the death of an american artist...

the wild dance of the american artist....

it's all around us...job after job is being cut from companies...people are scrambling right now to make ends meet...a shortage of food at the food banks...people loosing their homes, children having to drop out of college...groceries going up higher and higher....yes, it is everyday now...but honestly artists saw it and felt it more than a year ago...

artists have always been a vision of our society...the ones that would jump off a cliff to see how it will come out...a brave and unusual sort of person...perhaps a person that can't understand why you wouldn't jump with them...but as prices began to go up more than a year ago, artists were having to pay so much more for their supplies for their craft that they were forced to shut down...add suppliers closing too, just makes for added problems...costs of renting booths to sell your work is unaffordable in these times, stores that carry your work are closing...magazines that promote your work are closing....the promotions of 'the arts' in many states is falling rapidly...

yet you are trying to swim in circles at the least and stay out of the quicksand...

yes, it is happening to the american artists....slowly and surely artists are closing...thinking that this is the time that they must fall into line and be a little practical with the future, maybe do what their parents had always told them to do long long ago when they announced that they were going to be an artist...go back to school, and add to the already huge market of people applying for jobs...

over the summer i saw a new site in my own area....a potter had set up a table in a parking lot selling her wares...this was the first time i had seen anything like this before, anywhere. a sign of what is coming i'm afraid...many artists have gone back to school for a future 'career', some have taken on 'regular' jobs of any kind...both being forced to end their craft altogether...many spouses of artists have lost their jobs and the art is all that is supporting their family today...

i would dare say that an artist lives month to month...or at best season to season...for they are not in the "creating" for the money, they are called starving artists for a reason...they go against the grain of what is considered 'practical, good common sense", they are doing it because they can - making a living on what their imagination feeds them...what has been done for 100's of years before them...what today is called an entrepreneur...

and as 'flighty' as an artist may seem, within that mind is not only an inventor but a researcher, an accountant, a web designer, a shipping company, a marketing person, a photographer, a writer, an office manager, secretary, chairman of the board, housekeeper and goodwill ambassador to all....a person who wears many many hats, no wonder it seems like they are confused...

so when you are out there shopping for this and that...take to mind the american crafts person...pick up that card to send to a friend that is handmade...buy that jar of honey on the side of the road instead of from the store....think in advance of upcoming birthdays and holidays and order a piece from an artist....good chance you are paying their electric bill...

and what about me? well i'm hanging in there like i always have and will...for i am a knowing dreamer with a strong mind of determination, things will always work out...but i do know, one day there will be less of 'us' and we will be harder to find...but we will never disappear altogether...