an XM radio interview of the Simple Minds lead singer the otherday on the 80’s channel. The interviewer asked why he was always so serious all of the time, and did Sting, Bono and others have an influence on him. He answered that yes, they did. Joan Baez, Dylan, Woodie Guthrie and others had influenced his activism.
He then said something which struck me as obvious, and explanatory of artists’ activism. He said once he realized that there was a microphone in front of him and thousands of people would hear him once he spoke into it, he wondered if he really had anything to say “beyond the silly pop music stuff”. That was the beginning of his activism.
It’s basically a power trip caused by insecurity.
Guess I’m lucky. I married a natural born artist who was even an art major in college. She’s as conservative/right thinking as me. Pure luck because I wasn’t even thinking about political compatibility. But on the other hand that was waayyy back in the day when there was nowhere near the gap between political parties. Differences such as they were could generally be amicably worked out. There was no drive for gun control, queer marriage, men in the ladies rooms and all the other crap that makes life with democrats of today impossible.
Its funny. My daughter does ceramic art. I tell her that even after the apocalypse people need plates and mugs. I tell her there is a gold mine to be made in customized dog bowls.
She keeps telling me its not THAT bad. I always say, yet.
On a serious note the return business is good. Her web site does better every month. Bridal shower season is like Christmas for her.
I am very proud of her.
Yep.
As a huge SF fan I’ve discounted the Hugo long ago.
My stock photos and footage is a hobby that makes money sometimes.
A few times that money saved the day for me.
Later this year, I should be able to finally outfit a small building for some welding, powder coating, and other metal fab stuff.
As much as I like playing with cameras, the side gigs aren’t really out there. I like working with my hands and not have to stare at a screen.
Because right leaning people are busy doing the productive activities that make art possible in society.
My son was to be signed by bonjovi (uncle of jon and who started jon) and when my son would not sign over his life, his work, his loyalty, his honesty, to the scum, bonjovi said he’d never work anywhere... and he had the power to stop him.. and did. My son was one of the honest men in the world.. that is why there are are so few good ones in the industry.. they are weeded out when they don’t compromise and become like the scum.
Most of the conservative artists I know create for the joy of making something good, not to Make a Statement. Mainstream art only wants statement-makers.
Then you get into the difference between the artist and the craftsman; art is nice, but craft is *practical* and nice and I know which one I’d rather create. :)
I went and found it here:
Charlton Heston on Firing Line, Hollywood a Lost Cause? 11/10/95
See from 19 minutes to 22-1/2 minutes
I also found amusing Heston's description of him disrupting a stockholder's meeting at Time Warner - at 11:15 to 13:00.
If the government has to subsidize your art, it’s probably not a product that people are willing to pay for. Anything is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
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