KittyP wrote:
> "^@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>---*=#" <yomama@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:vJ6dnbTXl9gLmLDVnZ2dnUVZ_szinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>"Evelyn Ruut" <evelyn.ruut@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>news:482c7923$0$7067$4c368faf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>>"^@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>---*=#" <yomama@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>news:6fidnfwlqsNy0bHVnZ2dnUVZ_sbinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>
>>>>"****rley Knott" <****rleyknott@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>news:482bf679_4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>
>>>>>^@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>---*=# wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>really a lousy digital camera the tones are all outta whack
>>>>>>but this is a black and white painting i did of tiffani amber
>>>>>>theissen
>>>>>>
>>>>>>http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=b8trty&s=3
>>>>>
>>>>>Beautiful work! I really like monochrome paintings.
>>>>
>>>>thank you
>>>
>>>
>>>Not only with art, but music and writing too.
>>>You are a tremendously talented guy. :-)
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Best Regards,
>>>
>>>Evelyn
>>
>>in the old days 'talent' was a word
>>used to designate money. one thing
>>i've never been able to do is turn my
>>talent into money.
>
>
> Your work is beautiful. I paint and have friends who paint for a living.
The
> ones who have been successful enough to live on their art put either put
a
> lot of time and effort into marketing themselves (which takes away from
the
> painting), or get an agent. It's more fun to just paint ;)
> Kitty
>
>
Well that's the goddamn problem isn't it? Those of us who have art or
philosophy addictions have discovered that the real world is very
reluctant to pay us for our brilliance, whatever relative wattage it may
have. As a sometime musician, singer, poet, actor..... I tried to
juggle my interests and figure out how to professionalize them, only to
discover that 98% of those who engaged in such activities were not
making a living. At least in England there is such a thing as a
"journeyman actor" and you can almost be guaranteed regular work once
you are at a certain level. In the U.S. there is unpaid talent crawling
out of every restaurant and taxicab and relatively few jobs to go
around. When I looked at the options for jazz saxaphone players as a
young man they ranged from unpaid in a room somewhere to slightly paid
in a smokier room. Elvin Jones, John Coltrane's drummer for many years,
finally reached the breaking point when a couple kept talking and
laughing through his drum solo at a club, unscrewed his cymbal and threw
it across the room, and just missed decapitating one of them. [He had a
bad temper anyway - once punched a flute-playing college mate of mine
who played with him in the stomach for taking "too short" a solo.]
When Chic Corea was the most popular and famous jazz pianist in the
country his best year was a $10,000 paycheck. Which is the real reason
for "fusion" as jazz musicians discovered they could play less
complicated lines and make a lot more money. In the area of poetry I
had a few things published in small poetry magazines for no pay and
studied with some good people in college. Almost all the poets who made
a living were part of the University system, getting paid for teaching
and "something" but never much for their books. The real problem is
that our culture does not value the arts AT ALL, unless it is in the
opiate form of the latest group of "moving models" jiggling across the
tv screen. In Chile a great poet like Pablo Neruda was not only
acknowledged as an artist but was made an Ambassador. In other
cultures, someone who is a philosopher or poet or great musician is
considered of the highest station in society, rather than the lowest.
When I tell people I have a degree in philosophy it takes several
minutes for the laughter to subside - not that they think philosophy is
worthless, but at the idea that I would be so impractical as to have
studied something that is totally useless in the real world, unless of
course you want to spend your lifetime as part of a small college. [Not
a bad idea in retrospect.] What's wrong with us?
Robert
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