Two and a half months into the Green Room, I’m thoroughly enjoying writing for you all, and I greatly appreciate your supportive messages and encouraging words. I’m feeling a nice rhythm1 here, like I got good work going and plenty more ideas.
Lately I’m also thinking about money, and being paid for what I do. One reason for planting the Green Room was the hope of earning income for writing what I feel like writing. I picked Substack partly because of their baked-in subscription model, and I still have ideas percolating for paid subscription-only projects. I mainly like writing these posts, though!
I share the heart of many artists in preferring to think of my work as a gift. In Art+Faith, Makoto Fujimura writes extensively about this dynamic through the lens of Lewis Hyde’s The Gift,2 a seminal work in art and author communities since it was published in 1983. The book describes the Gift Economy is necessary and vital to all of humanity thriving. Here’s a quote from The Gift’s introduction:
“It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two ‘economies,’ a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift, there is no art.”
Later, Mako quotes Hyde again:
A gift may be the actual agent of change, the bearer of new life. In the simplest examples, gifts carry an identity with them, and to accept the gift amounts to incorporating a new identity. It is as if such a gift passes through the body and leaves us altered. The gift is not merely the witness or guardian to new life, but the creator.
For Makoto Fujimura, Hyde’s book was like the wardrobe into Narnia, in part because he saw these hopeful themes of generosity echoed in the Gospels. In this light, providing for artists is holy work, one he calls artists to trailblaze by charitably supporting other artists. Behind this is the abundant generosity of Christ’s upside-down economy. “Christ is a gift, and Christ is the Gift,” Fujimura adds.
The idea of a gift economy running parallel to the market economy resonates in me, both because it echoes the Holy Spirit’s altruism (which I’ve experienced often), and because, after two decades of writing professionally, my heart is happiest when my own writing is freely given.
I likely wouldn’t have a writing career without the generosity of many folks, including Mindy, who loved art history and considered herself a patron of my early writing work, which she felt certain would one day pay out in untold dividends.
Certainly, some projects may belong in the market economy. Still, I’d like the Green Room to be an open space for keeping folks entertained and informed, and stay open-handed, too.
So I step out toward acceptance of gifts in faith, partly inspired by Radiohead’s pay-what-you-will album sales and a little by Twitch streamers, but mostly because I trust you and the Holy Spirit to provide what we need through the infinitely resourceful Gift Economy. (And whatever other work I’m called to do.)
Thus, from now on, posts and emails will have a button at the bottom like this:
You may click on that button to contribute. Currently, it’s all through PayPal, though I’m working to add Venmo and other vendors, also.
And if you’d like to support in other ways—like giving us a framed-and-signed Beverly Cleary quote like our friend, legendary book connoisseur Rod Richards—please reach out directly! I will gladly accept gifts like this.
That’s that then! If you’re appreciating the Green Room, or a liking a particular post, and feel moved to drop our little fam a can of kombucha or spot us a half-a-year’s salary in Bitcoin, please do! I will be grateful, and the Green Room will thrive as a result.
And if you just feel like reading, thank you sincerely. These posts are gratis, and I’m grateful to you for reading them.
Never can remember how to spell that word.
I haven’t read The Gift yet, though there’s a copy in my house purchased at the Smithsonian American Art Museum with our friends the Spencers, and now I’m thinking maybe I should read before writing this, but no! I have a point to make!