Creatives, Basic Incomes & Possible Futures

Have you heard? Ireland has set up a program where artists are provided a basic income. Of the 2,000 creatives chosen, they will receive the equivalent of $380 per week/$1520 per month. Imagine, being paid to practice your creativity in whatever way you feel serves you best. How amazing would that be?

It makes me want to dream a bit. If we artists were afforded a living wage, what would we be able to create (more than we already do)? Could we afford better supplies? Pay off debt? Rent a studio? Create a co-op? Lead a class? Take a class? Take a trip? Buy resource books?

I’ve started to write down a supply list for art materials. I’ve been making 4 x 6 cards detailing short, 1–2-hour retreat ideas. Because I thought, what if I took what money I earn and put it into a savings plan that could act as if I were receiving government-funded basic income? I can’t move to Ireland and my government has never been generous in this area (and is helping burn the world to the ground at the moment), so I am going to rely on myself here.

I thought if I take 5% of my earnings for the year and put it toward my dreams, that would be $65 a month/$780 a year. That could be one poetry class, two pads of watercolor paper, soft pastels, some ink (that even though I can make my own is a pretty color I “had” to have for a project), a hotel room & meals for the weekend as a retreat, multitudinous cups of coffee at a coffeehouse that I can sit at for mini-writing sessions, and travel money to teach poetry seminars.

Gelli prints for a book called “Possibilities”.

If I made $315 MORE per month what could happen? Even if that isn’t my reality, I want to keep thinking big—what could I create with three hundred more dollars per month? Time to tend my garden and cultivate a better relationship with plants? Host a coffee hour for making art or poetry readings? Donate to organizations I feel do good in my community? What would a basic income mean to you? To have enough groceries? Enough to share? To not have to worry about rent? To create a cushion for the “you never knows”?

I think a lot about what is valued in our society/culture and I know it isn’t creativity; a hollow, sad reality. So, I dream to fill this void. I try to cultivate community to fill this void. I encourage you to do the same—what could we songwriters, painters, calligraphers, glass blowers, writers, weavers, dyers, carvers dream up if we knew we had the currency to back up our dreams?

Because even though we may not have the currency at this moment, we have ideas and our ideas are priceless. Our ideas and dreams are what carry us through hard times, carry others through hard times. And along our paths, at some time, we will be able to make parts of those dreams a reality. But first we have to let those thoughts sift through our being, become real in our minds. We have to share them with others and begin writing them, drawing them, speaking them. By carving and collaborating and allowing them space to breathe.

Ireland may have a head start on us, but instead of bemoaning the lack of support, let’s use Ireland as an anchor to begin for ourselves and our innumerable ideas. As a creative, what is one or more things you would use a basic income for?