Breaking Through

Somewhere between the economic goliath of corporate bottom lines and the airy abstraction of artistic ambitions is a hazy gray wonderland of secondary markets that defy our definitions of art versus business.

It is along this precarious line that Art sustains itself, allows the masses to express themselves, and ushers the next world-changing theoretical thinkers to challenge our beliefs and alter society.

So upon closer inspection, the basic gist is this…no one starts as a Picasso, a Mozart, or a Spielberg. There are smaller avenues that allow you time to grow and expand and learn while, hopefully, allowing you to eat more nutritiously than the occasional cup of ramen. Those pioneers fight their way through art classes, street fairs and auditions.

The climb to the top is rarely pretty, and rarely a fairytale. Ask anyone…there is a time when work was done between three jobs in a dirty eight square foot patch of cement in a garage and with materials garnered from dumpster diving and good will.

I have a lovely four foot cubist mural painted in kindergarten tempera paints on reclaimed plywood from a construction site as proof. In fact, now that I can afford supplies, it hangs proudly in collection at Stanford University – testament to an intangible trajectory that I would like to think means something…but perhaps not.

Without the cafés who hang local painters and host live acoustic performances paid for with the proffering of an open guitar case, we, the arts community, would not have a regular accessible avenue to reach out to the public. Without the public to consume the arts, our creations would remain self-serving relics gathering dust on crowded shelves in those same dingy garages.

No artist, however famous or in demand, is above their audience. If they become relegated to the sterile walls of museums and high-priced galleries, they have become nothing more than the salty mummies of past masters inhabiting worshipped mausoleums. Granted, those in it for vanity might enjoy early reverence pre mortem, but they are just as empty as those hollow coffins.

If you are a new artist, take heart in your ambition and purpose. Reach out to the public, even in simple spaces where art, though not in the fame-making limelight, achieves its greatest potential. Make friends with restaurant owners, take the time to sit on street corners, teach those younger than you, learn from those older, and accept the partial truths of those before you while seeking further truth.

There is money to be made even when you may deride its virtues. We all must live, and in order to live, the public’s lives rely on us to sneak beauty into their daily lives. With advertisers and corporations daily bombarding them with bright and shiny manipulations, the ease and comfort of a nice meal amongst thought provoking Art will not only give you a quiet opportunity to make your point, but perhaps move them enough to pay not only their dinner bill, but your electric bill as well.

So much for the direct approach…”sideways, ever sideways is Her way.”