Let’s Support Human Creativity

Rosa Bonheur wants to be an artist. Tomie dePaola wants to be an artist. Allen Say wants to be an artist. Each one embraces their aloneness and pursues a path that is different from their peers. 

In The Art Lesson, Tommy wants to be an artist when he grows up, so he “drew and drew and drew”. His family displays his art in their homes and businesses. Classmates validate Tommy’s  talent. In A Storm of Horses: The Story of Artist Rosa Bonheur, Rosa covers her school papers with drawings. As a child “she began to steer her life toward” learning to draw and paint animals. Her father supports her choice to study art. Both artists succeed despite barriers put in place by popular culture. 

Tommy and Rosa challenge norms. Art class in Tommy’s elementary school requires every student color with a box of eight crayons. His teacher tells the class, “’These crayons are school property, so do not break them, peel off the paper, or wear down the points.’” Rosa’s society expects women to get married and have children. It’s “practically unheard of” for a woman to show paintings in the Paris Salon, and women aren’t allowed in the horse market. Yet, this young boy and grown woman find ways to advance their artistic ambitions. Tommy becomes a popular children’s book author and illustrator. Rosa paints The Horse Fair  (1852-1855), an enormous masterpiece that now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

We only  glimpse Allen Say’s journey in The Sign Painter. (Drawing from Memory is his autobiography.)  The sign painter is an older gentleman who only paints what his customers request.  One day, he hires a young assistant who has dropped into town looking for work. They paint a billboard–the same billboard–multiple times across an empty desert. The old man asks, “‘What made you want to paint?’” “‘It’s what I love,’” says the younger one. The sign painter offers him a job and the promise that he’ll never go hungry. But the boy walks away from this well worn path of a wage earner.

Tommy confronted his second grade art teacher. Rosa Bonheur found a way to attend the horse market. Nowadays, how does a contemporary artist advocate for themself when artificial intelligence has captured the public’s attention and pocketbook? I’ve heard it said that AI frees artists from the drudgery of earning a wage in advertising.  This seems to me a pollyannish point of view. The AI threat is exponentially greater.

Let’s look for ways to support artists. We can shop handmade, attend art fairs, visit galleries, follow artists on social media, recommend creatives to friends and neighbors, donate to and volunteer for art associations. I’m sure there are grander efforts than these as well. The town I live in recently created the Department of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. 

Let’s support human creativity.