art & craft. or, quote sir charles.

to avoid disappointment in art, one mustn't treat it as a career. despite whatever great artistic sense and talent a man might possess, he ought to seek money and power elsewhere to avoid forsaking his art when he fails to receive proper compensation for his gifts and efforts.

-orhan pamuk, my name is red

i love this quote. but is it true? i am very ambivalent about it. (not that im an artist, mind you - a little playacting now and then notwithstanding.)

on the one hand, im reminded of a writing teacher i once had, who implored us never to quit our day jobs, even if we started supporting ourselves through our creative writing. she had quit hers after selling a novel, and regretted it b.c she felt, among other things, that having a 'real' job had provided a ballast for her creative side, and a more natural way of doing her research - which was, simply, living her life. having become a professional writer, she felt she had immersed herself in her art to a fault.

so she would agree with the bottom line of the quote, if not its reasoning.

but on the other hand - i guess it would be the left one - i am reminded of something i read in elizabeth wurtzel's polemic on gender and culture, bitch. (i hope i used the word polemic correctly.)

wurtzel was talking about how bruce springsteen had been married to an actress, but left her for one of his backup singers. im tot paraphrasing, but wurtzel reasoned that it made sense that a musician as devoted to his art as springsteen would inevitably end up with someone in his band, b.c he has to be immersed in his art all the time, with precious few moments left over for anyone outside that work.

regardless of the accuracy of wurtzel's theory on the boss, shed disagree with the quote.

maybe those two anecdotes dont even directly relate to the quote. i dont know.

my instinct is to say that the quote treats art too coolly. it seems to me that disappointment, while of course always being a bummer, would only serve to inform an artist's work. so why try to avoid it in the first place? i feel like the speaker, by calling for the separation of art and career, is saying 'the travails of an artist's life should never impinge on his mind when he does his art.' under this prescription, wouldnt the artist be treating his art more as a craft, or a trade, than he who made it his career?

whats my pt? again, im not quite sure. i keep going back and forth with this thing.