The Artist & The World

(A Monologue)
Nathaniel: (to the world)
It was dinner time, August 31st, 2008. There I was with my family: my mother, my father, and my brother, with the cat Doctor perched at the window behind. You see, I was shortly leaving for Paris, my father had come up from Texas to spend time with me before leaving, and we were having our last supper as a family for a while (of course, typically all of our dinners fall under that category, so this was not such a tremendous occasion, yet it had the feeling of a tremendous occasion both because of my upcoming departure and that of my brother going back to school for the 4th time). My mother posed the question to us both why we made decisions that are so different from what normal people do. I was shocked. A bit confused, you see. I didn't see my decisions as being altogether that strange. Granted, moving across the sea without much of anything over there is strange, but the other decisions in life I had made, decisions that led me to that place, etc...I didn't find those very strange. What she meant was, why do I not care about money...or, more of the effect of, why do I continually put myself in a place where I cannot make any money. Normal people care about that. Given my actions, I do not, she insinuated. So why is this?
At the airport, before checking in, after being dropped off by my mother and brother, I went down to have a cigarette. It would be my last for several hours (thankfully in Copenhagen, they have smoking stalls installed in the airport). A man came up to me while I was smoking outside of the SeaTac airport. Of course, he asked me for a cigarette, which I gave him one. He offered me a Marilyn Monroe Zippo Lighter in exchange for three more cigarettes...but as you can imagine, I declined. I told him I had to save my cigarettes, I'm moving to Paris! He asked what I do. I told him, "I work in the theatre." "Where?" he asked. It looked like he hadn't heard me. This man was not "all the way there" you see. "I work in the theatre," I repeated. Am I insane? Is this not a normal response to someone who asks where you work? Well, he still couldn't get it. I told him I was an actor, a lie, of course, but better than trying to explain Director or Production Manager. For God's sake, he must know what an Actor is! How could you not? He didn't. He asked if I was a double...or...or...something something something. I told him, "No, I act in small plays. Nothing too big, I'm not famous" (Though, I was wearing a fashionable outfit and could've been mistaken for celebrity, should've been mistaken for celebrity if this man was not out of his wits). "Of course not, no, not yet!" He said and finally, I thought that he understood what it meant that I work in the theatre. And then he asked me, "Where do you work?"
These two encounters, linked together so close in time, along with the "indefinite hiatus" of Emerald City Scene caused me to really think again about art's position in this world. You see, there's almost nothing that gets more attention and is thought higher of than art. When you really think about it, that is what gets all of the attention. Not even a man or woman who has led a country out of nothingness into prosperity receives the kind of attention that Halle Barry receives (She's only half-black, by the way, did you know that? So is this Barack Obama. Who does he think he is claiming to be the first Black Presidential Nominee?) Why does this happen? Because so few actually reach the level of recognizable. Most are left behind in the gutter...due to NO MONEY BEING AVAILABLE IN THE ARTS. Sure, once you reach the higher levels, your Opera's, Regional Theatres, big Museums, and so forth, you've got tons of money...far more money flows into those organizations than most small-mid level businesses, is my guess. But until you reach that level, you're all alone, pal. And to tell the truth, most just can't make it. In other business, other fields, if someone wanted to spend a little time not making a whole lot of money, soon they'd be slowly moving up the ladder into a place where they are making a comfortable amount of money and then, if they have the ambition to, they keep on rising to make a significant amount of money. Here is where most of the world, most of my non-artist friends will be. They will be lying in heaps of money. I, on the other hand, must make the choice. Make Money, Do Art. Make Money OR Do Art. I can EITHER Make Money OR Do Art.
And what I find to be the real pincher of it, is that without art in this world, there'd be nothing to make money for. Survival takes very little. It's the artistic ventures that we want to enjoy, that have the life in them. For every person out there working for some truly insignificant product and making more than enough for survival, there are a handful of artist out there hoping they can continue to do what they love and continue to provide entertainment and knowledge for the world without a scrap of money out of it. But hours and bills rack up.
To answer my mother's question, I don't think that I've made such different choices. The truth of myself and most other artists is we follow the same formula. We start in lowpaying positions and hope to move up the ladder of recognition to someplace where we can truly be comfortable financially and doing the job that we were trained and born to do. Unfortunately, in this field, it's very difficult to make it up to that second rung...and from there, ten times harder to make it to the third rung, and so on. It's very easy to just go back down to the bottom, though, and find a new ladder to climb.