MFA into MBA

Today Seth Godin put his finger on exactly the reason art stopped feeding me, and why I quit making it.

Art made me angry, and I finally figured out that I am not an angry person, that this bitterness I felt was circumstantial and self-imposed. I was angry because art is a gatekeeper game. You don't get to set the value of your own product, and that's a powerless position to put yourself in if you are looking to make a living. Gatekeepers also tend to prevent innovation and affirm what they already know, and so tend to value artists that are behind the curve. My art succeeded most when it was at its least interesting. Most of the people I know who have decent art careers are making art that follows the pack. And because their careers are built upon seeking approval, they are pretty tense, frightened and protective.

What gives me hope is the fact that gatekeepers aren't everywhere, and that art is a set of highly transferable skills. Going to art school is all about putting a language on your relationship to the world, and with that language you're supposed to figure out your vision--what you have to offer. It's powerful to habitually think in terms of what you have to offer. As an artist you get a lot of experience producing, explaining and defending your vision. You learn how to see the world in terms of shaping it, and how to find meaning. You hone your sensitivities. You learn how to let the world in so that you can do something with it. Unless you have rich parents, you learn how to bootstrap. You make bad financial decisions and learn from them.

I know a few people my age with hot-to-midling contemporary art careers in the city. Almost to a one, I don't enjoy spending time with these people. They are as a group suspicious and reactive, and they all work way too hard and care way too much about what other people think of them.

Almost every person I know with gallery representation has seriously asked me why I am killing my career by writing art criticism and keeping a blog.

But I also have more retired artist friends* than I can shake a stick at, and these people are supremely nourishing. My retired friends are positive people who care more about what they are offering than who they are offering it to. They chose not to waste time chasing a destructive culture that exists to exclude them. They moved on to legitimately innovative pastures and are doing cool shit--shit that's way cooler than what the folks I know with galleries are doing. They can do this because they've got real creative skills and have powerfully defined their own playing field. They're not giving their power away to gatekeepers or otherwise clinging to what they thought they wanted to do when they were nineteen. Instead, they know that they went to art school for a broad reason: to innovate. And they set themselves up to do that.

It's entirely possible that the MFA is the new MBA.

*and friends who have gotten faculty positions and therefore have time and pressure to create but don't need to think about art in terms of money.

Comments

[Zora]

Nicely put. The gatekeeper professions are indeed maddening (I say from the writing standpoint), and the communities around them are exactly as you describe. I'm having trauma flashbacks to academia, and am more than ever convinced I need to rejigger my current work.

[Julie Levesque]

I have a small object in my studio I made when I first quit my day job to get back to my art. It says"

"make what you want to make of get a job"

Art and commerce don't mix.

[Julie Levesque]

dang ... bad typo...
that's make what you want to make OR get a job...

[Kram Namloc]

Superb article. I totally agree. I make art that satisfies me and that is enough.

Sometimes it's a zen-like experience and the act of making art is an end in itself, complete, with no need for anything more.

I wish you the best, thanks for being real!

[David Paul Downs]

I definitely understand your frustrations! My new work is not fitting with the gallery that currently represents me and they want me to keep doing what I feel has gone stale. I have a part-time job to pay the rent. It's not much, and I want t eventually make a career of my art. However, I have decided to be completely uncompromising and to do what I think is best for my art. Even if I never get into another gallery and never sell another work, I will feel better knowing I did it my way, and was true to my vision. What if everyone did this? Would it be possible for the artist to take back control of the art world? I've read of several artists attempting to do this in small waves throughout history.

[CathSample]

I left making 'art' and started an interactIve design company for the reasons you mention. It was so refreshing to deal with clients who valued the work. No more 'emperor's new clothes' scenarios.
However, the reason I wanted to make art was not to 'innovate' for the sake of it. It was to explore and make things that express that exploration - and hopefully to communicate. I missed this, because making a product is not the same thing, for me. Since making my way back to making art so far I have avoided anger and depression (about the art, anyway), because I'm not making it as a career, and I'm not asking anyone to tell me if it fits their definition of what art should be. (And believe me the people you would think would be the most open to communication are often those most likely to start categorizing, measuring, and judging.)

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