There is a an article in the news about a London art exhibit that explores the myth of the suffering artist. The curators suggest that artist depression and angst was triggered in part by the church and state buying less and less art, which caused artists to sell less work. Now, there may be something to that, but that's not what I wanted to write about today.
The article got me thinking about the various "Christian Arts" organizations, such as CIVA
and others that purport to help artists and the church reconnect. I have been involved in a number of these organizations, as well as with secular art organizations, and let me tell you they usually do nothing for artists. They have been, in my experience, a big waste of time and money. The church is still buying art - I know, because I used to sell stained glass windows, and I sold a lot of it. But the whole process is tied up with the contracting/bidding world, which most artists know very little about. And the people that run these arts organizations do not seem to know anything about the whole bidding and contracting process either, so individual artists never get the chance to show their work to the building committee, and thus never sell anything to churches. So they, and the leaders of these arts organizations, end up just kind of sitting around and whining about how no one in the church cares about art anymore. Well, that's just not true. Churches are still buying lots of art. Many clergy and laypeople would be open to buying work (such as vestments) from qualified individual artists, just as they are open to buying it from big, impersonal organizations (such as Almy), but they just do not know how to find these artists. So the whole process it rather depressing for everyone. The two need to be able to connect, but these organizations do not make that happen.
I actually have a proposal to address this problem that I will share with the world later - an idea I have been working on for years. But for now, if you are an artist like me, think twice before sending in your membership fee to join these organizations. They really will not help you sell your work to churches, or to anyone else for that matter
