When you're older, the term, and all its baggage, just seems naiive.
This letter from Nick Cave to Gap brings it back home, if only for a moment. And reminds me, ever so briefly, that maybe one's work is not just a commodity to be judged, bought, sold. And actually might matter, and mean something to another individual. And if you're so lucky, to an audience. That it might connect.
A few years ago Gap Jeans asked me to appear in one of their ads. I wrote back: ‘Dear Gap, I might put on a pair of your jeans if you were to pay me a billion dollars, but even then I would have serious reservations.’ I get letters from people telling me they got married to The Ship Song, or that they buried their best friend to Into My Arms, and I don’t want them to look at the TV and see that they buried their friend to a Cornetto ad or something. I feel some sense of responsibility about that, even though they wave enormous sums of money at you. That’s where my muse puts her foot down.
Nick Cave / 2003
i think the term "selling out" gets used in a variety of ways and the way described by nick cave is different that the article i linked. but i've actually been thinking about your other point about work having meaning beyond just the monetary or commercial aspect to it lately since i started listening to these jon august podcasts about the business of screenwriting. viner recommended the other day because they are all about getting started as a screenwriter in the business and hence, relevant to my situation. but as i listened to them, i got incredibly bored and annoyed and anxious and i couldn't figure out why, especially because they were seemingly targeted right to me. and then i realized why: they never talk about the work. they never talk about the writing itself as having its own value or how a screenwriter influences the final product or how one gets better as a writer or how one's work is able to create meaning for the audience. it's all about career. and while they would probably argue the issue of the work itself isn't the topic of their podcasts, it makes me wonder if their focus on the "business of screenwriting" is the reason why none of their movies hold any importance in my eyes as a cinema-lover. and so we have these guys - nice guys - smart guys - and probably talented guys - who work for years in the business and find incredible success and whose work, ultimately, for me, does not matter one bit. and perhaps you can write that off to taste, but i'm actually suspicious of that claim. i have different taste than spielberg or diablo cody, but i sense that at least, in their approach, the work matters to them -- as compared to the career. and i can't really say being primarily concerned about your career vs. your work is "selling out," although many "artists" would call it that. but i would say it is a shallow way of living and uninspiring and not something i personally am really interested in.
ReplyDeleteas to the article i linked to - i think she is actually making a more interesting point. as fans of art, we despise it when someone whose work means something to us, does a blatant "sell out" and allows their work to get used in a way that somehow undermines the meaning. but that isn't what she is talking about. she's talking about assigning value to your time. and this is a critical point to being a writer (or some other type of artist, i imagine), because your greatest resource is your time. on a practical level, if you aren't being paid for it, you must being doing something else in order to work - a day job, living off others largess, or living in squalor - none of which is actually helpful to the work.