Thoughts on Art and Money

“As an artist, I hate to measure my track record by money, but it does allow me to remain in the field. If I call myself an artist though, I have to use another standard to measure success. As an artist I have to look at what I have created.”

part of the point of sharing art is to give people something that cannot properly be valued.

It’s tempting to think of art as outside of our practical needs: art does not hold up walls or keep us warm; it derives its value from our perceptions of it. It exists to prove we are capable of appreciating things beyond their practicality. We can see again how it is directly opposed to the inherent efficiency of money: if art were so crass as to

“Everything is geared towards treating artists essentially as disposable.”

Where things often go wrong is that artists are very poor; and although they might have a lot of talent, intelligence, and vision, they have to struggle to make money. So day by day, hour by hour, their vision goes downhill. In order to make money, they have to relate with perverted, neurotic people who demand that they go along with their

People need to eat and pay the rent. “An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint,” said artist Ben Shahn. “A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.” Whether an artist makes money off his work or not, money has to come from somewhere, be it a day job, a wealthy spouse, a trust