The New Artist - article from the Atlantic Magazine

Here is an interesting article Lori Gilcrest sent to me.

It relates to a previous discussion we had on this blog about how everyone wants to be called an "Artist."  In my mind this was a very complex subject which touched on many complicated social and spiritual concepts. It brought up the Artist and not just a simple "starving artist" who is basically a loser....but a "working artist", where working hard is a "badge of professional virtue". Implying that a starving artist is unsuccessful while a hard working modern savvy intelligent artist is successful, good and makes money.

It brought up the centuries old idea of Artist while missing the entire point of starving artist. One whose integrity superseded monetary gain not one who couldn't "make it".This brought up many ideas like -Hard work means success? But is a hard working serial killer better than a starving serial killer. Does body count mean something?

Or does success means monetary success? Or does poverty mean success? Or is luck and financial backing part of success? So our modern trustafarians are simply successful because they started on a higher rung of the ladder? Or  is having a benefactor or group of benefactors mean success? Or is success time dependent?  You are successful today but maybe tomorrow you are a loser even though you are a hard working loser!

So I called for some definitions rather than just throwing around words and allowing everyone to define their own terms- which ruins all the self aggrandizing fun!

So Lori sent this article which is interesting as it discusses how the paradigm of "The Artist" has been obsolete for many decades how it moved to "the professional" and what is replacing it now. It does a much better job of capsulizing this complex cultural concept and how it is evolving than I was able to do.

The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur