There’s more than one type of nostalgia around art.
Art media coverage seems to highlight the Old Masters, people who haven’t made art in a long time—heck, they haven’t even breathed in centuries! Their work gets a disproportionate amount of arts coverage not because art critics are nostalgic for an earlier time, and not because their art is awesome (although it is), but because of the giant sums it fetches.
Some artists have nostalgia for themselves at an earlier time, before fatigue and cynicism pinned them to the floor.
Some of us feel nostalgia for the in-person meetings and connections we used to get before COVID, after which just about everything went online, or for the golden age of publishing, when acquisitions editors would actually work with writers on their books, or for a time when broke artists would gather in certain neighborhoods to support and encourage each other.
Some of us might even miss the pre-smartphone era, when people had landlines and creatives could go for hours without the distractions of an electronic device pinging from the other room, potentially with urgent messages from their kids that can’t be ignored.
In this segment, your Gifted Underachievers discuss these types of nostalgia and then move forward into whether the current economy and the global housing crisis means we have to work all the time, fight hard to take a breath, and have superhuman focus to get a chance to do our creative work.
What are the answers—go off grid to focus on your art? Or become a “householder creative?” We’d love to know what you think.
Questions for Listeners
* Is there a time period you feel you’d have thrived in, both creatively and economically?
* What kind of arts coverage do you consume?
* Do you support a family with your art?
* Or did you eschew a household and put it all into your creative life?
* Do you keep a phone in your studio / office / rehearsal space?
For Further Investigation
The path of the householder vs. The path of the renunciate:
A microfiche machine!!!
The Art Newspaper: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/
Gifted Underachiever James’s Apron
George Simenon and his pipe:
Ninth Street Women, by Mary Gabriel
https://www.hachettebookgrom/titles/mary-gabriel/ninth-street-women/9780316226196/?lens=little-brown
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