Musings on the Value of Creative Work
Someone at a dinner party explained to me in so many words that my work is a “luxury.” An industry insider called me a "patron," (as if all I do is write checks). And a Los Angeles gallerist said that if only I could be published in The New York Times, my work would actually be worth something. Every time I receive this flavor of feedback, I feel a little bit smaller, until I can think about it from a distance and remember how absurd that line of reasoning is.
I see it differently. I’m working to champion the arts in my own way, without the red tape, conflicts of interest, and budget woes of commercial publishing. No one tells me who I can or can’t feature, so my choices have integrity. Just look at the list of artists I’ve profiled on Misstropolis: from Simone Leigh and Tau Lewis, to Yuko Oda and Steve Locke, to the book artists honored by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I’m promoting the idea that creative work deserves collaboration and support, and is important enough to warrant my time and my sweat. I don’t feel as I spend all day writing, researching, interviewing, editing, designing, curating, and showing up that what I'm doing is a luxury. It’s a contribution. I'm shining light on work that deserves more careful attention. I’m rejecting what’s been made for doom scrolling in favor of labor-intensive, meaningful, craft-forward artwork.
Wearing polka dots for Kusama.
The notion that something only matters if it makes money forgets Zora Neale Hurston, Scott Joplin, Vincent van Gogh, Nick Drake, and Emily Dickinson — none of whom were valued in their lifetimes as they are now. The iconic gallerist Barbara Krakow introduced me to the Harvard professor Michael Sandel, who writes about the dangers of a market society: being good at making money measures neither our merit nor the value of our contribution. When I interviewed Barbara for the Misstropolis Visionary Series, we talked about how many Agnes Martins and Virginia Woolfs are out there in the world that nobody knows about. It doesn't mean their work has no value. It means the world hasn't caught up.
We're at risk of becoming a society that values only what performs — the squeakiest wheel and the flashiest jazz hands. I choose the voices of beauty, the authentic ideas, the visionaries.
As much as I reject them, the dismissals stay with me. They sometimes threaten to derail me altogether — a reaction I’ve heard from many artists. Instead, I keep excavating, exploring, and creating my own meaningful work — a luxury of a different kind. A luxury of permission, not judgment.
