I have found that surviving as an artist in our free market world is a life-long challenge. To make sense of it I have to resolve two questions for myself: What is an artist’s responsibility to her/his community? What is a community’s responsibility to its artists?
In June of 1976, I sat on the steps of Northrop Auditorium, a BA freshly in hand, wondering what to do next. I decided “Just keep dancing, and see what happens.” By most measures, other than financial, I made a great choice. My relationship with my communities has grown to be rich and complex. One example: I have found myself at times in a sort of sacred clown role, sought out to speak truth to power. This came about as a confluence of many factors: the culture wars, Act Up, my network, my expanding opportunities nationally and internationally, and my activism around gay and HIV issues. I cherish this role.
Looking back, I realize that my life as an artist began with the never ending process of developing my artistic voice, the tools to express myself. At some point my evolving voice started to emerge. So I had to find something to say. Much of my work is autobiographical, this means diving deeply, intimately, to discover my personal truths. Then I wrestle and play with the material to understand it. Next I find the courage to start to share it with the world. Through this process I trust that by daring to be unflinchingly personal, I can approach being universal.
My responsibility to my community — if I want them to recognize me as an artist — is to develop my voice and have something to say.
What is a community’s responsibility to its artists? Ideally an artist is supported by her/his community. In our free market society this presents a big challenge; how do I develop my community so that it can and will sustain me? I don’t get to unilaterally decide that the planet, or the USA, or Minneapolis, or the gay community is my community and owes me a living as an artist. Sadly, having a career in which my sole financial support comes from working as an artist has grown increasingly problematic over the decades. It’s easier to support myself as an arts administrator than as an artist, but I have found over time that I can’t sustain my artistic energies if I do too much admin.
What would it mean if we assumed that a successful artist is supported by the community in which she/he lives? Nearly twenty years ago I was an artist advisor to the National Performance Network (NPN). At a meeting it occurred to me that we were all working on an unspoken assumption – that a successful performing artist would tour a lot. I challenged this assumption. Touring should be optional; I tour when it is attractive to me. Can I generate a sustainable income within my community/ies?
I have never had very much money, yet I have always had enough. But, financially, I am concerned. Along my artistic path, I have not found a way to build a nest egg for old age. Approaching 60 my biggest concerns are making sure that I keep my health insurance, and fearing that if I became unable to provide for myself, that the Franklin Avenue Bridge might seem like the best option.
This of course leads to a larger political problem, not unique to the arts. I don’t get to unilaterally decide that the planet, or the USA, or Minneapolis owes me anything as an old person, but we could decide as a nation to care for the elderly. Let’s revisit that, including its implications for artists, another time.
In the meantime, it would be a luxury to only have to create art. If I want financial support, I also have to engage with my community/ies, as an artist, developing social contracts with those who recognize the value of my voice. Let’s also revisit what those contracts can be another time.
Patrick Scully took his first dance classes forty years ago as a freshman at the University of Minnesota. He has worked as an activist and performing artist across a range of settings and countries in a variety of disciplines, including founding Patrick’s Cabaret.
Thank you Patrick for sharing the fears that I also share.
Community support represents a larger issue we face as a society. How do we support the arts and culture we say we cherish? What happens when an artists work is out of step, even ahead of the curve, of the community they live in?
We as a country are just now beginning to reap the results of stripping our schools of arts education, making it harder and more expensive for students to go to college. Our entire NEA budget is equal to one new f-35 fighter jet and a trained pilot to fly it and the US plans to order 2000 of them. We have money for industrial farmers and wars but not for our art and cultural institutions. The results are a populace that risks being uneducated and uninformed about the arts.
What will be the danger of the artistic life in a society becoming less informed about art?
Hi Richard,
sadly, the problem lies at all levels, local, state and federal. As I see RT Rybak scrambling to come up with a plan costing 100s of millions to subsidize a stadium for the Vikings, I wonder, “What would it take for this mayor (and his political allies) to generate the same excitement and funding for small and medium sized arts organizations, none of which have employees or owners among the wealthy 1%.”
We the populace did something of this sort when we passed the legacy amendment a few years ago.
