Economics and Art

February 24, 2009

Lately I’ve been tuning into NPR’s Planet Money podcast in order to get a better grasp of the current economic climate.  While I take a keen interest in politics two areas I do not have a strong academic background in are law and economics.   My actual studies were in the sciences and humanities.   My profession is making a series of logical statements to a black box and hoping it digs what I’m telling it and my favorite pasttime is using light sensitive materials to let people know what I feel about things.  Neither of these gives you much insight into financial markets or monetary policy but like everyone who participates in our odd little capitalist society we’re affected by those little slips of green paper that everyone’s so fond of.

While I ostensibly started this blog to discuss the practice and theory of silver based photography one of the things that has been on my mind lately is what allows people to engage in a creative pasttime.   Making art requires time, space, and materials.

For some people the space is a kitchen table and the materials are a pencil and a sheet of paper.   Minimal requirements but poetry does require a great deal of time, even if you are the next William Carlos Williams.    On the other end is someone like Richard Serra.   I’ve also met conceptual artists through documenting  Glowlab‘s Conflux who require nothing in terms of space or materials but do require time and access to media in order to describe their work.

Material requirements aside, all work requires time.   Time is money.  Where does the money come from?

So I’d like to devote a fair amount of column inches to the economics of art.  How do we support the arts as individuals, as part of a culture, as part of a community, and as citizens whose government often has a direct role in the nation’s cultural output and its preservation?   As undiscovered artists, how do we pay the bills, what does it mean to pursue a pasttime tthat will not provide financial reward?   Can I write it off on my taxes?

If our activities as indivuals is just part of the greater economy why shouldn’t we include our creative pasttimes in that economic activity?  If nothing else, I need to examine why I spent more on film than clothing.

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