« more of the cart | Main | That cart again »
March 09, 2006
Justified guilt?
You get up at six, you put in a good day’s work, come home to a hot supper and sit in front of the fire, with yesterday’s paper, before going to bed. Thus is man justified in his endeavours according to the Protestant Work Ethic.
The key to the justification lies in the phrase “a good day’s work”. What compromises A Good Day’s Work? Well clearly shovelling fifteen tons of coal out of a barge fits the bill admirably, as does clearing the in-tray on your corporate desk, or even filling in your tax form, doing the vat, writing an invoice, paying off your credit card, costing a job and generally seeing to the business of administration.
But standing around with a paint brush drawing imaginary carts? Come on!
I have my own scale of Justified Work. It goes like this:
Painting a portrait is good, working at a likeness is a perceivable struggle and has merit, and more often than not involves Coins of the Realm arriving in my purse [itself a clear indicator of A Good Day’s Work].
Painting a large nude is okay, the size can make it worthy and it has the “OOH! That’s clever” factor, plus big art galleries have large nudes on their walls and this is somehow OK.
Painting an imaginary cart is right out – you must be just playing about.
How do poets sleep at night?
Posted by john at March 9, 2006 12:37 PM
Comments
Testing testing
Posted by: Jonathan Sanderson at March 10, 2006 06:56 PM
The trouble with most work is that it never ends.
And THIS is why Flora Thompson, in Lark Rise to Candleford, her autobiography about rural Oxfordshire in the 1880s, says that the men of the village were happier then than they were in her - much later - time of writing.
They all earned 10 shillings per week. They all spent the day working very hard doing a specific task: unloading hay etc. They all had the same lunch break and indeed a very similar lunch. And when they had finished their work, they had finished, didn't have to think about it, went to the pub where they could all only afford half a pint of beer and sang a lot of songs.
But your work is unspecific and doesn't have set hours. Everyone tends to think that's what gives it the "ooh, lovely, I'd love to be an artist, just free to paint all day - - " factor. But that's what makes it MORE DIFFICULT especially with someone like you who has the Protestant Work Ethic running through you like letters through a stick of rock. And I know you don't tend to go along with the "I am an artist, so everything I do is art" theory which is often used as a justification by those with minimal skill. But you do have the skill - and I think some "playing about" is necessary sometimes, for three reasons:
a) it's fun. And anything that is fun is relaxing and that is good for you in itself, because it's impossible to be creative without being relaxed.
b) following a flight of imagination is a Good Thing, it just IS.
c) they ARE art anyway, just not the kind of thing you usually do: and neither were the big metal sculptures. So you can do lots of different things within art, as you have done lots of other different things.
As for how do poets sleep at night - well I bet they don't, they ask themselves all the questions you ask yourself.
But there is a time for the Protestant Work Ethic and there is a time to chuck it out of the window for a bit - you can't possibly lose it, it's too much a part of you.
Posted by: Daphne at March 10, 2006 11:35 PM