Belladora, How great that you found a calling as a muralist.

I have nothing but admiration for the people who get into the art field. Most if not all do not go into it for the money, they know ahead of time that there will be lean times. They do it because that is what drives them.
I hate to hear the comment :"ok, so he is an artist, what is his real job?"

Good luck to you. 

Diana, I was stewing all day about what Candace wrote. 

Being European by birth, I always have felt that the "arts" in any form in this country always take second place.

It should start in the schools. Instead art programs are vanishing there too. 

Respect for the artist here is extremely low, I have been in that millieu now for 40 years. In the 1970’s I remember that we, husband and I , were considering moving to the Netherlands. The Dutch offered subsidising artists they’d give you enough to survive modestly but survive you could. In exchange you were to give them X numbers of your work  and the works were placed all over the country in different museums and galleries. In other words, the artist had some value to them.

Here, unless you make it in a N Y gallery you are either a bum who does not want to work, a hippy, a Bohemian, or someone who can fill your walls with paintings that match the walls. Very few will come to your shows, your exhibitions and see that you heart and soul is reflecting in your work. It may not be your cup of tea but at least we should learn to know that there is an artist alive in that work. 

The same with the theatre, the ballet, these artists do not rehearse and go to lessons hour after hour because they expect great  monetary rewards, they can’t help themselves, they want to dance and act. 

I get so angry at the whole "art" package. 

When my mother visited me in 1960, the first thing she said was : I so want to see the Metropolitan. She did not ask for Macy’s or some famous restaurant, she wanted the museum and a show in Carnegie hall. She loved both. 

Every time I went home, we visited the news art shows in the town.

How many schools have field trips to Museums? To ballets? To the theatre?  Yet my grandson has done numerous trips this year , all to sport events. Enough said, I am on a furious roll here.

I do not know what the answers are for the big guns, the Museums, the big Shows. I know about the "little people" with the big heart and mind full of exciting ideas they would want to share with Mr and Mrs America. 

Get an art book at the "Goodwill" show your kids that there was a Monet, Matisse, Rubens and Rembrandt. Take them to your local art show and for pitty sake do not ask the artist for something that matches your new sofa. Look at the work and see what feeds your soul. Teach your kids that there is another art out there besides the ones on their games. 

Fight the schools so they will have an art department, demand it. Keep the music dept. going, have bake sales if you must for uniforms but do not let these kids get to be a grown up without that opportunity.

 As you well know, Diana, we just can’t survive without the arts.