New Mexico is a land of mysterious forces, cosmic energies, curious noises, cattle mutilations, strange lights, alien abductions and other unexplained undulations in the fabric of existence. Los Alamos and Sandia Laboratories are magnets for conspiracy and paranormal buffs. Billy the Kid, Roswell and the Harmonic Convergence have all left a mark on the state. Much was made, in the not-so-distant past, of the Taos Hum. Little research, though, has gone into understanding an equally perplexing sonic phenomenon, the Santa Fe Whine.
Nothing in Santa Fe is ever good enough, even when it is. There are several prime perpetuators of this boring lie: The music snob who claims no good acts ever come through town, but hasn't ever
been to Warehouse 21 or The Paramount. There's the development snob who doesn't want anything new or weird-looking built in their neighborhood, no matter how low-impact and progressive, but they think a Lowe's bigbox down on Cerrillos would be bitchin'. And there's the activity glutton, always talking about how much there is to do in New York or LA and how dead Santa Fe is. I challenge anyone, on any given week, to take a break from complaining, peruse the event listings, and go do only those things they have a genuine interest in. Never again will the Santa Fe Whine emanate from that particular mouth. I'm able to do only a tiny fraction of what I really want to do each week, which is probably about 5 percent of what's actually going on.
Artists, I'm sad to say, are the worst offenders. They are some of my closest friends, true, but a whiny, opportunistic, selfish lot to the last of them. And if I were charged with locating the source of the infernal Santa Fe Whine, I would point my fancy DARPA equipment right at a cantankerous herd of artists.
Some time ago, I believe it may have been the hot Spring of '96, I found myself at a National Association of Artist Organizations conference in Tucson. During a panel discussion, audience members began talking about how government should provide space for artists to, you know, do their thing. A guy from Project Rowhouses in Houston spoke up and said, basically, "Attitudes like that don't get artists anywhere. Artists have such a huge sense of entitlement. If a bunch of accountants were saying 'Hey, we need more accessible, affordable office space,' nobody would care." I don't remember his name, but he remains a hero of mine.
Of course, there's a difference. Artists can't expect a mob of people coming around every April looking for their services because of Federal and State tax laws. But artists also can't pretend not to be a part of the day-to-day economy like everyone else. In Santa Fe, we are in the unique position of having an expensive, thorough study unveil the massive impact of arts and culture on the local economy. The result: artists feel entitled. Instead what they should feel is engaged. They should see opportunities to collaborate with the community at large, but they mostly see an opportunity to ask for a handout. They should see it as an affirmation encouraging every creative entrepreneurial idea that has bounced around in their heads, instead they see it as an opportunity to gloat.
First, artists need to let go of the poisonous spell of international art fame. The recipe for life as an artist is not: Suffer, suffer, suffer, lose a parent to a tragic illness, have a bout with alcoholism, suffer, suffer, suffer, get discovered, get divorced, sell your work for millions of dollars and be sought after by the world's museums until you die in some brave and unexpected way. The recipe is also not: Be a hot-shit, early draft pick right out of art school, or tagging walls, sell your work for millions of dollars, develop a substance abuse problem, marry a porn star and be sought after by the world's museums until you die in some stupid and predictable way. The recipe is: As with any other trade, commit yourself to the fullest possible understanding of your craft and work at it hard enough to be personally satisfied and respected by your community. Earn a living. Die when you are old and happy and have finished a modest, beautiful story.
Overcoming illusory fantasies and living in the moment of one's art ought to allow, for starters, some reasonable proactive engagement in support of one's chosen trade. Such a thing might even encourage artists to swap a few hours sitting around the café or bar and moaning about the lack of resources available to subsidize such obvious talent for a few hours learning about, paying attention to, and supporting people who are doing their damndest to support them. Case in point: Santa Fe's young gun legislators Senator John Grubesic and Representative Peter Wirth. These two culture cowboys, near as my funny math can determine, have pushed for nearly $2 million in culture spending and arts support for Santa Fe this session. This ranges from renovations and studio space for El Museo Cultural and first-phase construction support for the new Warehouse 21 building to a new media gallery at the Community College and funds to restore state artistic treasures that are in jeopardy, from funds to bolster museum collections (i.e., buy art from artists) and develop a "creativity center" for focusing Santa Fe's cultural might to constructing a public Railyard Plaza and funding youth performing arts initiatives. This, remember, is in addition to wrangling with water shortages, violent crime, recycling plants, illegal police interrogation and all the other niggling little hoo-hahs we expect our elected representatives to figure out a way to deal with. I haven't even mentioned Representative Danice Picreaux's proposed Local Option Quality of Life Gross Receipts Tax Bill. This is a bill that doesn't do anything by itself, but it would give counties like Santa Fe the option of voting on a local gross receipts increase that could result, here, in an additional $8 million dollars over what local government invests in arts and culture annually. For the record, that would mean about five times the current annual amount overall. So, in addition to voting in the first place, our representatives could stand to have us write some letters, make some phone calls and turn up in person at the Roundhouse in order to prove that they're not crazy-the people really do care about this stuff. If artists want to be supported, they have to do some supporting.
Either that, or do us all a favor and suffer in silence. Or else we'll have to spend our culture budget on sound dampening material to protect the rest of the state from the Santa Fe Whine.
