Making Art and Making a Living

 

Is it really possible to make a living while pursuing your art?  Mason Currey explores this intriguing question in Making Art and Making a Living. Currey explains how Petrarch, Baudelaire, Van Gogh and other notables funded their art careers. In a breezy style, he places artists into categories. They either inherited wealth, mooched off of others, or worked odd jobs.  A select few worked parallel jobs, insurance, law, or medicine, while some worked in cultural institutions, e.g., Museum of Modern Art. During the depression, many artists benefited from the Federal Arts Project. This really isn't a how-to for funding art careers, but it satisfies those who are curious about artistic achievement. 

Write it Down

Professor urges students to write everything down in this unprecedented time. During a pandemic, 'write it down,' University of Virginia professor Herbert 'Tico' Braun urges students.

Actually, this is good advice for all writers. Writing your experiences will keep a record of this time in history; it can also be therapeutic.

photo courtesy of Pexelscom, Tirachard Kumtanom

https://news.virginia.edu/content/write-it-down-historian-suggests-keeping-record-life-during-pandemic?utm_source=DailyReport&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news&fbclid=IwAR09KejyTLZrFNxZ-Up65CjFp6ix84CPXP9wfCQ5c-a1RwTlkZaWJIbI5hI

"Conversation With My Father," by Grace Paley

A woman and her 86-year-old father argue about short stories, life, and tragedy. She had always let him have the last word because of his health issues but this time she doesn't back down. 

This is one of my favorite stories because it's a story about storytelling--two people arguing about the right way to tell a story.