I woke up to view an article implying that because musicians want to get paid, they are entitled and ungrateful because of an assumption most musicians love making and performing music.
“Currently there are far too many courses that are being subsidised that are used simply to boost enrolments, or provide ‘lifestyle’ choices, but don’t lead to work,” said Minister Simon Birmingham.
I have an enormousness issue with the words “lifestyle choice” being used to describe what puts food on someone’s table.
These words insinuate that the arts are just a valueless luxury. As if you can just sit back in your chair at home drinking tea, and bam, art the caliber of Picasso and Michael Jackson is born.
A lifestyle choice did not create hundreds of hit records. It did not create Banksy, or Harry Potter or The Lion King – or even a coffee plunger for that matter.
The fact that too many artists I know are asked to play for free or for exposure because we love our work is so bizarre and leads me to ask this question: Are people really that depressed in their jobs that they feel they are being paid for their misery rather than their time and skill set?
Is love that fickle to mean that to love something makes it easy? That you haven’t put effort, time, sacrifice and dedication into it?
If you are a person who does not value all forms of art or who thinks that funding cuts to arts is OK, or not paying people for their artistic work is fine, do yourself a favour and go a whole entire day without the arts.
No books and no music. No TV and no musicals. No jingles, no clothing, no pretty and patterned bed sheets. No movies and no art galleries – the list continues. Just see how well your sanity fares.
BY AMBER FERRARO
