Today, I got paid for writing. It was only five dollars, but this is the first time that I received any money for something I wrote. I have no idea if the piece will ever see the light of day. Maybe, maybe not. This also was the first time that someone was like, “I will pay you at least something for your writing,” and not “the exposure will help your career.”
Living and working in the arts is awful, but I can’t leave it, and I really don’t want to do anything else. So… I’m stuck.
So much of my career in the arts, and I will group all of it together; theatre, writing, painting, arts management even, has been predicated by someone asking me to work for free. Until I moved to New York, most of the payment I received had come in the form of beer. It took me about two years in New York before I earned my first check from performing.
I know that I am not the first person to write about this, but the arts and capitalism really don’t mix. Payment is slanted to the very few that are on the top, while the majority fight for… well… five dollars. I am also not going to claim that I know a solution to this problem, other than capitalism doesn’t solve all problems. People will continue to ask others to work for free in exchange for hope.
The truly tragic thing about earning five dollars today is that I can’t find a beer in Manhattan for that price.
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