The Value of a Title (It's Not A Hobby, It's A Life.)

[camrogers]

qamar posted recently on Creativity and Education, as a followup to a 20-minute talk by an academic from TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.)

She opened with "All children are born artists. We don't grow into creativity, we're educated out of it." Which prompted a response by morgan303 in the comments and on her own journal - the full contents of which are behind the cut:


A wonderful friend of mine posted something very cool, but while I thought the crux of what she was getting at was one of those excellent things that the world should sit up and take notice of, I took issue with a single statement: "All children are born artists."

And I got that flash of something between anger and resignation that I get every time I hear that word abused.

It's a word that's thrown about like confetti these days and it makes me furious. And it's so deeply-ingrained in our culture now that everyone does it.

You draw furry porn? You're an artist. You have a DeviantArt account? You're an artist. You draw a bit as a hobby? You're an artist. You did some night classes in still-life? You're an artist.

Wrong.

You have a nice little hobby. An artist is someone who dedicates their life to their craft or who, at the very least has put enough study into it that they can say they are honestly educated (self or otherwise) enough to stand up and give themselves the title.

I do my tax every year; that doesn't make me an accountant. I cook dinner for me and patchworkkid; that doesn't make me a chef.

There is nothing in the least wrong, in fact there is everything right, with practicing art as a hobby. I'd encourage absolutely everyone to exercise their creativity to the utmost in a multitude of different ways. I spent a couple of very good years teaching drawing to people who'd never held a pencil. But it doesn't make you an artist.

I have made so many sacrifices for my profession. I scrape by to pay the rent, I spent most of my teenage years being ridiculed and even forbidden from following my career by one of my parents, I gave up a promising career as a classical singer, I spent years at uni soaking up as much information as I could and honing my skills, and most of my spare time practicing. I don't clock off at 5pm, I don't stop thinking about it and I struggle constantly to make something I think is worthy. So I really resent anyone who thinks they might like to have a little dabble being labelled an artist. It's a term that suffers so much abuse from both sides; either it's applied to hobbyists, or it's used to excuse or describe sets of negative behaviour ("artistic temperament" anyone?). You don't get this in "regular" professions; they're not cheapened like this.

When I say I'm an artist I do so with trepidation and a frisson of hesitant pride, because in doing so I apply to myself a title also held by some of the very greatest minds and talents in the history of humanity, and a collection of thoroughly extraordinary people - Duchamp, Barney, Burne-Jones, Vali Myers, Pollock, Malevich, Alma-Tadema, Da Vinci, and all the other names on that beautiful roll-call.

Thanks to the current usage of the word I'm also placing myself alongside any schmuck with a pencil and an internet connection. This also applies to writers, photographers, or pretty much anyone else working in the creative arts. Sure, it's muddy territory, it's subjective, poorly-defined, open to interpretation, and no-one in thousands of years of human history has yet managed to come up with an answer to the question "What is Art?" (it's up there with that other big one, "Is there a God?" and I can't help but suspect the two are inextricably linked).

But these are a collection of the most important professions we have. These are the people who make the culture that has defined civilisations. You don't have to have changed the world to qualify for the title, but at the very least you should have dedicated as much of your life to it as anyone else working in a professional field. It's bad enough that we barely get paid; having any dabbler claim the title you've paid for in blood, sweat and tears (literally on all counts in my case) is infuriating.


The word 'artist' (like the word 'hero' and a great many other things) has no currency any more, and we're poorer as a culture for that lack of respect. I don't say that because of how I make a living, I say it because it's obvious enough that I can draw you a flow chart on the subject.

A world in which nothing is respected means nothing is taboo.

A world in which nothing is taboo means it's a world in which nothing is sacred.

Living in a world without anything sacred means we never raise our heads.

All of which is an excuse for me to post this: the afterword to Christian Read's The Witch King, which I wrote back in 2005:

Nowadays the word ‘hero’ is practically devoid of meaning. You’re a hero if you save a baby from a burning building; you’re a hero if you get paid six figures to kick a ball in the right direction; you’re a hero if you accidentally leave the safety off your Steyr and wind up killing yourself and wounding two squadmates. Everyone’s a hero. The word has no worth.

The traditional comic book hero is designed to be your physical, intellectual and moral superior. A Fifties dad. A hair-ruffling G-man. A Bob Dobbs posterchild for steroids and conformity. A superman, for Christ’s sake. All buff, all male, all right, all the time. Hell, villains are more honest with themselves than that.

There’s something else heroes are: artefacts. Spandex-clad yes men were meant for an age when authority was to be trusted. Nowadays such notions become less relevant with each passing broadcast. Give me a King Mob, a John Constantine, a Gavriel, a Spider Jerusalem, a Bogart. Give me someone I’d be glad to buy a beer. Enough of the spin, the easy answers… enough of what we had last week, last month, last year.

People like that don’t walk a line between good and evil. They tourist on either side because they know that line doesn’t really exist. They are people like you and I, in extraordinary situations taking blows, making mistakes, living and dying and doing it with a style born of what I can only call honesty. They both succeed and fail, rise and fall. They are full of contrast, and therein lies their depth. When someone like that decides to do something you see the mechanism of that decision churning beneath their skin. They are real as you are real.

I believe the best anti-heroes know themselves, if only unconsciously. No matter how bad things get, no matter what or who they lose, they always have that one thing in themselves they can trust. Be it a black humour that sees them through, gleeful smarts or, as in Gavriel’s case, the quiet certainty that they have been underestimated. It is the immovable object they brace against when faced with an unstoppable force.

Which quite often results in them getting flattened. But, like Coyote of American Indian legend, they just as often pick themselves up afterwards, dust themselves off, and keep on walking… into whatever comes next. Their survival is their defiance. It is truth to self that keeps them going.

If you’ve ever kicked against the pricks, ever fought for the right to become the person you are, then you’ll understand what I’m talking about, and what this book is talking about. You can look into the eyes of these characters and see the writer looking back at you.

“Hate is nothing more than a sign that people are threatened by whatever you are,” Gavriel tells his brother.

The social mindset that has made the word ‘hero’ worthless is precisely what makes our anti-heroes so valuable: they’re not normal. They show us another, more intuitive, prouder way.

We must pay a price for them and we must pay a price to be them.


Cameron Rogers. October 4th, 2005. Melbourne.

EDIT 1/8/08: Updated with text of 303's post.