Support the Artists to Support the Arts - The Consortium

Let’s get this out of the way up front. The Consortium pays its artists to produce art.

In the distant past, artists received support while they worked on their art. Patrons fed, housed, and clothed them. Patrons gave them a decent wage simply to be artists improving their craft.

Today, instead of receiving patronage, the same brilliant, creative minds sit at desks, fill in ledgers, work cash registers, or swing hammers in order to stay fed, housed, clothed, and paid. They work at least eight hours a day, then come home to stare at the unfinished manuscript, the half painted canvas, or the barely written lyrics.

They think of all the hours they just spent on a job they never feel entirely suited for. Then they turn their backs on their unfinished art and turn on the TV or just go to bed.

Either way, they die a little inside.

Sound familiar? Feel familiar?

Changing the Rules

The Consortium takes artists, infuses them with life, and turns them loose on their art. The “real world” has brilliant, creative minds out there, stuck in jobs that pay the bills but keep the artist too weary and depleted to do art. If that sounds like you, then take heart because the Consortium is making a world where artists have the time and the resources they need to do nothing but art.

The Consortium lives by the belief that today’s Da Vincis and Michaelangelos are out there — they’re just buried under jobs that are wonderful at paying bills but terrible for producing art. The Da Vincis and Michaelangelos of the past didn’t have to work a 7 am-6 pm job, then go home and collapse.

Instead, producing their art was their 7-6 job.  And it was a secure job, at that.  With benefits.

Finding a New Patronage

Today, the Consortium takes on the role of patron to these artists. In the past, patrons were rich people who paid poor artists to produce high quality works of art. That art became part of world culture.

Without patronage, we would live in a world without the mystery of Mona Lisa. Without patronage, we would live in a world without David in all his naked glory. When artists aren’t supported, the culture suffers.

We no longer need rich patrons. We just need a lot of people concerned about arts and culture. We need these people to partner with an organization that will focus that support and get it to the artists.

The Consortium wants to unshackle you, the artists, from your desks or cash registers or monkey wrenches and set you loose at your easels, laptops, pianos, and scribblebooks. Then the Consortium takes a step back and watches the masterpieces grow. Artists make a living and the culture is enriched.

Artists fall in love with our mission because we harness things like salaries and benefits so artists get the chance to become fully what they need to be: Creative people making a living at art.

Help us to help them. Help us to help you.  Let’s change the world together.