6/3/24

The starving artist. A dilemma present in the lives of some, and made fun of by everyone else. Previously, being an artist was something to be achieved through hard work, motivation, and most importantly an undying need to create works that derive meaning from the context of the maker's life. A figure lacking such necessary articles as food and water, clothes that fit, and especially a well-paying job, but distracted by the passion driving them into a scene of art and the luxury obtained by their ability to do so successfully. However, there's a specific commentary that exists surrounding, not only the starving ones but artists in general. In a similar vein to the Beatniks and hippies of the 1960s, artists in this generation derive largely from positions of wealth and privilege, only able to pursue such a study by means of their parent's money and a significant emphasis on self-entitled behavior. But in today's culture, and the environment surrounding so many artistic scenes, the starving artist, the struggling artist, and the tortured artist have all become an object of obtainable interest, something to pursue based on a desire to simply be an artist, rather than an innate driving force pushing you in such a direction. 

 Within the last few years, my passion for being a figure within my given area of study has dissipated to a much smaller area of intrigue. While my desire to make clothes and make art, much less the love I have for talking about it has gone nowhere, the excitement once felt by a fresh-minded 18-year-old fashion entrepreneur has been replaced by a brutally realistic, if not pessimistic, image of what the industry looks like. I knew from a young age what position I would find myself in later down the line. My brain, try as I might, was hardwired for a specific skill set, regardless of the intent in my heart to prove Yoda was real, I was meant to do art. While my friends were getting As and Bs in their math and science classes to match my Cs and (almost) Ds, I was getting my art taken off the walls and shown to my peers as a demonstration of how to interpret a prompt successfully. As much as art is appreciated, it is less than encouraged to focus your entire life on something many attribute to a hobby, especially in a position of $50k loans and an indecisive brain as I was unfortunate to possess. Reigning from a less-than-well-off household, the intimidation distilled in me at this realization was a physical force of anxiety so strong it scared me in multiple different directions, eventually landing me in an area of art study I felt would provide enough security that my years of cut off electricity and driving to my grandparents to use their hot water was a thing of the past. 

In 2021, I watched a film based on a novel of the same name called "Into The Wild". The film, following the life story of a man named Chris McCandless, highlights the overarching theme of this post excellently. In it, McCandless runs away from his upper-middle-class family after being gifted a car and embarks on an ill-prepared journey to escape the constrictive grip of wealth to get more in touch with nature and his self. He spent years hitch-hiking from place to place, backpacking into the woods, and crashing on strangers' couches, until he ended up in an especially desolate area of the Alaskan wilderness, where he died. While objectively I would encourage any and everyone to spend time outside, even taking a year off just to adventure, the downside of the McCandless story is that no amount of passion nor desire to do something will benefit you when you're simply unknowledgeable. McCandless was ignorant, and what's more, vastly unprepared for the world he thought he wanted to enter. The privileged life he had lived up until the time of his departure allowed his perspective of the rest of the world to be almost as cushioned as he was, underestimating both how dangerous and unpredictable the wilderness can be, and also the pleasures and softness of the life he left behind. This story has become somewhat of a beacon for a large population of rich hippies who view his story as one to look up to, however, at the time of my viewing of the film, I felt anger rather than admiration. Regardless of the obviousness of his demise to anyone who has spent more than a day outside, there is a specific genre of wealthy individuals so well off they feel almost embarrassed by the comfort of the life they lead, which has always been a point of contingency in my near-constant vocalization of my hatred for wealth in general. These individuals hate going on family trips to other countries, own Apple products exclusively, refer to themselves as comfortable rather than rich, and are plaguing almost every avenue of the art industry. 

