In my youth I politely declined society's offer of a sub-managerial position in an out-of-town shopping village.
I turned my back on the sky and chose to pursue a lifetime of creating art and music. I set my expectations to zero and focused every decision I made on whether it would assist my artistic pursuits. I ditched the idea of entering higher education as an arts undergraduate as the new tuition fees were a financial burden too far. It was my time that I valued, above all else. I saw "work" as doing something I didn't want to do for money, while "creativity" was doing something I did want to do, but for no money.
There is a certain arrogance in turning your back on wider society in order to express the internal processing of an over-active mind, and it’s not something that should be financially rewarded, yet the open secret is that the brain treats it as a reward unto itself. If you do what you love, day in and day out, then good things will happen around you.
Every brilliant moment throughout my adult life has been as a result of focusing on my art and basing my decisions accordingly. There were the years spent living in London, side-stepping the prohibitively expensive rental market by squatting buildings and opening them up as art spaces with the Random Artists collective. I met my life-partner in social circles born from the love of freedom, music and artistic endeavour.
Only after we had two children together did we form TReen – an electronic music project funded by our self-employment in the judiciary and disability sectors. We do useful things for money so we can keep our art free. Our band is for the lulz; our shared creativity brings us an inordinate amount of pleasure and we can create what we want. We set our goals within a simple financial framework, we rarely play out for nothing, but money is far less of a deciding factor than time.
Independent music is thriving at the moment – there’s such broad choice and it’s so readily available; technology has advanced to the point where it's cheap and easy to construct lush soundtracks for everyday people. It wasn't cash that placed us in this situation – it was innovation. Innovators of artforms rarely have cash as their incentive and rightly so: art is priceless. It should not be stripped down to the cost of production. Art has what money doesn't, a value inherent in itself. Money is merely an agreed value system between two parties at any given time. Art requires no such agreement.
But remember, if you're ever asking a creative type to do something, you still have to make it worth their time... it's expensive.
TReen play Maui Waui Festival 7-8 Sept, Theberton, Suffolk. Follow TReen on Twitter.
What do you think? Does art flourish when free from financial concerns? Let us know in the comments section below.
Head-to-head: Read designer Alan Ramsay on why getting paid shouldn't be a choice.
For more opinion, interviews and resources, visit The Business.
Image by Stefanis Schwarz, on a Creative Commons license.
