So Your Child Wants to Be an Artist…

Sustaining Better Health, Lifestyles and Legacies in Southcoast, MA – What to do if Your Child Wants to be an Artist – A report from the Island of Misfit Toys*.

What do you do when your child informs you that they want to be an Artist? For some parents, this news is greeted in the same way as finding out their child is gay, dropping out of school or joining a religious order. There are many more examples. But, all of them are about a sense of loss combined with the guilt of bad parenting.

The first question usually is; how are you going to make a living? Follow ups are; you have to go to school for that? Comments include: we know you’re very creative but can’t you apply your creativity to something more practical? My own parents were a bit taken back. But, my mother had given it a shot at being a club singer back in the Fifties and she knew what it was like. She also knew what it was like to give up on a dream because of adult obligations and responsibilities like marriage and children.

So, what’s the real problem here? Is the parental angst about status or sustainability or both or what? Being an artist carries with it lots of different requirements. Society, on the other hand, imposes other criteria. Only the well-known selling Artist is respected. Everyone else is a struggling artist. But, why do artists struggle? Or, for that matter, have to struggle at all? Success in the arts is about sales. If you sell, you’re successful. The more successful and celebrated you become, the more you sell!

So, perhaps being an artist has nothing to do with creativity as it does with business success. Not all artists die in poverty only to have the value of their work skyrocket afterwards to make everyone else rich. Michelangelo was one of the wealthiest living artists of his day. He was a very good businessman, too. And, before I forget, what’s the difference whether your child wants to be a pop star or a sports star? Many parents share in those dreams. Yet, the chances of their children achieving stardom or celebrity are even more remote than the possibility of achieving success in the field of art. Just to be clear, when I say artist, I mean painter, sculptor or printmaker and the other disciplines of the Fine Arts.

What happened to me? Many things both controllable and otherwise; I was very naive for one. I received a full-ride scholarship to graduate school to pursue my Masters in Fine Art (MFA) and short of a new convertible and paying my rent for me; I received two-years of education for free. Plus, they paid me to be there! I never knew at the time that there were a lot of high hopes for me. Within hours of my MFA thesis show opening, I was picked up by a major gallery. And that’s when everything began to unravel. Suddenly, there was a very bright and very hot spotlight on me. Everyone was eager to hear my thoughts and see my next piece.

The gallery wanted more of my work, but could you make it bigger honey and brighten up the colors? – Oh, we love your originality! I felt overwhelmed and unworthy and scared out of my mind. I had only been married a short time and the social aspects of celebrity, whether imagined or not, were not something I wanted to deal with. I had been to those parties and had no interest in indulging in any of that stupidity. I guess I was brought up with some pretty good values. My main focus was to get a job teaching college level drawing and painting. We returned to the Southcoast and the economy went into the crapper. Jimmy Carter had been doing what he could do to keep it together and then Reaganomics marched in. Trickle-down indeed!

The humanities are usually the first to be affected by a down economy. No teaching jobs – no work and so it goes. There were other circumstances, too. But the point here is to clear up why creative young people don’t have as many opportunities as they could or should have. The humanities always underfunded, or denied funding. Why is it only the rich can afford to subsidize and enjoy the Arts? If, according to Richard Florida, the creative class is on the rise, then why is art still so secluded?

I’ve written, I’ve lectured and I believe that art and religion have been inextricably linked for centuries. So, then, my premise is that with the declining numbers of the faithful, in the Catholic Church especially, the gap that began just around 1962 widened. (More about that in another post) And, if the Church was, at one time, the greatest patron of the arts, well then, the conclusion is obvious.

The last gasps of Post-War Modernism, in my opinion were sometime around 1985. So, going into art today is much iffier than it was back in the Seventies when I was in school. Add to that the artist stereotypes, the uncertainty and a limited market and, well, why wouldn’t you be a bit set back Mom and Dad at hearing of your child’s dream, desire or decision? I know it may not be of any comfort to you but, what they want is neither good nor bad; it is what it is.

Just make sure they’re mature enough and have a solid business foundation and most of all, that they know that you support them. Yes, they’ll be waiting on tables or doing other things to survive financially. What they’ll need most of all though, is time to pursue and polish their art and good timing.

Look, I can’t address this all in one posting. But I will return to it often. I won’t get real sappy about it. At some point, however, whether on its own or by some other means, Art will become as important to society as it once was. Perhaps it will come with the resurgence of organized religion in our lives. Or, perhaps it will be something totally different.

I am willing to bet though that as soon as it is seen as an integral part of our children’s education and lives, things will change! With that said, I leave this post with these words for you to think about “My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.”

*I’ve always felt, and I have been told occasionally, that I belonged on the Island of Misfit Toys. Why? Artists, it seems, just aren’t considered like everyone else. We have made great inroads in eliminating religious, race and gender bias, to name a few. However, no one seems to notice the creative bias that is prevalent in our society. Creative Bias – I’ll leave that for another post.