the economoics of beauty by and large...

i'm not up to the larger debate about high art, plastic surgery, celebrities and the likes. rather, it's a personal kind of talk i'd like to have with you. about money. about art. about beauty. that kind of stuff. you know what i mean.

i've been discussing this topic with as many people as i can lately. kind of a survey of sorts. an attempt to sort it out with in the framework of my current social environment.

jane and i were recently part of a beautifully planned and executed art show here in sc in dec. and the first weekend of jan. it was really eye opening to talk with people that came out to see art, and those that make it too. we had a full weekend of talking art.

during our show, a brilliant art lover and musician, who happens, also, to be a professor of economics by trade, stopped by our booth. he had written a treatise on economics and art which he forwarded to me. the point he makes clearly and eloquently, is that socially and economically, art makes sense in the larger ( economic ) world picture. ( if he says it's ok, i'll show you his paper.) he makes a lot of good points. maybe he wrote it for me. for us. for the lump-in-proletariat-artists that don't know when to get a real job, or why they are doing what their doing instead of something else, anything else...

i always stumble here, at the point where we ask ourselves...what's the difference between doing something that you like doing, and something that is worth doing. worth doing in the larger social sense, worth doing in the minuscule, personal economic sense...and so on...
is it a one or the other? it seems that so easily it becomes that. what if i'm a terrible artist? what is the real-job equivalent of being bad at following your bliss? what if i mistake following my passion for avoiding responsibility? what if i make art about something that no-one cares about? does it matter, then, if i care or not too? what if i think i'm passionate about art, but i'm really not...?
do you see?
if i work at the DMV, i draw a salary. i support my life. maybe i hate it. maybe i'm even terrible at my job. does that incur the same kind of questions of social worth?
and yet....are we ready to assume worth based on the concept of art put forth to us by art stars like van gogh and gaugin? fame and fortune postmortem? martyrdom for art?

the question looming large in my mind is this: if you don't make a living-wage-salary at your chosen profession, is it still an acceptable choice to make? would the world really suffer much for the absence of the struggling artists?