92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

"Assemble, print, ship. Collect money. It's EASY.

"Hopefully, this will shake you loose from your paralysis. But if you tell any one I said anything to you other than ‘Do; or do not. There is no try’ I'll deny it. I have a gruff reputation to maintain." So, here, I think an artist’s responsibility is only to create art for himself. If other people dig it; right on. Always nice to keep the company of like minded folks. But the responsibility is to the Audience of One. The responsibility of the collaborative artist to his fellow artists is a tricky thing as well. If you’re engaging in collaborative art, chances are it’s a com mercial art of some kind, and that adds another spin to the axis. Commercial artists produce art for an audience of one, sure, but with a heapin’ helping of the added spice of money-is-the-root-of-all-evil. It’s no longer the artist himself who he’s trying to please, ostensibly, but rather a larger crowd than the audience of one. Otherwise, one wouldn’t need a col laborator or two, yes? So the collaborative artist’s responsibility to his fellow artists is to Be On The Team. Just as the artists need to find one voice with which to sing together, also should they all be of a like mind as to the final goal of the art. A little of the old everybody-should-face-the-same-direction you hear so much about nowadays. Everyone needs to paddle the canoe at the same rate, or you never get upstream, yes? That one’s even easier: it’s like the man spinning the big wheel on the boardwalk midway says: you pays yer money and you takes yer chances. The Seinfeld Column October 19, 2001 This past weekend was our fifth anniversary, for me and the missus. Friday the 12th was the day we’d been married for five whole years. In my fami ly, this isn’t such a big deal. My parents have been married for forty-one years. Five years is a drop in the bucket. In my family, it takes that long for everyone to sort out which side of the bed you want. In Mimi’s family, though, we get the trophy. We’ve lapped three of her par ents’ five marriages. More, if you count the grandparents. Five years. Man, that’s a while, if you look at it like that. The responsibility of the audience to art?

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