It Feels Like Cheating
It Feels Like Cheating
April 11, 2023, 11:07 pm
Filed under: art, theatre, writing | Tags: art, artist opportunities, Arts Justice Officer, cheating, Crete, fee, Gournia, Greece, Harriet Boyd, Mudhouse Residency, residency
My friend suggested we both apply to this artist residency in Greece. When I looked at it, I noticed there was a fee to attend and I almost didn’t apply — but then I thought about how much I’d love to be on Crete with my friend so I went ahead and submitted for it, hoping to maybe get one of the few fellowships they offer.
About a month or so later, I got an email saying I was accepted to the residency and then another saying I had not received the Fellowship. And the worst part, my friend had not received an acceptance email. I was wondering if maybe I shouldn’t go, even though these acceptances are rare. (Those of you who read this blog regularly probably have a sense of how rare.) Then I looked more closely at the details of the residency and discovered that it included a visit to an archeological site, excavated by a woman I’d done a ton of research about. I also discovered that we’d have an evening of learning Cretan circle dances — something I’d been looking for an opportunity to explore for a few years now. Suddenly, it felt like I really HAD to go. For my art, for one thing. These two things relate directly to the play I proposed working on there. I had no idea when I applied — and neither did they. It’s the kind of synchronicity that makes art feel magical sometimes.
But there’s something about paying a fee to do it that feels like getting away with something. Like, if I have to pay for an experience or opportunity then I am somehow playing this game unfairly. It’s not just that I’ve generally not had the money to pay for these sorts of opportunities. It’s also that I have a belief system that says I shouldn’t pay for these sorts of opportunities. I heard an internal voice say, “That would be cheating” as I considered whether to accept this invitation (“The invitation to spend a lot of money,” says the voice.) But I know how things work now. I know that these kinds of opportunities are the kinds of things that can push a career forward. I think of all the internships and apprenticeships and unpaid gigs at reputable theatres that I did not even consider pursuing because I couldn’t and felt I shouldn’t do unpaid work. That was partly because I couldn’t afford to not get paid, sure, but also this belief that those kinds of gigs would be cheating. Why would I pay to go work grunt gigs at Williamstown Theatre Festival just to get celebrities’ coffee or whatever? I wanted to play the great Shakespeare roles, not cater to famous people!
Well, it turns out, catering to famous people in unpaid internships is how you get further opportunities. It is, in fact, very smart to take gigs like this if you can. Because, you know, you get Sigourney Weaver’s coffee enough for her, she might help you get that audition to play one of those Shakespeare parts later. This sort of thing is true in almost every art form. In one’s youth, you pay for opportunities (or labor for free for organizations) that translate into connections that translate into future success. Dig into a successful artist’s career and you are very likely to find some opportunity that I might once have thought of as cheating.
Is this just? Absolutely not. It means it becomes harder and harder for working class artists to make a go of it. But it is the way it has tended to work. Even more so now. This would have been useful information to have had in my youth but I just didn’t know. And the people who knew weren’t saying. And if they had said, I’m not sure I’d have believed them.
So here I am, something like three decades later, worrying that paying for this opportunity might be cheating. I heard some part of my brain say, “What if this opportunity gave you an unfair advantage?”
And that’s when I laughed. Because — uh…..what if I DID get a leg up now? At age 49? What if I paid some money for an artistic opportunity and it helped turn some things around for me? Would there be some kind of arts justice police to come seize any future success and say, “Nope, nope. This doesn’t count — she paid for those connections!”
Hey! Emily! There are no arts justice police! And if there were, they would be so busy with all the unfairness out there, they wouldn’t even notice me paying to go to a residency. But there is, I guess, an Arts Justice Officer in my brain.
I really should seize any chance I get. And honestly, at this stage in my struggling artist career, I might not even be opposed to a direct pay to play scheme. Like, if someone reputable came to me and said, “Pay me X amount of dollars and I will get you a life changing rave review in the New York Times,” I’d start fundraising to pay for X immediately. And I would let the one in me who worries about cheating shout until she was hoarse. She’d be right, of course — but her concerns have done me no good so far.
What’s funny is, my standards for myself are somehow different than those I have for others. If a young artist came to me to ask if they should take an opportunity like this residency or Williamstown Theatre Festival or Tanglewood or whatever the equivalent might be in various other art forms, I would not hesitate to encourage them to do it. Nothing is a guarantee of success in an arts career but some opportunities move the needle further than others. Some odd idea of fairness or the right way to do things is no reason not to give yourself the boost. Life in the arts is not fair. My inner sense of justice hates this but it’s true. It’s not a meritocracy and the Best Person doesn’t always win. In fact, they rarely seem to win.
This is part of the reason a lot of artists are especially vulnerable to magical thinking and things like MLMs. We see that success is unpredictable and sometimes unjustified so we can fall prey to the “I just need to believe harder” game. We think, “I don’t need to buy my way into opportunities, I just need to have faith and my chance will come!”
And of course, there are many who would prey on the desperate thirst of artists so we can also get pretty skeptical of any chance that comes with a price tag. But of course, things like Graduate School come with an enormous price tag and some of them pay off and a lot of them don’t. But my brain doesn’t think of training as cheating somehow. Even though, in many cases, it is as big a scam as anything. In fact, while I was in graduate school, my advisor told a room full of students that he’d lied on his resume in his youth — that he gave himself credits he didn’t actually have and scored himself a fancy directing gig. He advised me to do the same on my resume during a business coaching session with me. I recoiled — but maybe I shouldn’t have — as this guy managed to have a fairly reputable career before getting the six figure job as chair of that department and his puffed up resume was just a funny story he tells now. I could not imagine bluffing my way into a career like that, not with my inner Arts Justice Officer — but it sure worked for him.
I do think there’s a line, sure, and bluffing about your previous jobs feels like it’s across that line for me — but otherwise, I think this arts life is a grab any opportunity you can situation.
I mention all this because I was so surprised to see this justice officer in my own brain somehow thinking that there was a fair way to chase down artistic opportunities. I suspect I am not alone in having one of these cops in my brain and I just want us (me and anyone else who has one of these in their brain) to recognize that they are not very helpful.
It is possible that this residency to which I just got accepted might just be a way for the folks who run it to make some money. (It started to feel that way when I got the invoice.) I mean, maybe it will do nothing for my career. Maybe I’m just raising money to go sit by the sea in Greece for a couple of weeks and have some Cretan adventures. But if that’s the case, there are definitely worse ways to spend a couple of weeks and a bunch of money.
But even if it’s not all I imagine — not a magical time with fellow artists, getting inspiration by the sea, finally cracking open this Cretan play that I’ve been working on for years — it will actually be helpful for the career even if there are no direct links. This residency may lead to other ones, in that residencies are like grants, in that people like to give to proven artists and projects. One residency does tend to lead to another. I pay for this residency now and maybe down the line I have a better shot at a McDowell, a Millay or a Yaddo. Is it cheating to buy my way into opportunities that may lead to opportunities? There is no cheating in this game. You just have to keep playing however you can. That’s something I wish I’d learned years ago.
Anyway — this residency is a small group of artists from multiple disciplines (something I always love) in a small village on the coast of Crete. I’ll be working on my play, Kephala, which is about the hill in Knossos (also Crete!) where a lot of archaeology and history have happened. I wrote a circle dance into the play and apparently we’re going to learn three there, outdoors by the sea. I mean….
If you’d like to help me get to this residency, you can contribute to my Ko-fi campaign to help me pay those fees. I somehow think it will feel less like cheating with some community behind me.
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Originally published at http://artiststruggle.wordpress.com on April 12, 2023.
