There’s been a lot of talk lately about Obama naming a Secretary of the Arts to his cabinet. It’s an idea that Quincy Jones has been trying to champion for years. Obama seems to be the first president who would maybe take the idea seriously. I mean that in a positive way. He seems like a President that probably truly appreciates the arts.

There is an online petition to try and persuade Obama to appoint such a person. At first I thought “what a great idea” and I signed the petition. But now I as I think it through, I think it would be a big mistake.

The idea that this Secretary of the Arts, or Art Czar as I’ll call him/her, would be a champion for the arts is a little naive and a lot scary. Anytime the government takes a role in something it always seeks to regulate it. If an Art Czar were to be named and this person’s job was to oversee the funding, regulation and education of the arts it would result in a government viewpoint on art.

I’m a registered independent and lean towards the opinion that anything the government touches it ruins with bureaucracy and well, politics. Right now artists enjoy the first amendment to express their points of view freely and openly. The last thing we need is the federal government stepping in and regulating and defining art.

it’s my opinion that the government should stay as far away from the arts as possible. I can just see the new breed of lobbyists: art lobbyists, trying to pervert and influence policy makers with their own personal and corporate agendas.

if you know anything about the government and how corrupt policy making can get, you know we’d have all sorts of big business trying to influence the laws pertaining to art in this country. I may be slightly paranoid or overreacting but if I am I don’t think it’s by much. I’ve lived long enough to see the federal government grow beyond anything we ever expected to the point of intrusion into our lives.

I shared some of these concerns to some people and a fellow photographer said the following:

- France values its artists and art culture enough to allow them to collect unemployment if they sustained a minimum amount of working days as an artist in the past.

To which I replied “unemployment is meant to help those who lose their jobs. why should the government pay self-employed people money due to their business failing? I really don’t see the government’s job being to bailout every failing business like it’s doing now: GM, banks, and now artists?”

It’s a tricky one, the position sounds like a help to artists, but can you really think that creating a new cabinet level position (using who knows how much of our tax dollars) will benefit the average self-employed artist while maintaining the freedom from government interference and free speech we so enjoy now.

Just my 2 cents

I wanted to give some people an encouragement combined with a reality check.

With this economy that we will have for the next 2-3 years, I’ve made some changes to my life/business. I’ve dedicated the next year to revamping my business. I’m taking a full year and will be going through my process, workflow, vision, shooting style and everything that makes my business. From how I pre-produce a shoot to how I archive my files when it’s done. No system will go untouched.

I am financially ready to take the hit for the next couple of years. I have no choice, so I’ve put a few things in place to ensure my survival. In the meantime I think it would be good for all of us to take a good, hard and honest look at what we do and how we do it. How can we not only become more efficient but more creative.

Creativity and new ideas are the only things that will win out in this new economy. Those who cling to mediocrity will sink to the bottom and be run out of business. I anticipate many, many photographers will go out of business in the next couple of years. I do not plan on being one of them.

So for the next year I will purposefully shoot better than I’ve ever shot, tweak and fine-tune my personal shooting style and put all the systems in place marketing and otherwise that I have let slide before. I’m giving myself a year to do this and if I shoot every day, every week or just every month, I know at the end of the year I should have all of my ducks in a row better than ever before.

It’s time to ramp it up people. Sink or swim.