In this world, at this time, you can - if you have been genetically gifted - wear scraps of fabric artfully on your body for hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you can learn how to walk right, be a good spokesperson, and find yourself on one of the Next Top Models, you could maybe make more.
In this world, if you are willing to drive a big truck on a mine in Western Australia, you can make $100k plus as your starting wage. If you are a cleaner on a mine, you make around $70k. An engineer? Well... let's not tease.
In this world, if you want to work retail in Perth as a casual, you make around $18.00 an hour. If you want to work at a television station cutting advertisements together, you are lucky to make $12.00 an hour.
In this world, if you work 7 days a week, bleeding your soul out onto paper and canvas, sharing your visions with others in this world... you are lucky to scrape enough money to pay the bills, and for the most part cannot afford such a career without a supportive partner.
In this world, if you want to be a fiction writer... don't quit your day job, or make sure that someone loves you enough to support you through the rejection letters, as you realise that it is becoming harder and harder to publish with the big companies, which is one of the only chances you may get to become self-sufficient if you're not willing to sell out and spend 40 hours a week editing other people's work just to make enough money to spend a handful of hours writing your passion.
There are exceptions to all of these rules. I plan to be an exception to the art one.
But when I am being encouraged to go and clean in the mines, I become extraordinarily indignant.
It is not my fault that the general attitude of the capitalistic world is to devalue it's writers, artists, film-makers, and god forbid if you want to be a professional poet.
Gone are the days when you will be as celebratedly famous as the bitter Byron.
ART is my calling. I happen to be SKILLED at it. The only reason I am not making more
money from it, is because a great bulk of our society values supermodels and truck-drivers more.
No, I will NOT become a graphic designer, no, I will NOT teach art instead.
I am a competent artist, I am a professional artist, yes I'm constantly broke. I haven't been able to afford some of my own medical bills for some time now.
But I'm not going to succumb to the will of capitalism just because I'm scared of not becoming an exception to the 'poor artist' rule. I don't plan on being a poor artist, and like a couple of others on my Friendslist who know how hard it is, they don't plan on it either. But the fact is - we ARE at this stage of networking, making contacts, supporting each other, and working harder than many other people we know until our hands hurt and shake, until our eyes blur, until we hate our own passion, our own skill, our own products and need to just walk away and take a deep breath and go right back to it.
In any other non-artistic career, if you put this much work into an endeavour, you would be making a great deal more money. Fuck, if you were a cleaner - at this point - you would be making more money.
I find this unfair, but moreso I find this a sad representation of how much the greater world has lost sight of its artists and creators. How much you are valued if you can blow up the ground, vs. how much you are valued if you can inspire someone or move them with something visionary.
I am commercialising to a degree, I am finding that road of compromise, but I will not stand down and become a cleaner just because I'll make more money. If I don't sacrifice this dream for dishpan hands, I believe I will make enough money to one day be financially independent, sufficient, comfortable.
But fuck I have my doubts,
when the wider world doesn't seem to care either way,
just wants another labourer to tear the iron ore out of the ground
just wants another person to spill bleach onto concrete
just wants another skeleton to show off the fabric.
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impressed
accomplished
