The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> don't like saying it but......

don't like saying it but......
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Sunday, July 3 2011, 22:29:11 (UTC)
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...where Andre and I are concerned, he is an amateur, I am the professional. In fact I may be the only "professional assyrian" there is, which is a depressing thought.

Aprim is an engineer...Rosie Malek is an actress...Andre runs a shop. None of them can or have ever seriously tried to make their living AS an assyrian. That's all I've done...an "assyrian", making Assyrian art, to sell to assyrians.

Now, before someone torches my car let me explain that by professional I don't mean "good" necessarily. I just mean that what you make your living at is your profession and in my case I make my living FROM my sculpture. A doctor who makes his living by painting houses is not a professional doctor, even if he has a legitimate degree. And your hobbies don;t count, no matter how much time and effort and expense they take...not unless you earn your living by them, in which case they are no longer hobbies but your profession...unless you're independently wealthy and don;t work anyway.

Andre has all of cousins and pals in love with him and even the State Department "likes me"....but do they pay? Does Andre make his living with his films? No. I believe he owns some kind of camera shop or something....so he isn't a professional...and it isn't just a word. It implies that come hell or high water, the only way you make your living, and support your family, is by your art, or whatever.

Andre is a professional shop owner...he spends most of his time and energy keeping a shop. When he can, he makes film. That means that most of his time is spent NOT making his art...which means he doesn't get that much practice and therefore can't compete with those who spend every waking hour at their art.

Now, having a shop keeper's mentality plus all the added assyrian nonsense he carts around may be exactly the reason he doesn't or can't make a living at his art...the reason he can't attract the kind of interest that is willing to show it in hard cash....because he doesn't "run deep"...but paddles around on the surface of things...where the amateurs usually remain, bitching and complaining and yelling at those who are professional.

If I couldn't sell my sculpture, especially raising five children (and as "bad father")I too would have to work in a shop, or drive a truck, or work at my daddy's business....luckily, and with a lot of hard work and work good enough to inspire sales, I am able to survive, barely, but at least I can do the most important work as an artist, which is simply to be ABLE to work....not to fritter my time and life away.

I'm not saying that if Andre's head was less filled with wool and more with substance he'd be able to be a professional...but without better and clearer and more courageous thinking, he doesn't stand a chance...not when up against those who dedicate their sleeping and waking hours to being professional....who insist that live or die, their art is ALL they're willing to do. Somehow that sort of mad dedication is a requirement...and Andre doesn't have it.

I'm not attacking him, nor do I have any interest in putting him down...this is simply the objective truth, and his film shows it....his ideas show it and most of all his conspicuous lack of personal courage damns him.

I wish it were otherwise. I really do.



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