Losing A Generation of Artists

by Cori Redstone, Artist, Activist

I am a professionally trained painter and I recently had the opportunity to workshop with a man who is teaching groundbreaking social art and demonstration techniques to people across the world. I felt so much joy at being able to apply my skills learned in a college of fine arts to creating an instrument of change. People tell me all the time how much they respect me as an artist and how valuable my talents are. Is my talent truly valued by more than a small segment of society?

We are losing a generation of artists.

Mistakenly people see art as something one can do in one’s spare time. This is a common misconception and based on the myth surrounding art. Good art, let alone great art is not made in one’s spare time at an easel in a basement corner. Kitten paintings are created in studio basements. You know what that art looks like. The anecdotes of people writing a novel on their lunch breaks, creating a masterpiece of a painting in secret while they work their day job as a brain surgeon are the rare exception. Could you do your job well in only your free time? Very rarely good or even great art is created in basement studios and on weekends. . Face it, most Americans get home from work and curl up in a ball on the sofa with a preservative laden meal trying to recuperate enough to wake up tomorrow to face another day in grey office lighting and padded cubicle walls. They are padded for a reason.

Art is the antithesis of corporate conformity. Sadly, becoming an artist has historically meant taking a vow of poverty but now more than ever the sustained economic downturn has played a role in the death of art as people choose between homelessness and practicing their craft. Art sales are stagnant. In speaking to my other artist friends I realize our community is in real trouble not just from sales but from grants. Arts funding is disappearing. Think back to the great artists you admire. They mostly lived lives of poverty but stayed alive thanks to the assistance of friends and patrons. Those patrons have disappeared. Making matters worse, the cost of a simple doctor visit is out of the reach financially for most artists and they don’t have an employer to help them cover the cost of health insurance. I have seen numerous solicitations and fundraisers for artists who have had an accident or fallen ill. Something as simple as a cough or a cavity can create a health cataclysm for an uninsured artist. Women still make less than men and this is true in art as well. Female artists are disproportionately affected by a bad economy.

In the great depression we had a Works Progress Administration that commissioned artists to make public art. Some of the greatest American Art came out of the WPA. It sustained a generation of artists. Ever heard of Alice Neel or Dorothea Lange?

A generation of writers, painters, composers, musicians, potters, sculptors, dancers and innovators is being lost to a society that only values people with the ability to sit in a cubicle for ten hours a day and conform. Artists are far more valuable than any wall street broker or high powered attorney. Artists call attention to problems long before the mainstream sees things as problems. It happened with slavery, senseless wars, exploration, medical advances, oppressive governments, genocide and the issues threatening humanity today. The artists lost today will be a great loss for future generations. Art cannot be taught in books or broken down into formulas. Art making is story telling. Art is learned from others, from experience. Tenured professors are dying and fading away and young artists are left with few mentors.

There is a reason that society does not truly value artists. Plays, songs, and visual media all play a significant role in the acknowledgment of injustice, oppression and human self destruction and artists sow the seeds of reformation. Artists hold a mirror up to society and many times society recoils from what they see.

One of the first components of an undemocratic society is the oppression of and destruction of the arts. College fine art departments across the country are facing deeper cuts than other departments who generate more donors. Art professors aren’t being given tenure and basic needs in the classrooms are not being met. Compounding the problem, with little likelihood of being able to pay off crushing student loans after gradation fine art students are dropping out of college and taking low wage, low skill jobs or changing their majors to something more lucrative. Over 90% of people who graduate with a BFA will never practice their craft professionally.

We have only ourselves to blame. Americans are so busy buying matching throw pillows and filling their three car garages with SUVs they have neglected to spend their extra income on things of substance. A night at a small theater will be remembered forever, a visit to an art gallery could result in the purchase of a small piece that brings you joy and reminds you of what is important. Attending an outdoor concert with friends will nourish your soul. Observing the human body in a live dance performance will remind you that you are alive.

There will always be people who make art but will there be artists?