Alt text: a post from @lolennui.bsky.social that says: Once my German friend asked what creative people do without arts grants and other support in the US and I felt like a parent trying to explain to their kid that the puppies can die sometimes
If you have some free time and aren’t easily depressed, go ahead and look up the backgrounds of your favorite, recently ascendant artists. Many, if not most of them come from privileged backgrounds, have wealthy spouses, trust funds, or familial industry connections.
And while I personally don’t think that such advantages necessarily diminish the importance of their art, just think of how much more potentially moving and profound work we’ll never see just because the people who should be making it never got chance to develop, since they’ve been too busy just trying to keep a roof over their heads.
I’ve thought this for a long time about other things. it’s truly a shame.
We could have cured cancer years ago but the scientist grew up poor and ended up working the graveyard shifts in the mines.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
~ Stephen Jay Gould
This is how societies fall. Everyone just trying to keep a roof above their heads.
I was a very talented artist and musician growing up and all through high school, from a nice poor family.
Had to join the army and become an engineer, no trust fund to write books and make music. Luckily at this stage in my life both are possible in my free time, but wished I could do other things than engineer.
If you want to see art though you can just ask a computer to make it for you
Boooo, that will never compare to the personal satisfaction of honing a craft.
Edit: machine generation can be fun but I promise it’s not as fulfilling as finding something you love doing purely for the sake of it and watching your progress over years.
Someone is going to say the same way a flesh artist does. But I think it’s more than synthesis of what a person sees, its their lived experience
They have seen what happens when you don’t let an aspiring artist grow professionally, and perhaps continue their education, for instance, in a place like the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts
Nah lmao Adolf was a talentless hack. The man had absolutely no understanding of angles. Have you seen his paintings? They suck.
To this day Germans are afraid of all painters because these guys are just another Holocaust waiting to happen.
… Is what you are saying. Not very funny.
Yes, Germans were Nazis. A round of applause for rehashing the joke for the billionth time.
I assume from context that you mean they support Palestine and are against Israel’s genocide… Which doesn’t make them Nazis… Actually kinda makes them not Nazis… Not sure how/why it’s possible that Israel turned into Nazis, but they did.
Correct me if I misread the context
European people: But… but what if we had a system of medical care for puppies, so that they do not die so often?
By selling pet insurance, I suppose? Though I guess that requires that the puppies be owned by someone fortunate enough to afford it.
They go to Hollywood and write a fifth sequel to a 20 years old series that no one cares about.
What do creative people do in Germany to support themselves?
Study liberal arts for free while getting bafög or a side job to pay for your living costs. I think that’s more what the post is about. And there are also tons of grants.
