Process (7) Worth of an artist

Why society should value artists

This is an older piece from 2021 for The Intrinsic Perspective

As the son of a stone mason and house builder, I have a tricksy relationship with hard work. I grew up believing in my father’s definition of hard work, which probably aligns with most people’s definition of hard work. Hard work means you work hard! Proper hard work! Calloused hands, aching back, permo-snarl, grit in the teeth. Right? Hard fucking work.

Well, I’m not made of the same stuff as my father. Although I have been known to work hard from time-to-time, I have also been known to give it a wide berth. I prefer clever work. I need to understand the value of the work before I can find the motivation to work hard at it. Picking up pebbles from a barren building site on a frosty February morning was the definition of pointlessness to my sixteen year old self. And no matter how hard my father shouted at me, I just couldn’t find it within myself to enjoy it. I picked up all the pebbles but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that I had been stitched up. I wasn’t made for the building trade. I asked too many questions. People made for the building trade, pick up pebbles without asking questions. And at sixteen, they certainly don’t suggest a quicker way to do it. Wo betide a ‘labourer’¹ thinkin! That’s dangerous that is!

In my father’s world, and by proximity also my world, there was value in blind grit and hard work. There was value in strength and fortitude. There was value in toughness, mental and physical tough toughness. There was value in building a business with your bare hands on your own, with your own bootstraps or something. M’on, get fk’n on wi it!

There was however, no value in thoughtfulness. No value in creativity. No value whatsoever in having opinions outside your station. There was no value in pursuing a career as an animator or artist. Absolutely none. I think my father and his ilk might have understood a desire to pursue a career in law or finance or medicine. Such careers usually come with generous remuneration, a language well understood by house builders. But the thing I was interested in was not valued. And by extension, my character and personality, which is well suited to what I do now, was not valued. I’m fine with that now. It is ok that they didn’t value me. It is not incumbent upon them to understand me and accommodate me. But it made being around them for most of my teens, quite difficult. Difficult because I didn’t know that it was ok to be who I was. I thought there was something wrong with me. And I tried very hard in vain to fit in.

The intrinsic value of art is not under question here. I love art and I value it highly. The value of art to those who are involved in it is somewhat obvious. Questioning why it is valuable is akin to asking ‘why is a piece of string?’. Our society spends millions protecting art in big museums. Entire national institutions survive on the agreed understanding that art is important. But what about the average work-a-day artist like myself? How does society value what I do? What is the worth of an artist to society in general?

Worth could be defined as a moral ideal, such as my father’s form of ‘hard work’, or it could be defined as a thing of value. The value of a thing usually depends on the circumstances in which it is found. Water in the desert is a priceless asset; water in Scotland is a nuisance, mostly. So where can an artist find themselves valued; how should their value be measured? It cannot be measured against the value of a plumber or a bank manager, the scales don’t share any common ground. A person who does not enjoy art might suggest that society doesn’t need artists, society needs plumbers. And to some extent, I can sympathise with this sentiment (I also sympathise with the sentiment that we don’t need any more bank managers). A plumber performs an essential service to society, as do many others; nurses, engineers, fire fighters, baristas. The value of the work these people do is obvious. The value that an artist provides is less obvious, but I believe it lies in a wholistic view of society.

What does the plumber do to relax after work? Perhaps they watch TV, play a video game, maybe they read a book? I would argue that whatever they do to relax, it is essential to their life, essential to their wellbeing and their ability to carryout their essential work. Artists are the people who transport them to a more attractive version of reality, present their fantasies in full colour surround sound, make them laugh, make them cry, make them feel less disconnected. Artists, writers, painters, photographers, animators, designers, actors, cartoonists, comedians, and so on and so forth. They make the films, they write the books, they design the logos for your football team, they make our culture by hand, they bring us above beige reality and offer a polychromatic phantasy worth working for. And they have done this for thousands of years. All of humanity is in some way founded on the work of artists. They told the tales by fire light, legends that seeded cultures, that built and burned empires. They painted the heavens and hells of our collective consciousness and moved the boundaries of continents. Artists carry the voice of people.

Suffice to say, society does not exist in a homogeneous lump. It exists by the impossibly complex diversity of different points of view. Take any pieces out and the whole thing starts to collapse. Without art and creativity, what would we be doing other than working ourselves into oblivion? Art is the unhindered celebration of non-function, the pure contrast of full beige pragmatism.

While it is true that I am lucky to be an artist, it is also true that it didn’t happen by chance. Like many artists, I have had many other jobs. Jobs which supplemented my aspiration to be an artist. I am blessed to live in times of plenty when I can sell my art for a living. It truly does feel like I won some sort of competition. But I worked hard to get here and I will continue to work hard to stay here. I am part of a community of people who work just like anyone else to survive, but choose to work more to achieve something they have been consistently told is impossible. People who strive to achieve the impossible are usually lauded by society. Hah, only when they make disgusting amounts of money or win a gold medal or fire a rocket into space or some shit. Society will not celebrate the day you give up your part-time job to go freelance full time! Woo. What a rush. Worked for years to climb that greasy ladder to make just about minimum wage. Yes. Made it. Artists must be having way to much fun. Dirt poor but aloof. How did they manage that?

Where am I going with this? You are all worthwhile. Keep doing it. Don’t do anything for free! Unless its for a cause you believe in. Your work is valuable. You are valuable. Don’t let other people devalue your work just because you enjoy it. And don’t let February get you down.

My father used to joke that if you were enjoying yourself, you weren’t working hard enough. He knew how to work hard, I don’t doubt that, but he also secretly enjoyed it.

1. I wasn’t referred to as ‘Labourer’. The actual term used is too offensive to repeat here. Anyone who has worked on a building site in Scotland probably knows the word I’m alluding to.