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| Colon Cemetery, Havana ©Lynne Buchanan |
In William
Deresiewicz’s article The Death of the Artist—and the
Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur in The Atlantic Monthly, he writes about how works
of art are becoming commodities–consumer goods with a customer base. From my own struggles to hold on to what I am
trying to express with my photographs and blog posts while trying to market and
sell my work, I tend to believe a lot of what Deresiewicz’s article is saying. This paradigm shift he tell us has to do with
the shift in the workforce. No one is
guaranteed a job these days and people have to switch careers multiple
times. We are in an age of
entrepreneurialism where we are all being forced to become our own “marketing
production, and accounting departments.” Deresiewicz writes that although
entrepreneurialism is being sold to us as an opportunity, it is actually a
necessity.
The author suggests
quality will deteriorate because no one has time for the 10,000 hours it takes
to become really expert at something because of the demands of all these other
roles. In addition, Deresciwicz observes
that in searching for a market, creative people are hitting multiple media and
establishing platforms for their creativity instead of focusing on a single art
form. Though I constantly feel the pull between creating and marketing, I spend
most of my time creating and not enough time marketing in large part because I
don’t understand how to market the work my soul feels compelled to create since
the world of photography has changed so much.
It is also true that I had to incorporate writing to get my work and
message noticed and there is no doubt that pursuing two creative media is very
time consuming. Yet one more reason
marketing is the last thing I get to. Furthermore, it seems to me that the
skills required to create photographs and write creative nonfiction are very different
than the skills required for running a successful business. Achieving success in today’s art world is a
mix of creating something “artistic” and being able to sell it, with the
business model often being a greater indicator of success.
My photographs and
writings reflect my inner awakening and I have shared them in an attempt to
help shift cultural values, so that people understand we are part of a web of
life and owe it to the planet to consider the consequences of our behavior
towards nature. Though there is clearly
a need for my message in today’s world in my humble opinion, since we are
destroying the environment at breakneck speed, this need is not something
recognized by much of society or deemed relevant in the new paradigm of the
artist.
I am not interested
in selling for the sake of selling, in producing without caring what I produce
just so someone will consume. To me, art
is more than a widget. Yet, if I cannot
find ways to sell or share my work in museums, galleries, and public places
without losing money as I currently do, I may have to stop displaying my work
in these forums and create solely for myself. It is somewhat paradoxical that
in this new age where everyone is supposed to have a voice, your voice is
deemed less worthy if you don’t follow consumer trends and market your follower
voice sufficiently through social media and other networking platforms. Don’t get me wrong, I do share through
Facebook, as it is the best means of reaching people I have found and with no
advertising, my blog has been read more than 11,000 times.
Still, I have yet
to figure out how to cross over from getting people to look at and read my work
to earning enough money to cover the costs of sharing my work. Though the reason I am an artist has little
to do with making money, or I would have quit long ago, it is disheartening not
be compensated sufficiently for the blood, sweat, and tears I put into my
photography and writing in a world where everyone is trying to get the best
deal on a product. Yet, as someone said
to me the other day about the starving artist story, “I don’t want someone
trying to make me feel badly that I don’t want to buy something if I don’t need
it or want it.” In the past, there were
patrons who funded creative endeavors because they saw the value to
society. Now we have to prove and create
our own value. For a long time, I have
thought if I could just become well known somehow, then my work would sell
easily because critics and other artists are always telling me how good it
is. Yet the point of creating has never
been to become famous for me.
I am not sharing my
struggles to make anyone feel sorry for me.
I have been analyzing them for a while and this article helped me see
what I have been facing in a cultural context that affects the direction art
may go in the coming decades. As someone
who believes in the soul and the importance of art in opening our eyes to the
deeper issues of life, I feel examining these issues is critically
important.
“It’s hard to
believe that the new arrangement will not favor work that’s safer: more
familiar, formulaic, user-friendly, eager to please—more like entertainment,
less like art. Artists will inevitably spend a lot more time looking over their
shoulder, trying to figure out what the customer wants rather than what they
themselves are seeking to say. The nature of aesthetic judgment will itself be
reconfigured. “No more gatekeepers,” goes the slogan of the Internet apostles.
Everyone’s opinion, as expressed in Amazon reviews and suchlike, carries equal
weight—the democratization of taste.”
“’Producerism, we can call this, by
analogy with consumerism. What we’re now persuaded to consume, most
conspicuously, are the means to create. And the democratization of taste
ensures that no one has the right (or inclination) to tell us when our work is
bad. A universal grade inflation now obtains: we’re all swapping A-minuses all
the time, or, in the language of Facebook, likes.”
“When works of art become commodities and
nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a
creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word
that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal
pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may
disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we
need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.”
Note: Cuba has been incredibly supportive of the arts, as I learned on my recent trip there. I only included the photograph above because the Colon Cemetery is so vast and evokes the scale of the loss I believe we are experiencing.
