To Paris with Love

How do we get others to care about living artists instead of them caring 100 years after we die?

To my artist friends…My wife and I went to Geneva Switzerland for our daughter’s wedding then decided we would pop on over to France for a “vacay” — Lyon and then Paris. If you’ve been to France, I don’t have to tell you about the food. But I do have a museum story that made me think about all my working artist friends……

Anyone who has travelled to Europe will always tell you about how great the trains and transportation are there compared to the states. As an artist, I of course wanted to visit museums — and for as short of stay as we planned — the Musee d’Orsay was about all I could manage this trip. Doris went shopping, I went to the museum.

The museum is rated one of the top museums in the world and I can attest to that for the period of art from about 1840- post impressionist periods. Seeing so many non-artist in this museum warmed my heart….but the hundreds in line to see Van Gogh saddened me a bit. The line represents the failure of contemporary society to convince the multitudes that living artists are worth visiting too: it took about 125 years for the general public to be told —and for them to learn —that his art was worthwhile.

One of the most repeated comments we artists hear from the general public is “I don’t know anything about art.” That implies that they must be told and the only media coverage of the arts they hear comes in the form of “xx million paid at auction for at Christy’s auction” for a work by this or that dead artist. Truth is, and they don’t realize it, they know good art because they see and consume it daily in the form of design, advertising photography, home interior stores, fashion, reproduction posters, decor store prints, clothing, etc….

My artist friends….those wild reports of million dollar auction results only tells them that they can’t afford art. We artists must do a better job in each of our communities getting the media to cover our events, exhibitions, doing profiles on local musicians, dancers, writers and yes, on us artists. We are accepting no from editors way too easily.

Every media outlet thinks nothing of covering sports. There’s a whole section devoted to sports, with its own writers, whether covering local sports, state, national or international. Nothing against sports — it has found ways to reach the public that we haven’t at all levels of society. Organizations supporting the arts have failed to find a formula to promote arts of all disciplines. We should demand more of our art organizations if they want our membership. Art organizations are stuck in an old European model of existing to exhibit and judge art, not promote it’s “Players” and create an environment where we champion young artists playing in on the field from grade school onward.

Profiles of local people in the arts are just as interesting as the local sports figures, so why do editors continue to reject our requests for coverage? The sports teams play every week but an exhibition at a state museum cannot garner any interest…(I state this as fact because a state museum PR person told me its request for coverage or announcement of opening are routinely ignored).

DEMAND A CHANGE…TAKE THE CHALLENGE

We need to demand more of our art organizers and organizations that support the many artistic disciplines. The paradigm thinking must change the approach and make art in schools a competitive team sport if necessary.

So what are we to do? How do we get our art organizations to shift their thinking and goals from raising money for their non-profits to continue existence, to —how to make more people interested in the “players on the court” and the teams or art villages we artists inhabit?

How do we artists, and our few followers of the arts, get others to care about living artists; and not just who critics tell the general public to follow 125 years after they are dead?