The term "starving artist"is a common phenomenon worldwide. In the US when you hear of a "starving" artist. It simply means that the artist has made a serious commitment to develop his or her craft. They do this by investing whatever money they make to enhance their skills. So they are not "starving" as in being broke with no money, but "starving" as in sacrificing whatever money they make to push their talent.
The last time I was in LA, I was amazed to find out that from a good number of skilled computer whiz kids, to waiters, to uber drivers, to hotel managers etc were all aspiring actors, scriptwriters, dancers etc. The point here is that they were not "starving", they were making an income and investing it in building their craft. Whether or not they get break their are looking for, they continue to push.
In GH however, "starving" literally means starving. Many performing artists complain of being broke and starving. Its sad to see in some cases of former veteran artists sadly wearing the badge of poverty and soliciting financial assistance from the public. Very heart breaking indeed. We sometimes make it look like its almost a curse to be a performing artists in GH.
That is the worse thing we can do for the industry. When we wonder why others are not placing the correct value on entertainment, we forget that this badge and proclamations of poverty and starvation is one of the major causes. Many of us have put ourselves in situations that the Event Organizers who engage us actually consider it as doing us a favor. This wrong but we are partly to blame for it. A timely advice to some comedy practitioners here.
I really hope that this and the next generation of performing artistes will raise the bar. Some have started to do this remarkably and I trust it will rub of others.
Another point, raising the bar does not mean raising our arrogance. We have to step up our level of professionalism. When you have a cast call at 8am, and a so called 'A' actor can show up at 2pm. What arrogance! This and many such attitudes us what is impeding our growth as a serious industry.
The final advice to all performing artistes is to know that our market is not as vibrant as it can be yet. When the market is not dynamic, it is very difficult to have professional guilds that work efficiently. I know we have some guilds of some sort, actors, directors, producer -etc. But in a "loose" market, like we have now, these guilds need to consider some serious revamping to make them useful for their members.
No one has be to be a STARVING artist. What we want to be is a working ARTIST SACRIFICING to build their craft. There should be an OVERALL vision, but the steps must be INCREMENTAL .
THE FUTURE CAN BE VERY BRIGHT, IF WE ALLOW IT.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com