Now the mayor fears allowing the citizens of his city to vote on the funding for the Vikings, because he knows he will lose.
Do we need to re-occupy the square north of RT’s office to get him to pay attention to us?
Thank you, Patrick. I think your willingness to live on little money is key. Artists (like me) who feel they need the income of a regular paycheck find ourselves (like you, when you are working in administration) with less time and energy for our art. Although we’d surely like to see our communities support our efforts more, the facts are the facts. We have hard choices to make. Patti Smith’s book, “Just Kids,” illustrates the consequences–both good and bad–that come from making these choices. No choice is right or wrong, but all have consequences. Now, at age 60, I wish I had made more art and developed as an artist.
Hi Jodie,
my mom sadly died of cancer, at 65, after 10 years of worrying that she would never have enough money to retire. My dad did a slow fade over 10 years, and passed away at 70 of Parkinson’s. My lesson from both was to live my life, including my retirement, ie my golden years, during my life, not postponing for the future what I dreamed of now. This is not some sort of dress rehearsal, it is my life.
It makes me sad to read that you regret not having made more art, and not having given your artistic growth more priority. You can’t change what was, but realizing the regret, you are free to make other choices now.
Make more!
Thank you, Patrick!! Your wisdom and truth-speaking have served as a model to me for decades. I think putting yourself out there and engaging with community again and again, and then some more, is essential. Listening and asking questions as much as creating or producing. I love the notion of a contract that is always in negotiation between artist and community, rather than the notion of propriety, or social debt. Peace . . .
Thanks David,
I think one of the challenges of maintaining the contract we write of is figuring out where it is that I meet with my community. I have always privileged the physical gathering space, breathing the same air, together in the same room, over the non-shared spaces of everything from broadcast tv to film to the internet.
Yet, as much as I resist spending time in front of my laptop, it does allow me to connect to you here. But if the internet was not just an adjunct to the shared physical world, I fear it would not sustain me.
So, as you say, we keep negotiating, even negotiating where it is that we meet.
Thank you Patrick. I have read your comments on the arts, and agree with you on what art brings to me. I have furthered my many forms of art- placing myself into a worldwide spectrum- engaging myself to write books of poetry…now as an American authored Poet…and with my fine art gallery showings here in the Silicon Valley. Interest for the arts, and the money to keep the arts alive… are well above my limitations. I can create art, but without proper publicity for artists- we remain in the shadows. The public interest on each artist within their community should be observant, at least in recognition within the community. I have tried so hard- just to get a word of publicity, or a place to show my fine art, without being required representation of myself as an artist…and being in this positive goal, still feel myself as an outcast…because I remain in the shadows of my community. Edward Wolverton- Silicon Valley Artist & Authored Poet.
What would you consider to be proper publicity, Edward? I don’t know your community, but here I have to not only do the work of making my art, but I also have to figure out how to get it into the world. I realized listening to an interview with Bill T. Jones the other day that he, too, has to do this, even with all the attention and support his work has received.
In my years running Patrick’s Cabaret in Minneapolis I always told this to the artists who were coming to perform: “Do not expect a ‘general public’ to show up to see your work. Any night’s audience is made up of the specific publics of each performer that night.” My specific public is my friends, family, coworkers, friends, and the people they may bring with them to see my work. Eventually I get to add people who have come to know my work over time to my specific public, and those become relationships that I have to tend and nurture, or they, like former neighbors and friends from long ago, start to slip away. It is not easy; maintaining these relationships takes time and effort.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, here, now: Patrick Scully For President. Thank you for taking the time to write, Patrick. I am ALWAYS interested to hear what you have to say. I admire how you challenge listeners with such elegant (and always eloquent) style. (Honesty can be quite clunky–but never with you, somehow!) Cheers, anna
You are very kind Anna, I think. Then again maybe it is a curse to have you wish the Presidency upon me. I’ve always thought the most interesting part of running for office would be the contest to get elected. That’s probably true for me because I love the process of going from an idea to manifesting something in the world. Maintaining something once it is established is more challenging for me. Can you imagine how many meetings you’d have as an elected official? How does one stay present for all of that?
So I’ve usually been happiest when I embrace my inclinations and pursue possibilities to generate new things.