February 2009

Now that the day is over and I won’t be accused of trying to stop something, I will share my response to the Day of Absence. It is sad that we have reduced ourselves to behaving like a bunch of unionists. Jobs are NOT what being an artist is about. Noone owes any of us a living. If we are, as we claim, creative, we are in a better position than the rest of the community to make a living. The fact is that the reason most artists are broke (including me) is that there are other things in the world that are more important. As you noted, it is those things that will make the world of our grandchildren worth living. This constant suggestion that somehow the community should make it easier for artists to make a living is nonsense. It is the result of years of conditioning by governments that we should be taken care of. We are valuable. We must learn to make use of that value. The way to do that is not to beg (like we allow our children to do at intersections and outside businesshouses) but to use the creativity that manifests itself as painting, sculpture or poetry to create income-producing devices. I certainly don’t want anyone top feel sorry for me because I didn’t make the kind of money I could have. That would suggest that what I did do with my life (the music, poetry etc.) was less important than the money. It is not. I choose to do what I do. So do the rest of you. If expressing yourself in the forms you do does not reward you in the ways you wish, then perhaps you should do something else. The world would not stop if people who make their living in the arts did not show up. It would be a poorer world, for sure, but it would roll right on without you. I am an architect, and I must accept that while I might express myself creatively in that realm, the vast majority of this community finds my concerns of little interest. They are content with the crudest built environment they can have, as long as the price is the cheapest they can have. If I waited for the majority of the community to appreciate the creative efforts of architects, to reward me for being passionate about the way a porch works, I would never work. But I have no choice. This world is not mine. I hold it in trust for future generations of Bahamians. My income is not important in that picture. Si it is up to me to use the creativity with which I say I am gifted to create businesses, the unit of measure in the world of money. In any case, in this Information Age, the JOB is obsolete.