The Rise Of The Artist

In another post of yours, elsewhere in the thread[1], you yourself pointed out that:

"when I was a kid I wanted to be a poet. Poems wouldn't keep a roof over my head and hell, at the time, neither would code. Hasn't stopped me from writing poems in my spare time and engaging in my other pursuits. If ever a time comes when one could sustainably make money selling art, then I'm sure many artists and even non artists will flood the market."

Presumably, you didn't study poetry. Not because you didn't want to, but because you didn't think it was economically viable. Many if not most people interested in art are in the same boat. On top of that, there's the stigma associated with art and artists that influences their own attitudes and decisions of whether or not to pursue or study art.

So, no. I don't think that "those who want to study art will study art". Most who do want to choose not to. It's a minority who are wealthy enough, driven enough, or naive enough (with tolerant enough parents) who do actually study art.

"Again, I'm going to have to ask you to be specific with your definition of the "creative arts" because it seems your gripe is that we are teaching kids math instead of drawing in school;"

Drawing is, in fact, one of the so-called "creative arts". So is painting, sculpture, printmaking, creative writing, music, theater, and dance. Architecture, illustration, and graphic design could arguably be squeezed in to that definition as well. History, English, and various other "humanities" subjects would not. Though creativity is required in many if not most fields of human endeavour (including math), that does not make them part of the "creative arts".

"to which of course the appropriate response is school is for learning, not for doodling."

Now that's a condescending view of art and its role in education if I've ever heard one. I'm sure you would not enjoy hearing math described in a similarly condescending way.

"Just like you should have a certain level of reading capacity, you should also have a certain level of reasoning capacity. This is the bare minimum one should have. So if your gripe is about the amount of math taught, well, I hope you take that same gripe with history, literature, geography, and even PE."

I do have the same gripe against all those other subjects, which are certainly looked upon as more "serious" than art, and are generally given more resources and emphasis in the education system (well, except maybe for geography). Art is unjustly demeaned and underappreciated. That's not to say that these other subjects are also underappreciated compared to the moneymaking and "practical" fields. They are.

"Now is when it is most painfully obvious that he who understands the world holds the power. It used to be he who holds the purse strings, but thanks to the litany of these technologies that we're talking about, it's becoming less so (though not fast enough)."

But we're not talking about what used to be (though your depiction of math as being neglected in the past relative to art could also be argued -- I don't know when in history the "creative arts" as I defined above were ever near as popular in education as math was). We're talking about now.

"The important questions in the world are/have been/ are being asked, and not many of them involve "self-expression"."

Well, this is indeed an expression of bias that could be corrected through better education.

Unfortunately, your attitude of condescension towards other fields is not limited to math/physics folks. It's all too prevalent in most fields. Many people who are passionate about their own field are often disparaging of others (especially ones radically different from their own). I think this is generally due to ignorance and lack of appreciation of the worth and value of other fields.

Of course, that doesn't mean that every field is necessarily equally valuable. But perhaps every (or nearly every) field has something of value in it, perhaps even of great value. Until this is appreciated on a deep level, I'm afraid we're going to continue to have the kind of bickering over which field is most valuable and which should get more dollars and emphasis in education that we have now, and there'll continue to be a stigma on certain fields.

"Knowledge of Science and Math add a whole new dimension to our exploration of the world and people are just taking notice. That is the point. The journey that STEM has made from esoterica to becoming a full participant in the cultural discussion. The idea that we can even consider STEM a cultural activity."

Wonderful. I'm all for that.

"Smashing that barrier that keeps people assuming that STEM people are these little weird people with their irrelevant subjects and threats to human existence and starting to see it as a part of the human experience like any other."

A part of the human experience like any other. Like art. Which also has deep value to the human experience.

If you don't agree, I'll just refer you to Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, DaVinci, Van Gogh, and Michaelangelo. Their like are not exactly encouraged by cutting arts funding in favor of math, nor by stigmatizing the creation of art as "doodling" or whatever other derrogatory terms you wish to use.

"I'm sure you're very passionate about art, and in a perfect world, we would all have the things we love be recognized both culturally and economically. But antagonizing an entire field just because one's field isn't getting the limelight is not a productive way to go."

Pot, meet kettle.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5308873

I just wanted to point out that "supplementing" swimming techniques may not be a good idea... once you get the basic habits wrong, it can be very hard to undo. (not to say YMCA is bad, I know nothing about it)

Most of the people profiting from the "art market boom" are collectors and other businessmen who buy art from unknown artists at rock bottom prices and resell them once the artist becomes famous (usually but not always after the artist's death).

In this situation the artist gets pennies on the dollar (if he's very lucky, as many artists don't manage to sell their work at all).

Some very few artists are lucky enough to even be alive by the time their art becomes highly coveted, and then are lucky enough to have enough business acumen (or lucky enough to partner with a scrupulous and competent enough agent) to capitalize on their fame, and actually make enough money from art to actually quit their job waiting tables or driving taxis and devote their energies full-time to making art.

Some very few of those very few might even become rich. But I would not call that a "great time to be making art". The overwhelming majority of artists in the US do not make nearly enough money to even reach the disgracefully low poverty line, much less be able to survive solely by selling their art or profit much from this "booming art market".

Except that in order to become healthier, you don't have to take someone else's health away.

I think a better analogy would be something like that (stupid) movie In Time, where people are given a certain amount of time to live when they turn 25. They can freely trade that time with others. Some wind up with millions of years of time, while the majority are cheated, exploited, and misled by the wealthy ("time is money") and face the risk of death at any moment as they scramble over what little time they have left.

As weak and flawed as the movie is, they're right about one thing: it doesn't have to be that way.