Money matters

Art? Doesn't matter

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

I am sad. I met four people I know today all looking for work. Two were looking for any work, one was diverting to entreprenuership for a while, just something to do to earn while waiting for something better, and the last, confronting the root of the problem out of immediate necessity, was borrowing money. That actually is the bottomline. And then there was a fifth one declaring his flat broke financial circumstance and there I was also looking for work, which makes it six people in a span of four hours. Everyone of them, us, are artists, in a relationship with art, and or artists one way or another. Go figure.

And these people are not even purist as we call artists who shun any form of commercialism. We are actually looking at artists who can and will compromise and "sacrifice" their art for their families. An artistic being in the Philippines is blessed if they have foreign aid or they belong to an old-rich family, or have already served the "been-there" time and has become old and established (i.e. national artist ahem, excuse me Ben Cab). Then one can afford to be purist.

Artists who accept that they cannot live on purist principles without putting someone else in discomfort or passing their life's burden to someone else are no longer looking for something they want to do, but more of anything to do---odd jobs and muse-killing bandy-clocked jobs.

In the struggling art scene, one may be able to sell a work which would last until when? The next electric bill or house rent? How do you sell a poem? I have never heard of any writer living on their book royalties alone. The phone bill costs more than one short story. I have heard of how the financial status of artists and writers skydive or stagnate so much so that families separate (someone goes abroad) or relationships actually break up. Economics is a real, everyday stress for couples with children.

Hate to compare because circumstances are different but, in other countries they have welfare to fall back on when all else fails. Okay, there is social stigma to pay, and it is shitty enough to be broke, and while there is a job taxes are sky high but at least there is something. In the Philippines, we borrow money to make ends meet. Makes you wonder, what do we get from the government? That's how we Filipinos have survived and are surviving. Magaling! Maparaan, madidiskartehan.

Maybe if government will give welfare, and trusting that the money will not just go to the high ranking corrupt people in government, most Filipinos especially the artists, thinkers, the people in the non government sector will not think twice and groan about paying taxes or try to escape their responsibilities especially if they see that the government is doing something that directly affects our lives, without making it miserable. And that the government is there when all else fails.


artwork/editorial cartoon from webpage http://www.cartoon-crn.com/cartoon.htm