So I had drinks with two people recently.
The first is an artist, working largely in drawing as a medium. Although he's young, he's doing a great job of establishing himself in the local art scene. He's had some shows. He's part of an artists' collective of some note. He's having to make some hard choices about what it means to be an artist. Because it's not easy to support yourself by art alone. He's got what it takes -- wonderful technique, an art school education, and plenty of DIY spirit. But selling his work doesn't pay his bills and it's unlikely to in the near future. He's weighing his options. Almost all of them involve having a day job of one kind or another.
The second was also with an artist, who has been experimenting with a number of media including drawing. He's not so young, and has come to the pursuit of art as a new endeavor, one that he is very passionate about. He has been honing his technique, largely through trial and error, and is getting really quite good in terms of raw execution. But without an understanding of artistic practice, of how the use of his technique might contribute to the greater conversation in which contemporary art occurs, his art is really only so many pretty images. It's not his fault really. He's never received much education in art. But he's already demonstrated an enormous amount of tenacity just to get this far with his technique. I am confident that if he takes it upon himself to learn, he could develop an artistic practice into a formidable contribution to the DC art scene. He too, is an emerging artist, though his challenges are very different from the first artist.
And not everyone he's encountered has been kind about his being an artist. He told me the story of one woman, a more established DC artist, who expressed a frank jealousy upon learning his workplace had decided to give him an exhibition at his office. She made it very clear to him that she felt it was somehow unfair that someone like him, who wasn't as well versed in artistic practice, should get an opportunity to show when she was working so hard with so much less success. Her presumption was that her obviously better understanding of contemporary artistic practice somehow entitled her to shows, and was her automatic proof that she was an artist, and he was not.
More and more I grow convinced that any art ecosystem is really a conversation. Everyone contributes to this conversation -- artists, collectors, gallerists, professors, critics, and curators. Everyone is trying to figure out what they ar trying to say. And just like in any conversation, some people contribute commentary that is pithy, and substantive. Others spew cliches, but somehow everyone applauds their words anyway. Some stand on the sidelines of the conversation, nodding and smiling. While others leap into the fray and argue that everything (including the fact we're conversing at all) is really so much bullshit. Some speak eloquently, their words perfect articulation of their ideas. Others stutter, barely making themselves understood.
We're all just finding our voice. Some of us come to the conversation with a whole lot of knowledge about the subject matter. Some of us only have a lot of enthusiasm and haven't figured out yet what we're talking about. The vast majority of us are somwhere in between.
The first artist is making great contributions to the DC art scene, and his voice in this community is starting to get some weight. His right to speak in this world isn't even questioned. He is what we come to expect when we think about an emerging artist.
It's the second artist that poses the bigger challenge to us. There is an instinct among the congnoscenti to be dismissive of him, to declare him somehow deficient and unfit. His enthusiasm is both annoying and endearing, and he is viewed with disdain because he pretends to the title of artist, as if such a noble pursuit shouldn't be available to someone who has no understanding of the finer points of artistic practice. It's the same sort of disdain that is leveled at collectors who buy work because a gallerist has assured him that his investment in the piece will appreciate. These people don't understand. They aren't educated. Their participation in our high-minded art ecosystem is tolerated, but not encouraged. If he gets a show, an accolade, it's considered unfair somehow to other artists, as if he's a monkey that managed somehow to type Romeo and Juliet and has therefore insulted Shakespeare with his sheer infathomable and dumb luck.
Art is a conversation. And the same pitfalls that happen at your garden variety cocktail party (or gallery opening) conversation can happen in art. Not everything everyone says is worth listening to. Sure, people say dumb, uneducated, ignorant things. But it's considered poor form to deride a fellow party guest's statements over hors d'ouvres. The art "conversation" however, is expected to be critical, and therefore less forgiving. We accept this in the art world, even though the assumption leaves many with loads of enthusiasm (but perhaps less education) outside of the conversation entirely.
I'll admit it. I've always had a thing for outsiders. I've been an outsider, and I've been left out of conversations many times before. A lot of folks in the art world have had that experience. Some build entire careers around it, making the fact of their exclusion from other conversations the source of their voice in the art world. Their dismissal of others from the art "conversation" always strikes me as the height of irony.
I'll be very honest here: I'm still learning what it is I have to say that might constitute a unique and worthwhile contribution to the "conversation," and people have been very patient with me as take this journey, and I appreciate that. More so than in other places, I've found DC artists to be very gracious about making sure that people who want to participate in the DC art "conversation" have a means to do so. But is my experience the norm, or have I just been lucky?
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