MISC. HEREBY CALLS for a 12-month moratorium on Seattle artists (in all fields) from moving to New York or California. If you must get out of town, go somewhere where you can learn more about life or where you can help build another decentralist scene. I know things look relatively bleak for indie arts round here; many photogs, actors, writers, playwrights, and artisans are again becoming tempted by the old belief that their careers would immediately take off if they only got outta Seattle.

But this is one of those times when the needs of the larger society outweigh the individual career goal. And what the larger society needs, I still believe, is the building of decentralized production and distribution infrastructures for painting, photography, literature, drama, performance, music, even film and TV. At this point, it might not matter how “rebellious” a song or an image is–if it’s sold through the same old NY/ LA/ SF culture machine (even through the “alternative” departments of that machine), it’s still enforcing a top-down, producer-consumer mindset.

At one time, I thought the Seattle music scene would provide the fulcrum for breaking the machine. I underestimated the machine’s ability for self-defense. By using its hype mechanisms to redefine the Seattle threat into a single “sound” and “look” to be promoted to death then discarded, the machine was able to resume selling safe, manufactured “rebels” to demographically specified markets. Despite this, more indie bands are selling records now; but more still needs to be done, in music and other fields.

You might be thinking…

* “But what can li’l ol’ me do without an established market?” You can help build such a market. This region now has the population base and the income base. It has artists. It has art buyers (anybody who reads or watches or listens to or looks at or wears anything). It has pieces of a sales infrastructure, at least in some fields (galleries, boutiques, record labels). It needs a little more of that last connecting piece, that hard-to-describe level of identity consciousness that binds a community together instead of leaving isolated individuals to absorb prepackaged identities from outside.

* “Dammit Jim! I’m an artist, not a marketer.” Yes, you’re an artist. A communicator of ideas. Bringing those ideas to life involves a set of skills. Getting cash out of the products of those ideas involves a different, only partly-overlapping, set of skills. These skills can be learned; or they can be hired or bartered for.

* “But I’m killing my dreams if I don’t go for the Big Time.” No, you’re killling them if you make them subservient to the industry’s machinations.

* “But everything here just plain SUCKS.” Then start working together to make things suck a little less. It’ll be hard, but for most of you it won’t be harder than trying to survive among the thousands of identically “transgressive” art-hipster wannabes in Frisco and SoHo.

I’m not merely wishing for a bigger Northwest role in the corporate culture biz. (Certainly Nike and Microsoft are NW-born outfits playing the mainstream marketing game as heavily as anybody.) No, I’m calling for nothing less than the realignment of how Americans think and dream. I want an American theater that treats the nation as the nation, not as raw-material sources for Manhattan. I want more movies made here, not just location-shot. I want more (and more work for) local costumers and video artists and curators and set builders and comedians, all of whom would build their careers by drawing audience bucks away from the tentacles of Global Entertainment. (There’s a lot of big-entertainment products I like, but I still want strong competition to them.)

And, yes, I have my selfish reasons as well. I want a great urban, contempo thang to thrive right here in City Lite. It’s not that an indigenous regional culture isn’t developing here. It is, and I don’t like it. We’ve still got so much potential. I don’t want to settle for a Seattle whose artistic ambitions don’t go beyond glass bowls and latte jokes.

(`Should I stay or should I go?’ Discuss the question now by email to clark@speakeasy.org. Here are some recent responses:)

Sent: 7/24/97 5:32 PM
Received: 7/24/97 11:27 AM
From: (withheld by request)
To: clark@speakeasy.org

Read your column today, then bits and pieces of your website. Thanks for being the first person in this town to show any interest in whether I stay. Unfortunately, you’re alone, and that’s not enough.

I came to the great Northwest on a one-year contract, to teach theater at a local university. When that was up, I thought, “Hey! I’m in the heart of alternative-theater country!” (Or so my envious friends in L.A. told me.) “I think I’ll stay!”

So I volunteered for the legendary Alice B., a theater that had earned a mention in my 20th Century theater classes in California. I directed and dramaturged for one of its last performances, and watched the media and the community blame anyone but themselves for the theater’s demise. And I volunteered for Aha!, the grandmama of your Fringe, a few months ago, and watched the proceedings yet again.

Clark, I’m over 40, too, but I learned a few things off the playground, as well as on. One of them is that, if I can’t find work doing my art, then my art isn’t getting done. And I’ve got a limited lifespan to do it in. Unfortunately, I’m not “in” with the theatrical “in group,” so I can’t get work here. So I’m going where I can.

Lest you think these are the bitter grapes of a middle-aged wannabe, let me add that I have the credentials you want. I’ve directed over twenty productions and won alternative press “best play” awards. I founded a company that lasted for ten years doing all-original material in the midwest. I have an MFA, and I’m finishing my PhD. I headed a state-wide arts organization, overseeing marketing and administration. I’ve taught theater and published. I’m computer literate. And I can’t get an interview with any arts organization in this town.

OK, one interview, but they went with the “young, high-energy” candidate.

Clark, if you want me to stay, I gotta have something to do. I’ve given it three years, but I’m too old to wait any longer for Seattle to wake up to what it has. And I hope every artist, whatever their age, puts doing the work ahead of waiting for “the realignment of how Amercans think and dream.”

I’ll write when I find work.

–If you publish this in any way (even on your web site), please omit my name. I don’t want anyone to think this is a not-very-subtle effort to get a job.

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Subject: Stay
Sent: 7/27/97 11:09 PM
Received: 7/27/97 9:21 PM
From: William Salyers, leoth@speakeasy.org
To: clark@speakeasy.org

Hello;

I am one of those Seattle based artists who is moving to Los Angeles in the very near future, and your recent column in The Stranger prompted me to reexamine and give voice to my reasons for so doing. I found your piece thought-provoking and wanted to share some of those thoughts.

