Your Art Doesn’t Have to Pay its Way
What if you took the pressure off?
About a decade ago, I took a college course called Native Americans of North America. The most interesting thing I learned in that class was about art.
At the time, I lived in the Great Basin-region of central Nevada. Mountainous, very cold, very dry, it made for a hard-scrabble life hundreds of years ago.
The Shoshone who were indigenous to the area had all they could do to find enough food to eat. They lived in small family groups that lived nomadically over wide ranges of land. The only thing they produced that came close to art was winnowing baskets, used to remove the hulls from grain.
By contrast, the indigenous people who lived on the Washington coast were flush with food. Salmon practically leapt at them. It was easy to grow a wide variety of plants. They lived in settled communities.
There was surplus, and so these communities were able to support artisans.
Because the basic needs were met and there was energy left, this region produced spectacular art, including totem poles.
