writing

Artists Taking Steps Toward PARECON

Artists create not just a thing of value, we create the thing of value. And yet, we live on the margins and accept our status as "starving." Part of the problem is that we also accept our situation as is, without thinking much about it. The problem is that our creative abilities are directed toward the production of a thing, as opposed to a better situation. When we step back and look at our situation, it is quite easy to create better situations where we as artists and the larger community are better served. It is quite easy to take a step toward a more democratic or participatory economy (PARECON) where we have some control over what we do and who we become.

Greetings everyone. I have been invited to write a little for SoCiArts and I have decided to call my column "The Frame" because I wish to explore how creativity is constrained and framed by our political and economic institutions. I have made my living as a visual artist for about 20 years and I found ways of doing this without participating in traditional venues, competitions, grant writing and those sorts of things largely because I believe that our art industry does more to crush creativity than it does to broaden it. The general theme of "The Frame" is to encourage artists (which in itself is an elitist concept that we need to think about) to resist the old institutions of the art industry and to help build our own new institutions in their place.