Challenges of an artist
Thursday, 1st March 2007Posted under: struggles ,
Most of you probably already sympathise with the plight of the artist, but for those of you for whom the world of the creatively addicted is somewhat of a mystery, let me give you a small insight into what it means to be committed to your art.
The first and most important consideration for any artist is time.....Without available time you can't produce work. So the struggle to find time, when the inevitable expense of living requires you find the funds to survive, is a consistent and endless conflict.
I work at Questacon, the National Science and Technology Center in Canberra (The Capital of Australia, for those of you who think its Sydney). I work as a casual gallery assistant, guiding the public to the nearest toilets, preventing hyperactive children from engaging in kamikaze missions hurtling down the ramps, and occasionally having intelligent discussions with the more awake members of the public. Usually I have around 5-6 shifts, it varies depending on the time of year, which takes up around 3 days of the working week.
On weekends I often (fortunately not always) have gigs for weddings or functions (If its only one 1hr gig, from leaving home to returning, the minimum time out of my day is 2 hours). During the Spring months, I can have up to 4 gigs a weekend. . With Pachelbel's Canon stained permanently on my memory, at least I can just sit, play, and watch those countless times as the bride slides down the isle in feverish anticipation at getting hitched. I am convinced that all brides take this one opportunity to force their bridesmaids into undersized, sickly coloured and frumpish costumes with hair plastered into what looks like some outlandish experiment by some teenage hairdresser still high from a night of gratuitous drug taking. Teetering on pin head heels ahead of the main event, these poor creatures are made to look as awful and uncomfortable as humanly possible, just so that the bride can look glorious......girls can be so cruel.
As a member of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, CSO,
(a predominantly casual orchestra as Canberra is too small to support a full time symphony orchestra), there are around 8 concerts a year for which there are mostly night time rehearsals. All the members of the orchestra have other work, some as staff at the Music Faculty of the Australian National University, most as private music teachers, some are tertiary music students, and some have other professions. Seeing the haggard visage of many of these musicians, worn down by the relentless acoustic torture summonsed upon them by the Great God of the Beginner Instrumentalist, it still surprises me at how the orchestra manages to pull it together for the concerts. Perhaps the music offers solace, a small yet irresistible moment of joy.
Along side this are the one off musical productions by small local music organisations, the obligatory St. Matthews Passion, Opera Favourites and the occasional commissioned contemporary work, mixing piles of bricks, high flying trapeze with strange and bizarre music. On the rare occasion somebody rings me up wanting a backing cellist on a CD they are producing. They haven't written any music for it, but they like the idea. Some are good, they let me write what I think is worthy of the instrument, others just want a glorified synthesizer, loooong boring notes.........
This may seem amusing to you, but the reality is that all this frivolity, which regularly tallies to a full time working load, produces only about $20,000 a year. And of course, lets not forget the commitments to ones partner. The necessary periods of emotional grooming which keep us all feeling sane and loved. And of course, the house work, which stops war....
I have been disciplined enough to arrange 2 free days of the working week to produce my art. Can you produce work with only 2 days a week? I estimate had I been able to work on my visualisation, D-F-R, full time, it would have taken between 4-6 months to complete. It took around 16 months. So, in my case, somewhere in this mayhem something did finally get produced. What now?
You would like to think, "great, finished one work, lets start another". But of course, in order to justify the compromises, the art work must produce something in return, recognition, money, meaning? The ugly issue of the purpose of my art now permeates my day to day consciousness. Before, I could just hide behind the distraction of producing it, once it's finished, the difficulties really start.
Where does one go from here.