Blackwood Meeks
Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
ONCE upon a time you could identify creative souls by the little notebook they would whip out in the middle of a bite at the most elegant dinner party with an "...excuse me, if I don't write this down now I am likely to forget it." Or "...this will fit nicely into my next poem/story/play". Sometimes they would even burst into song in mid-bite declaring "...I have it", "it" being the perfect lyrics for the melody which has been playing incessantly in their heads for days.
Today they whip out little tape recorders. Sometimes it is really a cover for the fact that they are forever talking to themselves. It is a well-known fact that these people are on the border of being sane, no insane person would do anything that would mark them as such. Never mind, they do somehow also manage to record the right form of words or ideas for movement or whatever for the next project.
In fact I have a very good friend who speaks so poetically and so profoundly that he has taken to travelling with a little tape recorder, the kinds used by spies in movies to record even his casual conversations, as neither he nor his listeners ever knew or could be otherwise prepared for the gems which would flow at will from his being. Some are permanently attached to their cameras. They click away at everything since they somehow find artistic, cultural and historical significance in just about everything.
Maybe they are all spies on behalf of history, reconnoitring around that which we have not yet discovered or understood or accepted about ourselves. And then one day, voila, the book, the song, the exhibition that will reveal all, or most of it and change the world or rock it just a little.
The next time you see one of these historical agents with artistic paraphernalia, ask them what they do with all these ideas. Ask them, I promise you they won't bite. Not unless they are experiencing a particularly hungry moment compounded by the fact that yes they would like to do something with all these ideas if only...
Not a few of them will tell you that they have boxes, of ideas and/or material for projects they would love to embark upon, if only...
These ideas include setting up after school or Saturday morning programmes in their given discipline for children and sometimes adults in their communities: writing a song tailor-made for the very talented singer who will go to waste just doing "cover versions"; organising the penny concert which will invigorate the old and educate the young; mounting a show of one kind or another, embarking on exchange programmes, sharing their talents, properly mounting their photos as a gift to the museum or parish library. They would probably tell you more, if only. Like if only you had the time to listen and if only they believed that you seriously cared and weren't just making cocktail party conversation.
If only the media would stop saying there is nobody to fill such a singer's or songwriter's or poet's or painter's shoe, when if the truth be told when and such were alive or still resident in Jamaica the same media made enough of the kind of noise that ensured that they had no shoes. In fact ignored them then as much as they ignore the present crop, some of whom leave marks on the earth greater than any who came before them.
If only they had the resources to buy a radio or television station, build the theatre or concert hall to showcase just that.
If only they could support themselves from their creative endeavours. That would be a good beginning. They could liberate themselves from the constraints and frustrations of trying to be full time artistes earning part time wages in order to make their contributions to keeping the public utilities afloat so that tourists would not have to stay away from another third world country without proper and reliable utility services.
And they could do that, in spite of the part-time wages if only they weren't constantly asked to "come do a little thing" for this or that cause, which really is a big thing, and without any remuneration. Like come and tell the children how important the culture is. Sure. As soon as we've hustled the bus-fare and enough for a decent costume and transportation for the drums or whatever is required to present as if we know what we are talking about. Can't talk about something important looking poorer than a Church mouse from a time when the church mouse was poor.
If only we could see the arts as existing first for the development of people, including the artists, for contributing to a certain a quality human resource base and certain standard of national life. If only we believed that the artistes represent and contribute to a certain calibre of productive capacity. Then maybe we could find the means to support artistic development and artistic endeavours. Someone would sponsor an event without referencing the direct and immediate bottom line: the thousands of people who would turn out to consume whatever it is that they produce. They might reference the long-term benefits of visioning and helping to create the kind of society that none of us would want to run away from. They would reference the impact of the event on the young and not so young minds that experienced it.
If only they would not say they already gave at the office or declare the sum of their contribution to the latest bandwagon cause to which they had to give or be struck, at least temporarily from certain social registers, certainly the cocktail parties associated with the particular event.
If only creative souls working in environments outside of their heretical and divine disciplines did not have to be afraid to ask for time off to rehearse or perform; did not have to risk being told to choose between feeding the soul or feeding the body because the economic imperatives have made both mutually exclusive. If only creative souls did not sometimes choose to sneak away and risk being fired.
If only we could have lovingly supportive conversations about how balance it all, since in the end we are all consumers of the arts.
Imagine not having any music on the radio. No record shops. No paintings to hang on your walls. No mobiles to stimulate your children. No theatre to take your friends and business executives when they come a visiting. Imagine New York without the theatres, the museums and the art galleries. Imagine going to London and not being able to find "something to bring back". Imagine tourists leaving Jamaica without even a shack-shack painted in the liberation colours or hearing one little "yellow bird" from the mouth of the man with the broken banjo.
The truth is we cannot build a country without building the arts. We cannot build the arts if we continue to treat it as peripheral rather than central.
We need to deepen the conversation about how we understand the value of the artists? Who are they? What is their essence? What is their purpose?
A recent retreat of teachers and researchers of the arts agreed that their value was to be found in inter alia, in the fact they are essentially based on team work, foster cohesion in human relationships, serve as a tool of education, could inspire and motivate, relieve stress, impact positively on behaviour change, were a natural part of human endeavour and could be used to help create world peace.
The Entertainment Advisory Board is an important element of the conversation. Another is the philosophy and approach of part time and potential employers of full time artistes. Are people willing to employ artistes on conditions that facilitate their creativity and national development or, as someone asked at the recent EAB consultation, are we satisfied that so many of our brightest talents have to be content to "teach tourists how to race crabs on the North Coast?"
