Compassion and the Arts–Join the Conversation!
February 11, 2010
This blog entry is similar to the Compassion and the Arts button on the web site’s main page.
Here on this blog, though, you can leave your own comments and insights. And we hope you will!
If you’re working in some area of the arts yourself–writing, music, film, painting, photography, dance, theater–or you’re close to someone who is, you know that this profession can often feel awfully detached from the real world of real suffering.
Living in Nashville, I’m particularly aware of the music industry, and what a superb job many individual bands and musicianshave done in publicly supporting a particular cause, whether clean water or feeding the hungry or construction in developing nations.
And from personal friendships with people in the arts, I’m aware that many of you give to compassion organizations–often quietly, often with breathtaking generosity.
Still, lots of us struggle with what can feel like an inhumane disconnect between barricading ourselves in a studio or library or practice room to work all alone–while the images of recent earthquakes or tsunamis, or of orphanages without nearly enough food for their children play on in our heads.
What I’d like to do here is simply offer a place for a conversation among people in the arts.
We don’t have to agree on one organization or one region of the world to support.
We don’t have to agree on political parties, or live in the same country.
We don’t have to be celebrity artists with hosts of fans just waiting for us to mobilize them.
But perhaps it would be helpful to talk. Maybe to give one another ideas: Do a certain percentage or your royalties or ticket sales, for example, go to a certain micro-enterprise project? Does your work tie in directly with compassion issues you care about? Do you have one specific organization with whom you partner? How do you stay informed and connected with poverty and hunger and suffering?
Perhaps we’d form a loose coalition of writers and musicians and actors and painters and directors and sculptors who want to live with passion and compassion, not only in the stories we tell or the images we produce, but also in how we direct our money and attention.
If you’re interested, join the conversation here on this blog. Or forward this to your own colleagues and friends. Your input will be valued. And let’s see what comes of the conversation….
Thank you for your time, your ideas and your heart.
(Thanks to Habitat for Humanity for use of the photo taken in Haiti, just following the January 2010 earthquake.)
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Hey Joy, I did an easy one–just sent out a mass email that I was giving away “Free Art for Haiti” and pulled out all my old unsold paintings (many just loose water colors, not even matted) and had a 2-day open house. People could take away the painting(s) of their choice and leave a donation for Haiti relief. It helped me to clean out/up (why was I holding on to all that artwork?) and I raised over $1600.
Great idea, Anne. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to buy one! I’ve done similar things with donating my books where all the money goes to Haiti or Habitat or wherever, but since writers have to buy our own books from the publisher (lots of people don’t realize this, I’m finding), it means an investment up front. But that’s okay.
Please let me know if you’re doing another art sale like this and I’ll show up with streamers!
This is great, Anne! I love these ideas. It is so true that we don’t have to wait until we are the biggest money makers in the industry to contribute!
Hi Joy, WOnderful to find your site. I was just thinking last night that I want to start something like this. I am a visual artist and feel deeply moved by service… it
has been a growing way of life for me and it is getting louder. I work full-time painting and donate a portion of my sales to the groups I paint or groups affiliated with the person painted.
I am really curious about other artists and their movement to create compassion in their art or use their art as a way to service, or portray compassion in their art or even express compassion in their art.
I would love to dialogue more before I venture into my own site. I would love to bring other sites about compassion and service and art together as a resource for people to dialogue and start projects and so on.
Thanks for your site. I am looking forward to cruising around it!
Graciously,
Olivia