By Megan Lambert (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 8, 2015
Some people can plan out their next homework assignment, try their best in a class they don’t need to take, and work up to a noble profession like teacher, child and youth worker, or nurse — all roles which are necessary in our society. I’m glad the practical thinkers are going into those fields, and I’m happy they have chosen to climb the vertical ladder of life.
But what about the creative types, the kind who willingly skip class on a nice day to go to the beach? Those of us who do our best work when we are feeling inspired (usually late at night, when we should be sleeping) are kind of trapped on this linear ladder in a society that prizes those whose life-goals are more about stability and success within the system.
Look at our provincial government’s BC Skills for Jobs Blueprint, for example, where job-specific training is encouraged for “our growing economy” — a.k.a. the LNG sector and trades division, which us artsy hippies protest against with a passion.
A UFV prof I admire, who has inspired me to find solace in my perception of the world around me, said, “It is the burden of the artist to hold up a mirror to society.” This sounds great — social commentary in your fiction, poetry, or paintings, all from the comfort of your living room – but unfortunately we live in this “job-specific” kind of world, where we do things as a direct means to an end, that end being money.
Of course, we need money to live. It’s pretty much impossible to be an artist and make enough money creating what we want to create. Instead, it’s about feeding the consumer — novels become vampire fan-fiction, photographers become wedding photographers, and painters paint what looks great in a Pinterest-style bedroom. Artists manipulate and pervert their art for the selfish population in order to survive, not because what they are creating is good art.
Our world is becoming increasingly about the practical, and those who can’t be bothered to work hard are becoming close-minded and entitled. For them, everything is “too much work,” and professors actually have to remind us that we have homework. I am not talking about these people when I speak of the creative types; I’m talking about people who need to rest so they can contemplate, which is its own kind of work. Thinking through a project or scenario in life takes a lot of waiting, and sometimes I feel like that life-ladder is more of a life-escalator; the more I wait to jump on, the more time passes and I’m increasingly left behind. This is where I want to give up and find a different escalator.
I’m trying to hop on the right escalator, even though other artists are running with the crowd. They are earning money, so they are winning. I am not, and so I’m losing. It seems like the quality of what you produce is based on what’s fashionable, and to me that isn’t art.
Art needs that slow contemplation. Art needs the room to breathe. Art needs to work on 15 projects at one time. Without that non-linear, horizontal space, the idea will die. The greatest revelations come with time and experience — but unfortunately, time and experience are commodities that are too expensive in a high-speed world. Nobody will wait for the artist, and artists feel like they need to change. However, it’s not the artist that needs changing — it’s our ideas about what makes a successful life.
