It is very important to be cognizant of the economic impact of art on local and state communities. You can read my post on the ncartblog about Chatham County's efforts to harness that potential. As an art educator I constantly attempt to convince others of the potential economic gain of art so that my subject is still around to teach.
But for myself, I am tired of finding economic justifications for what I do. All too often artists are forced to frame their work within the tastes of their economic surroundings. The process of applying for grants to make large projects happens should be a side job in itself, and with the cuts to state budgets, hustling for the cash to make the dream a reality just became that much harder.
Despite the fact that we live in a capitalist society, lets not forget that the economy is not the end in itself. Our economic system was created to support our cultural life. Werner Herzog's new film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, explores the paintings in Chauvet cave in southern France. The first of these paintings was made 32,000 years ago, and the style continued for thousands of years nearly unchanged. Think about that. How much has the culture of the US changed, and we have only been a nation for a little over 200 years.
Culture predates economics, politics, science, mathematics, and nearly every other human institution. It is because of culture that we have the education system that allows our CEO's to get an education and hire a work force, it is because of culture that we have politicians to decide where our taxes should go, who should get breaks, and who should get cuts.
So if there is to be a new culture war, lets go into it with open eyes. If the money that I need to create my work is to be taken so that the richest citizens of our country can continue to enjoy some of he lowest tax rates in decades, lets not fool ourselves with political slogans. If we want to define our culture based on who tops the Forbes lists of richest Americans versus the cultural impact of our thinkers and artists, we are unlikely to maintain our status in the world. It is not, after all, our dollars that have influenced so many people around the world, it is our culture.