 Art itself is a muse. While of course taking inspiration from other aspects of my life and attempting to incorporate these symbols and icons into my work, one of the biggest driving forces in my desire to make art - in whatever way that ends up being - stems from a passion for the arts as a broad topic. Art isn't something I chose to go into because I wanted to be an artist, or that the lifestyle of being broke simply because I chose to do what I care about rather than prioritizing finances is attractive to me in the slightest, but rather something I chose because I knew deep within me I had no other choice. Liking art was certainly a bonus for me, and my ability to make art, though admittedly limited, also didn't hurt, however, what really motivates me to be in the scene is simply the creation of something with meaning. And though I will be the very last to say I am the kind of artist to look up to, I do think there is room enough for criticism concerning the motivation others have in their desire to make art. One of the biggest aspects of the art industry as a whole that has been plaguing artists and their mediums is the people within in, and the ways in which they go about talking about, making, and existing in artistic spaces. Growing up, wanting to be an artist was not something many encouraged, in fact, more often than not telling an adult you were going to university to pursue a degree in any artistic field was almost synonymous with telling them you want to throw $100k in the trash and work in a restaurant well into your 30s. Art was a calling, and more often than not, it called to those who had access to very little else. If you were able to go into medicine, you did as such, if you had the finances to pursue a career in law, you did as such, and if numbers and logistics simply didn't work for you, and you found yourself lingering around your teacher's desk after class rather than inviting the stress of eating in a public bathroom for a lunch break, you became an artist. But since the early 20000s, Americans especially have added a special kind of significance to the behind-the-scenes aspects of art, with a deep-seated longing to know the process behind a painting, the personality of their favorite actor, the personal life of their favorite musician, and the motivation behind a specific piece. Year by year, art became more and more in line with the luxurious lifestyle that those who buy art have, and art itself began to lose the sensitivity and culture it once possessed. 

The struggle of the artist became overshadowed by the extravagance of the art. One of the beats I hit most in my writing is the sincerity of art, primarily fashion, and what happens to an artistic industry when it becomes overproduced, oversaturated, and vastly misunderstood. Fashion in the 2020s became somewhat of a trend in and of itself, and as a result, we've received some of the most boring, least inspiring, and dull runways of the last decade. One of the biggest contributors to this issue is the people who read terms like "the starving artist" and gain a sense of longing for the idea. Contrary to popular belief, the term is not necessarily something to look forward to, and those who do run the risk of playing into what I will be calling the "Chris McCandless Phenomenon". There exists a specific genre of people, mostly mid-20s, who have a weird obsession with the idea of struggling, or what's more, masquerading as someone who might. This creates a space in which art, previously created by those who found the making of artistic pieces worth the struggle they would inevitably find themselves encountering, is more of a study that has become vastly populated by those who wish to achieve an artist status, yet lack the experiences and unfortunate blites that makeup so much of what art actually is. On one hand, this isn't inherently a new feature to the scene, as hippies were a like-minded group that often felt a need to be perceived as an oppressed and misguided yet just as often returned to their parents' 5 bedroom homes in the East Hamptons each Summer. Yet we continue to see evidence of the issues brought upon the industry, fashion especially, as more and more inspired pieces funded by celebrity parents and 40-year-old trust funds trickle down into any available space, inevitably being highlighted on Vogue runway until someone who bought $1400 pants with fake dirt stains on them is seen as the new voice of their specific artistic niche. 

I chose art because I had no choice. I was not hardwired to think in many other ways, try as I might. While my passion for my studies is pressing and prominent, financial security still plays heavily in the back of my mind given every choice I have to make regarding my future. And that is what has sparked this whole debate that has been going on since the late 2010s. Art has lost significant meaning and depth in its curation. While previous artists strived to make pieces surrounding ideals within their own lives, and transgressing these ideas as subtly as differing brush strokes or specific patterns, our current obsession with artists, and figures to assign art to has confiscated that meaning and replaced it with names and labels. The struggling artist has become a brand in and of itself, something to be glamorized and sought after, and in positions such as I find myself, it becomes frustrating knowing certain aspects of my life won't be led the way I want them to be because of financial constraints that don't come close to affecting those who merely wish to imitate the lifestyle I and most others in college and positions of hardship would love nothing else but to leave behind.