Why Artists Look Like Accountants

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

Why Artists Look Like Accountants
In Europe, successful artists are usually known for their colourful personalities. There was once a famous Hungarian playwright much loved by his public who lived well beyond his means. Every day, his creditors would clamour outside his door, demanding payment. To satisfy them, the playwright would once a year put the names of all his creditors in a hat, and draw out ten of them; only these ten would then get paid.

  One particularly unlucky tradesman's name had failed to come up year after year. He became hysterical. "Sir!" he shouted. "If you cannot afford it, you shouldn't live in such luxury! I will cause a scandal!" The playwright, however, warned him with a stern voice: "Keep quiet, sir, or next time I won't even put your name in the hat!"

  It couldn't happen in Australia.

  Far from being extravagant and colourful, the successful artists here pride in their frugality and ordinariness. My first encounter with one of the species was at a party.

  "And who is the quiet little accountant in the corner?" I asked rather loudly of my girlfriend who was a very popular baby-sitter in artistic circles, finding out only too late that I had probably made an enemy for life of a well-known serious composer.

  But to my surprise, I saw a slick of satisfaction spread across the man's face. Unknowingly, I had paid him a compliment. Later, I discovered that the poor man had always felt that people did not consider him to be making an honest living. He therefore tried to seem as ordinary and as average as possible.

  Soon I learnt that everyone felt much more at ease with artists who not only had the appearance of accountants, but their regular habits as well. Putting out garbage, eating toast with Vegemite; wearing terry-towelling hats to the footy or cricket were essential.

  For this reason, most successful people in the arts are careful to let it be known that being a creative person is really a nine-to-five job. They insist that these hours are the most inspirational, and that creating outside them is rather unprofessional. This relaxes everybody and reassures them that what artists are doing is in truth old-fashioned, hard sweat-of-the-brow type work.

  Musicians like Mozart and Handel, or writers like Balzac and Dostoyevsky, working around the clock, who managed to knock up whole operas or novels in a matter of days, wouldn't be taken seriously at all. They were guilty of amateurish and unprofessional methods simply not tolerated on the serious Australian creative scene. Not only were these artists too fast and unmindful of unionist-style work ethics, but to make matters worse, not one of them was ever known to mow his lawn, change the wheel of a carriage or belong to a baby-sitter club.

Copyright © 1991-2002 - Robert Treborlang

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

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