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Don't see me how you see others
1. I am very sad to hear that Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola are moving to Los Angeles, not least because it substantially decreases my chances of hearing the complete works of Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling in person. It's also difficult to disagree with Epstein and Cacciola's assessment of the economics of being an artist in Boston:
Unfortunately, we just haven't been able to find the support necessary to create the financial infrastructure that would allow us to continue working with an upward trajectory, and as much as new arts programs are touted, we just don't envision a serious movement to make creative work viable within the context of skyrocketing costs of living in this area. Every year, more and more of our friends give up and move outside the city because they can no longer afford the rent. Boston, as a community and as an institution, fails to support startup and mid-level arts groups . . . This deficit means that the city fails to attract the types of infrastructure that result in creative workers getting paid fair wages. For our needs, that means that there are very few record labels, booking agencies, feature-film production houses, film distribution companies, etc. We personally just can't rely on crowdfunding and accumulating debt forever, and we can't work under those financial restrictions to do better than we are now. We are just killing ourselves to pull off anything serious on tiny budgets. The true cost of this failure to value creative work is that people like us are significantly burdened by staying, and we are driven to leave. We'd prefer to stay, but it's self-sabotaging to wait for sociopolitical miracles.
I am not even trying to make a living in the arts (it would be nice; I'm trying to make a living from my jobs first), but I spend a lot of time these days trying to figure out how the hell I can afford to stay in a city I consider home. The part about the rent rings dispiritingly true. The last thing this city needs is more condos.
2. I am not sure that I had known anything about the eighteenth-century enslaved chef Hercules—head cook of George Washington's household at the President's House as well as Mount Vernon, from which he later escaped to freedom and disappears from the historical record—prior to this article, so in that sense I appreciate the controversy over Ramin Ganeshram's A Birthday Cake for George Washington. The portrait is arresting.
3. I find the song itself catchy enough in an imagistic way, but I really like the video for Sun Seeker's "Georgia Dust." It gives good daylight horror. It's a witch song.
Unfortunately, we just haven't been able to find the support necessary to create the financial infrastructure that would allow us to continue working with an upward trajectory, and as much as new arts programs are touted, we just don't envision a serious movement to make creative work viable within the context of skyrocketing costs of living in this area. Every year, more and more of our friends give up and move outside the city because they can no longer afford the rent. Boston, as a community and as an institution, fails to support startup and mid-level arts groups . . . This deficit means that the city fails to attract the types of infrastructure that result in creative workers getting paid fair wages. For our needs, that means that there are very few record labels, booking agencies, feature-film production houses, film distribution companies, etc. We personally just can't rely on crowdfunding and accumulating debt forever, and we can't work under those financial restrictions to do better than we are now. We are just killing ourselves to pull off anything serious on tiny budgets. The true cost of this failure to value creative work is that people like us are significantly burdened by staying, and we are driven to leave. We'd prefer to stay, but it's self-sabotaging to wait for sociopolitical miracles.
I am not even trying to make a living in the arts (it would be nice; I'm trying to make a living from my jobs first), but I spend a lot of time these days trying to figure out how the hell I can afford to stay in a city I consider home. The part about the rent rings dispiritingly true. The last thing this city needs is more condos.
2. I am not sure that I had known anything about the eighteenth-century enslaved chef Hercules—head cook of George Washington's household at the President's House as well as Mount Vernon, from which he later escaped to freedom and disappears from the historical record—prior to this article, so in that sense I appreciate the controversy over Ramin Ganeshram's A Birthday Cake for George Washington. The portrait is arresting.
3. I find the song itself catchy enough in an imagistic way, but I really like the video for Sun Seeker's "Georgia Dust." It gives good daylight horror. It's a witch song.
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Yeah. I hear you there.
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You're welcome! Michael W. Twitty contributed a thoughtful article on the subject as well.
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I really dislike how many people I know are saying the same.
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//sorry, am VERY bitter about this particular topic
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It's true of most people I know. I'd really like an economy that works, and by "works" I do not mean "screws most of the country over."
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But good luck to them!
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It sounds like the draw is not cheaper housing, but better support for the arts:
"There is no doubt that nothing will be easy anywhere else, but even if money and projects are hard to come by in L.A., there are at least more possibilities for what we're seeking to accomplish because supporting industry is present. And with that industry comes an entire financial infrastructure in which at least some art has value."
I really hope it works, too! I like their music.
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I wish this were not such a popular problem. I am so sorry.
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