"Lately I've been experiencing poverty. It's been sucking ass," a non-Goddard friend -- let's call him Bob -- emailed me yesterday evening. But he realized that "it's connected with poverty of energy and spirit. So I'm gonna be shifting now."
I understand where Bob's coming from. Bob and I both had middle class upbringings and good educations. We live in a land of North American plenty. We have chosen to live much of our lives as poor working artists/writers/performers over the years.
But I've come to question my assumptions about how artists, our practice, and our role in society impact us financially and how we, in turn, impact society and the world.
Is "selling out" a terrible thing? Does it mean something different not just for each person, but for every day of the week? When we stay small and insular within independent, parallel economies and communities, outside the mainstream, how does that affect our ability to change the world?
Having thought and conversed and read and written a lot about this subject; having participated in alternative/parallel economies to the mainstream one; never feeling like I can settle down with one single Theory of Selling Out; I was delighted to accept Em Delaney's invitation to co-present a workshop on Selling Out for the February 2007 MFA-IA residency session in Plainfield. (Well, I'd probably do just about anything Em asked me to.)
I'm going to post some writing, links, and other goodness that might be of use if you're wrestling with the ethical considerations of dealing with money, survival, and art...
Do people worry about this any more? People today, young people, are very concerned about money. They don't question it.
Posted by: dynamo | 13 February 2007 at 11:18 AM
Tiff, I just blogged this morning about something similar--my ambivalence about making money on my blog, which I cleverly call "Blogging for Dollars." I don't exactly see it as "selling out," anymore; what I'm concerned about is that it might change my relationship to blogging, which has offered me a new freedom to write separate from and independent of the world of publishing.
Posted by: Marcy Sheiner | 15 February 2007 at 05:53 PM
i think that's part of it -- we each have to decide exactly what "selling out" means. if selling out means squishing one's sense of freedom, one's sense of doing something for love, then that might be the place to draw the line.
and then if there's other stuff one doesn't care about so much -- well fuck it, make a few bucks! that's my unofficial stance. but my concern is usually, who's going to make money off this content i am creating? are they evil?
(also, i very intentionally put a tip jar and advertisements, with any income going to a non-profit arts group, on this blog. i thought it was kinda funny.)
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Posted by: derndecc | 03 June 2007 at 04:45 PM
make a few bucks! that's my unofficial stance.
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