feeding the 1%

How come it is that they get to hold the ruler by which everyone else is measured? 

You’re a successful artist if your art is priced high enough that only they can purchase it.  To hell with the rest of the world–they’re not actually real people that matter.  

I remember a long time ago I swore to fight for the voice of the abused ones. This doesn’t mean that I don’t love fashion, beauty, architecture & design, lovely shoes, boots, earring, hats, and fast cars.  But I can have these things without enslaving myself, and others in the process…..right? 

Giant, billionaire companies that pay as absolutely little as possible to their workers, is something that makes me completely sick.  But, as much as I hate that that reality exists, there’s an even worse reality: we are the ones who put it in place. 

We feed the 1%ers by being a slave to fashion and not owning our own voices. When we don’t stand up as who we are and what we’re about, we help feed the monster that has us all in chains.  There’s no need to go to Africa or Central America (unless it’s a lifelong dream!), because they are strong and capable and can fight their own battles; all we have to do is stop feeding the 7-headed beast that enslaves them, right here, right now.  

How this translates into my life: As an artist, I will walk off this over-crowded street by not allowing the accepted rules of success and failure label me as either of the two.  I can do whatever the hell I want and I’m a success by my terms.  Every step I take is a successful one.  They may be really small and hard to see, but I know them and feel them, and I know how hard they were for me!  The fact that I don’t retreat back into my cave means I’m winning the battle over all the monsters that have sworn to eat me alive! (I have a big sword for this purpose :-))

My decision right now: Go for the big galleries (and all the glory that comes with them), or go for the ones who would never be able to own a piece of art that is sold in those galleries?  I am extremely tempted to make a hard left right now, but there aren’t many clean trails or tracks from others who’ve been this way.