Requiem for the arts.
This is a response I just wrote in a friends blog, I realize this is the biggest reason why I left Michigan. Besides this the only way my dream can become real is here, I see that now. It will be a struggle...It is a struggle but I will make it I can feel it, I don't quite know what it is but I'll make it.
You only love Detroit because you've been away so long, you haven't seen first hand the horrors of a fading art community. After a while that beauty fades and you begin to feel the cold smell of death as the city dies around you...a few pockets of art collectives and musicians cling to there little groups here and there, huddled in the corner for warmth pleading with the rest of society to shell out some meager stipend for there talent, but the artists still go hungry. I truly feel that art in Detroit is becoming an endangered species as every one I know tries to move away like rats on a sinking ship.
I know, I sound like a downer but you can only struggle to try and get something done in one place for so long, and have good quality stuff get made but never recognized or have any of your accomplishments appreciated for so long before you too abandon ship and head East or West to where they not only appreciate you, and your art but pay you for your talent as well. I'm trying to persuade all of my friends with talent to move out here where the jobs are plentiful and talent is rewarded. Don't get me wrong here this place is by no means the land of milk and honey but it's better, a place where an artist can do his/her art and not have to get some temp job and have art become a hobby, instead of the life's passion it should be. So come to the West where the artist is loved and wanted.
Love and miss you my dear
Andy Siegel
P.S. my favorite quote I made up "my backdrop is now mountains instead of despair".
You only love Detroit because you've been away so long, you haven't seen first hand the horrors of a fading art community. After a while that beauty fades and you begin to feel the cold smell of death as the city dies around you...a few pockets of art collectives and musicians cling to there little groups here and there, huddled in the corner for warmth pleading with the rest of society to shell out some meager stipend for there talent, but the artists still go hungry. I truly feel that art in Detroit is becoming an endangered species as every one I know tries to move away like rats on a sinking ship.
I know, I sound like a downer but you can only struggle to try and get something done in one place for so long, and have good quality stuff get made but never recognized or have any of your accomplishments appreciated for so long before you too abandon ship and head East or West to where they not only appreciate you, and your art but pay you for your talent as well. I'm trying to persuade all of my friends with talent to move out here where the jobs are plentiful and talent is rewarded. Don't get me wrong here this place is by no means the land of milk and honey but it's better, a place where an artist can do his/her art and not have to get some temp job and have art become a hobby, instead of the life's passion it should be. So come to the West where the artist is loved and wanted.
Love and miss you my dear
Andy Siegel
P.S. my favorite quote I made up "my backdrop is now mountains instead of despair".