The poverty of artists

Unlike accountants, doctors, engineers, politicians, and business people, many artists in our country are far, far down below the economic totem pole. In other words, many Filipino artists—writers, journalists, musicians, painters and poets—are genuinely poor.

It is not for lack of trying to be rich. On the contrary, most Filipino artists—or whoever consider their calling “art”—try to make the most of their artistic or creative calling, but our society in general, or a majority of those who belong to it, reject artists as a different breed, hence, not to be given the chance to go one step ahead. At the worst, they relegate artists and their work to the fringes of society—if not to some cold museums. Sometimes, they don’t even pay them.

Filipino artists are poor because unlike kitchen utensils and bed sheets, poems, paintings, musical compositions, essays, and other works of art rarely make it to the bestsellers’ list, if the Philippines ever has one.

What sell in our country, because that’s what the people patronize (not necessarily need), are Korean telenovelas and ring tones. At the worst, it’s the politicians who sell. So they accumulate wealth. Rarely do we see Filipinos lining up at the National Bookstore to buy a new title by a fictionist, say Butch Dalisay, who is from Looc.

This is not to say that there are no rich Filipino painters, writers, or poets. Well, there are, but they are few and their rise to the top is through a combination of copious talent, persistence and hard work, and tough luck. They deserve their reward and poor writers, like myself, do not envy, but emulate, them.

There is another reason for this reality, the poverty of artists. This has to do with our cultural literacy.

To many Filipinos, to be culturally literate means to talk in riddles and high-sounding rhetoric, or to be able to interpret hidden texts in lines of poems and songs. Others equate culture literacy with going to the theaters to watch a ballet or a classical play. Still to some, particularly in Romblon, to be culturally literate is to be seen in the company of corrupt politicians.

If this measure is to persist, then we are doomed. We will continue to wallow in cultural illiteracy, if not ignorance.

Artists, to begin with, do not speak or think in these terms. While they are as common tao as the taho vendor on our streets, they talk sense. While they breathe the same polluted air as the port stevedore or jeepney driver and worry about their next meal as much as the factory worker, they also inhale the fumes of human existence and perennially are obsessed about the enlightenment and liberation of the spirit.

The one big difference between ordinary mortals and artists is that the latter think seriously about the human condition and utilize their creative powers to express that condition, so that they themselves and the people whose condition they express about could be rendered with meaning. The former are afraid that death may overcome their wretched condition, hence they are obsessed with "getting ahead".

This is what artists are. Or must be. Their calling is to examine the general condition of humanity and explore and express the truths and falsehoods that animate human existence. The artist who fails this requisite could not be called a true artist.

Why do I write about the poverty of artists?

I do because their poverty is a human condition. I do because there are self-evident truths behind their poverty.

One such truth is that they are kept poor by society that does not appreciate nor understand their calling.

Take, for example, the case of 1622: Unang Usbor, the Banto-anon band which recently performed in Lipa City. The band is a labor of love. Established to promote Asi music, it has already in its repertoire over thirty five original Asi compositions that expresses the longings and aspirations of the Asi soul and examining today’s contemporary Asi society. If you listen to a performance of 1622: Unang Usbor, you would know why I am a fanatic of the band.

But despite of the band’s genuine contribution to the preservation of Asi and its rich musical heritage, I was told that the band is being shoved unnecessarily and unfortunately into the middle of political intrigues in Banton itself.

A few prominent Banto-anons, I was told, have been saying bad things about the band; that membership to it allegedly does not amount to anything, etc. I was also told that one of the band’s members is allegedly being enticed to leave the band for economic reasons. But this is not the worst of it. I had it on good word that the band members treated so cavalierly in one of their local performances when it came to their professional fees.

If the reports to me were incredible, I would have dismissed them outright as malicious, envious, or politics-driven. However, I am a writer first and foremost and any news offensive to artists I consider as an affront to our calling, a challenge that needed immediate response; to be faced, never to run away from.

Well, I know for a fact that the members of 1622: Unang Usbor are struggling to make both ends meet. They have families to feed. In short, they are poor, like me. But their material poverty, like mine, is no reason to denigrate their person. There is no moral justification whatsoever in badmouthing the band, and whoever did this to 1622: Unang Usbor ought to have his or her head examined, to see if it contains anything other than bad thoughts for a struggling, but noble, musical group.

And for 1622: Unang Usbor’s members’ material poverty, I know perfectly well that they abundantly make up for it with genuine talent, creativity and love for the Asi culture, something which its critics I now suspect have none of. Eat your heart out, you culture-poor.

And so I come to the other reason why artists are poor.

We are poor because we choose to be poor and refuse to worship the false god of society—the mental dishonesty that had led to man’s unmitigated greed for material wealth, even gluttony for power.

We are poor because we refuse to be dragged into the mainstream of the rat race, knowing that if we become one of the “rats”, we will in due time lose our artistic voices and get swallowed by the pretensions of the mob—the very likes of the Banto-anons who are bad-mouthing 1622: Unang Usbor.

There is a certain kind of dignity in our poverty, that’s why we choose to be poor—and this is our remaining true to our calling as artists; in staying constant in speaking out against all forms of oppression and abuse in the most creative and beautiful way—through our writings, our poems, our songs.

Poor artists, like 1622: Unang Usbor, countless others, and myself, are not asking for any advance or advantage from society, neither are we pleading for understanding.

We are only saying that you hear, listen, or see how we see the world, and that’s enough.

And when this happens, we are already richer than you can imagine.