Yes.And!
Should We Choose Art or Money?
I don’t accept that poverty and art must of necessity be linked. This is an assumption imposed on artists by a culture that consumes us and yet does not want to value what we produce.
I prefer to think of the What If’s. What if, like Personal Support Workers, grocery store clerks whose value is suddenly noted during the time of COVID 19, artists could have their value noted and be compensated accordingly? What if we could all breathe freely, doing what we need to do?
Embedded in our culture is the concept that we forget about thriving financially as an artists. We could just learn to eat less frequently.
I’m not buying it.
***
There is a wonderful Trinidadian term — scrunting — just getting by, scraping the bottom of the barrel. I did that for years — all of my energies were devoted almost exclusively to earning a living, doing mind-numbing administrative work.
During this time, a friend threw me a lifeline. She’s started an online magazine. She knew that I could write and yet was barely hanging on to my creative impulses. She gave me assignments — concerts and albums to reviews, musicians and dancers to interview, topics to think about. She gave me deadlines — one per month.
And so, some evenings, after my daughter was asleep, I would sit at an old desktop in a corner of the condo that I’d bought — a critical purchase that allowed me to give her a stable place to live, no longer moving at the whims of landlords. I’d write and then print out my articles. The next morning, during my 1.5 hour public transit commute to my job, I’d put paper to pen and edit them.
I wrote for free. The payoff was the re-connection with myself, knowing that I still had the artistic impulse and ability. I knew that my art had value and that one day soon, I would be paid again for my work.
***
Years ago, I took an improv class where I learned the term “Yes. And.” Someone throws you an idea, a word or a gesture and you have two options. You can acknowledge it, take it in and respond to it in some way. This will help to create a narrative of some kind with — if you’re lucky or just skilled at improvisation — a very funny ending. The alternative is to say,” No. But.” i.e. I don’t like your idea. I’m going to re-start this conversation. I’m not following the arc of this narrative or gesture. I turn away from it. The story stops there.
At this point in my life, I have the opportunity to turn my attentions back to art. I do not accept that the artist’s way must be definition include poverty. I plan to thrive. What does that look like? I’m not certain.
I do know that “Yes. And.” is the story that I prefer to entertain. That we can be both one thing and another thing. I embody, explore and am inspired by the ongoing process of making art. I also embrace the opportunity to live abundantly and well.
