I'm not sure I get it? Are you for the arts being taught w/government money but not being supported by it? What about businesses paying a different share than yours via tax cuts? Olympians should pay their own trip and expenses?
Does government have to ruin everything? Even our art. They have to have a piece of everything ever created? Just stay out of it, it's none of your business. Money and art shouldn't even be talked about together. Government has no soul and can make no decision whatsoever about art. It is incapable of feeling, there is no place, none at all for government in art. Art is freely given and you can't stand it because it just further exposes the limit of government. Don't even talk about government when you are talking about art. Asking an art lover to pay for art is like asking a man to breath. It is so far beyond government understanding it is a degradation of all art to even discuss government involvement in it. Just stay out of it. Don't even get too close to it. I won't let you ruin it.
That's pretty and all but I can tell you from personal experience that 90% of starting artists don't make a living wage and any bone thrown their way is well received. In the real world, art is a luxury and the common folk does not care. In the real world, patronage through government/private/religious means has seen the biggest art revivals in history.
Art is created in good times and bad. The times have nothing to do with the art and trying to find a formula to create art has been searched for before they even tried to make gold from lead. Art is created in palaces at the patronage of royalty and art is created on the chain gang. Just depends on where the artist happens to be. Many an artist has quit everything and dropped out with money in the bank only to find it wasn't being left alone that he needed to create. As a matter of fact, I doubt any artist actually knows what it is he needs to create. It is deceptive because creating art and getting paid to produce look and even feel almost the same and sometimes are the same, but the two are just happy coincidences. Art is so far out of the scope of government or kings, or producers, or galleries or museums it is not even worth discussing. All they can do is throw money at it like they are tossing it on a gambling table hoping something hits. And when something hits they take credit for it, but it was going to hit whether anybody was even there to witness it or not. Why just art? Why not government love? We could pay people to fall in love. Or we could pay for a voyage on the Love Boat. I'm sure somebody would fall in love. But they were going to fall in love anyway. Artists need no special care and don't get involved in it because nothing after the government touches it is ever free again.
That's a very romanticized (read naive) point of view. When I said from personal experience I meant it, I have a 2nd degree in fine arts. I am friends w/dozens of visual and performing artists. I agree that art is something we do, no matter if there's money involved or not, we just do it. And yes, the starving artist or the one w/the tragic story tends to sell well, but I don't partake in the idea that those who chose the profession should go w/o food and shelter as some rite of passage. And yes, there has always been friction when art is funded by tax dollars, because the government wants to dictate content, and that is not art, art is unencumbered. But wishful thinking doesn't keep the lights on, the student debts paid, the materials at your disposal, or the skills polished from repeated application of one's craft or the study of others'. It's art and it's profession and profession is what is being argued here. Many artists making a living today get their big break from their 1st public work or government funded exhibition. Prestige matters in this world even if it's sold by Hollywood as being completely detached from such banality. No gallery or museum want to be the one that "pops your cherry". They want a proven record of shows and exhibitions. They want the awards and the recognition from people in-the-know. I don't subscribe to the ethos of "let's help this youth reach their goals but not these others because what they chose to do in life is dumb or not valuable."
Well thought out comment Here4Money, i never would have suspected you were geared towards arts, most artists i meet are total flakes, but you seem like a pretty logical guy. Do you make your money now in art, or business? If your an artist i never would have guessed as i said above you seem like a pretty rational guy even though we dont agree on politics.
I make most of my money from my other degree in STEM. But Uncle Sam knows me as a serious "STEM guy" and a "serious artist", otherwise they wouldn't let me deduct my art expenses and treat it as a hobby; so art supplements my income. Honestly industry sux pretty hard and I'd rather make money just in the arts since you're basically your own boss. Ultimately I'd like to have my own business in STEM and am working towards it. Ideally I'd like to dedicate my time to both equally, hence why I'm here; getting excited about making money is difficult for me and have to battle through it, but ultimately I want to remove it from the equation as a hindrance to reaching my goals. As for rationality, that'd be the science/math "training". Facts/objectivity is everything in that field and you have to start by look at both sides with equal weight and tear apart each by looking at the facts/arguments. At the end, best you can hope for is something that satisfies the needs of most, even if that decision is the least popular. I do tend to lean left of center in politics, I'll admit to have a soft spot for people so am mostly liberal on social issues. I often disagree w/my lefty friends though, because rationally I'm fiscally conservative and realize tax breaks are ultimately better than food stamps (one being a reward and the other being aid and both subject to abuse), even if in the grand scheme of things they're kind of the same (less money in the coffers). ok, I should've caught up to the trolling and I'd have avoided giving a serious answer.
The fact that you would call creating art a profession shows you are in a completely evil universe in which art doesn't even exist. Creating art is not a profession. Art creates many professions, and some jobs and some hobbies, and some plain old art. If you want to help, interfere, assist, pick winners in anything art creates, go ahead and be a typical liberal. It has nothing to do with creating art, only politically managing it. It's all just politics and nothing I care about anymore than who is president. Good luck to you and your business, especially as to how it doesn't interfere with mine.