Real thoughts on the state of the arts in the age of Covid-19
Hello friend, I hope you’re safe and so are your loved ones. Yesterday, I woke up to this quote by Leslie Wright, which really inspired me:
“What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for? A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw — that it finally forces us to grow,” the poem reads. “A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us from our ignorant slumber. A year we finally accept the need for change. Declare change. Work for change. Become the change.”
”A year we finally band together, instead of pushing each other further apart. 2020 isn’t canceled, but rather the most important year of them all.”
Wow… Such a powerful message to be found in these few lines!
These are crazy times we’re living in. A pandemic is killing thousands of people, millions of protesters are marching: more people are at risk than ever and this country is in a leadership crisis. While I’m thankful to be alive, let alone being healthy, I can’t help but thinking life will never be the same. It can’t.
Things will have to change indeed… Some for the better and some for the worse, depending for whom. I hope there’ll be justice done and many privileges abject. For us artists, it’ll be a slow rise from the ashes, if anything. I may sound pessimistic but I’m actually not. At the very least, call me realistic. While it’s quite scary and heart breaking to watch all sources of hard-earned income disappear in a heart beat, I’m lucky to have a roof over my head, a circle of friends, family & colleagues that loves me and my creativity to keep me going. I cannot begin to describe how so very thankful I am to not be deprived of everything, like so many. The country is burning and some people are fighting for their very lives. I am with them 100%.
Although creativity is far more than a concept deeply woven in every fiber of my being, having an artistic career was always a choice. A tough one at times, but I could still choose to follow the passionate impulse, or not to. I always chose it. I don’t know if it is *still a choice. To say the last 3 months have been challenging would be an understatement. It’s been, for all of us. At this point, the most saddening part isn’t the financial loss (although let’s be real: it does hurt!) but the absence of the flame that kept me going all these years against all odds. That flame that keeps burning through all the tough times, yearning again and again for this unexplainably beautiful exchange that happens in a magical way between the audience and the stage. That very flame that continuously was morphing into a growing feu-de-joie, and will now with time be reduced to eventually nothing relevant. Sigh.
“It will come back”, they say. “It will HAVE to come back”.
Ok, but when? And how?! And at what cost, can you tell me?!? While this may seem like a defeatist approach, these are legitimate questions every artist is asking themselves right now. With a living already challenging to earn in regular circumstances, this may just be the tipping point for so many. Think about it: the average artist has, for the most part spent his/her entire life learning, studying, perfecting and practicing his/her field of expertise. It is a never-ending time and energy consuming process generating a lot of beauty in return but rarely profit or seldom room for other skills. Additionally, for someone living by the gig-life, watching the result of months, sometimes years of work being dissolved into thin air will leave room for deep-layered loss, a feeling of helplessness and a lot of questioning. So I’m asking you: what do we do now? Life goes on and the bills need to be paid. This virus is merciless. It will continue spreading. And while the economy is re-opening in certain areas, we’ve entered a slow-burning recession which could take us years to re-adjust from. Will there be budget for artistic performances when places are deemed “safe” to hold them in the first place? For how many of us? And when will that be?! Most importantly, can we afford the time it takes to find the answers? I know I can’t, so for the time being I’m considering a re-training. Hopefully this will be short-lived, but who knows. Only time will tell.
I know I will never stop fighting. I’m a performer at heart and will always be. Hopefully there will be a tomorrow to bring forth new projects and a community to rise above it all with and in the meantime, I’ll continue finding my way in little joys and feeling grateful for what I do have. So if you wish to help a striving artist who wishes nothing more than to continue entertaining you, please feel free to purchase my music here and/or help cover some expenses here:
Thank you for reading and thank you for your support, positivity and beautiful words. Please continue being in touch: I truly appreciate hearing from you. And lastly, please be safe out there! I hope to serenade you soon and take you somewhere beautiful with the power of music,
-Myriam Xx