I came here in what local writer/performer Charley McQuary refers to as “the Great Rush of ’89”; New Year’s Day of same, in fact. I was cast almost immediately at Renton Civic Theater in their production of “Sleuth”, and while in rehearsal was also cast in the Seattle Public’s production of “The Apollo Of Bellaq”. “Well, this is great, ” I thought naively, “I’ll be at that big ol’ Seattle Rep in no time…”

Of course, that was before I had heard this community’s vital distinction between “fringe” (or what I like to refer to as Greater Metropolitan Seattle Community Theater) and the “big houses”. That was before I had my last general audition for the Seattle Rep (about six years ago), marked in my memory by the distinction that Daniel Sullivan could not be troubled to raise his eyes from his table and actually LOOK at me (and I assure you, while not the world’s most impressive auditioner, I’m rarely so bad that one must look away, as from a particularly gruesome car wreck).

After the initial rude awakening about the Seattle theater scene and how I fit into it, I settled in to do some work at various smaller venues, much of which I’m extremely proud: “21A” at the Annex, “Strindberg: By and About”, “True West” and “Tuesday” at the AHA!, “Judith” at the Fringe Festival, and “Holy Days” for Dust Bowl Productions at Book-It Theatre. I got a terrific agent, Tish Lopez of the Actors Group, and started doing some occasional TV and film work: a couple of episodes of “Northern Exposure”, the first episode of the short-lived “Medicine Ball”, several industrial videos and even some decent roles in independent features, such as Jeff Probst’s “Trust Me” and Ted Sod’s “Crocodile Tears”, with the Stranger’s own Dan Savage. I even strayed across the “big house” stages once in a blue moon, like a supporting stint at Intiman in “Peter Pan”.

All the while, I held a DAY JOB, that evil, necessary staple of the independent Seattle artist. Some where OK, and some were soul-sucking hellish pits of despair… well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but only SLIGHT- some were pretty bad. That was great, for a while. I even thought it made me better somehow, that having to use so much of myself to even BEGIN doing my art was a sort of ascetic earnest money.

Now, as I see my own 30-year milepost receding further and further into the distance, and hear my wife, a few years older than myself, saying more and more often how much she would like to have a child, I think less about paying my dues and more about reaping my benefits. I cannot speak for other artists, but for myself, I never claimed that all I wanted was to act. I want to make my way as an actor, I want to feed and clothe my family and myself with the fruits of that labor. To that end, I have decided to relocate to a place of greater opportunity. Which brings me to your article.

In calling for your moratorium, you seem to hold New York and California (may I presume you are thinking mostly of LA?) in greatest disdain, as you suggest that if one must leave, it should at least be for a destination other than those. You advocate going somewhere “you can learn more about life”. Isn’t it presumptuous and simplistic to suggest that Austin or Chicago have something to teach, while New York and Los Angeles do not? I just returned from a week in Los Angeles, and I learned some invaluable lessons in just that short time. Perhaps life’s lessons are where one chooses to learn them.

You also make reference to artisans who are “tempted by the old belief that their careers would immediately take off” if only they leave Seattle. If people are leaving with that idea in mind, they are indeed deluding themselves. Nothing will assure that your career will immediately take off, no matter where you are. You can, however, assess a place based on the relative amount of opportunities there. I want to move to Los Angeles because there is more of everything there: more good, more bad, more people, more opportunities. I don’t expect that my career will immediately take off once there, but after eight years in Seattle, simple logic tells me that not much will change if I remain here. Incidentally, while in LA, I spoke with many people from here that have moved there, ranging in length of stay from as recent as a month to as long as several years. None of them, without exception, said that they regretted their move or were contemplating a return.

I must take greatest issue with your idea that by staying here we “serve the needs of the larger society” which “outweigh individual career goals”. It is possible, while definitely not certain, that by staying in Seattle an artist might serve the needs of the larger society of latte’ land, but what of society as a whole? Perhaps the needs of the larger society, outside of Seattle, would be better served by some of these artists relocating to a larger market and reaching a wider audience.

You go on to suggest that we have a civic duty to refrain from enforcing the “producer-consumer mindset”. While I might agree with you that the free market system is far less than ideal, it is the one on which this country is based, and as such, it’s kind of hard to avoid. Everything, art included, is supported (or not) by the producer-consumer mindset. Your column (the whole Stranger, for that matter) comes to me by virtue of the producer-consumer mindset. I would love to be a trust fund child, or win the lottery, or come into a grand inheritance, but I am from a rather more humble background and must sell either my art or some other commodity if I am to make my way. If I leave and try to make my living selling my art I am commodicizing it and myself, absolutely; but do I do this city any service by slogging into a theatre exhausted after a day of suit and tie drudgery to give the dregs of my energy to that which I love most? Or does that simply reinforce the misconception of the second-rate Seattle actor, thereby giving the Warner Shooks and Sharon Otts of this town more justifiable leeway to look elsewhere for talent?

I think the ideas put forth in your column promote a stereotype just as ultimately useless as that of the kid who gets off the bus in LA and becomes an overnight star by virtue of his/her good looks and plucky charm. It is the stereotype of the anonymous, hard-working local artist who through sheer persistence and quality causes an entire community to awaken to the inherit worth of him/her and those who share that passion. Not that I am discounting that stereotype out of hand; no, indeed. Like you, I am powerfully drawn to it. I have been keeping the faith and working hard for nearly a decade, but when faith no longer serves its purpose, it’s time to examine the possibility that it has become merely force of habit.

I’m not relocating to Los Angeles to seek my fame and fortune in the Big Time. I’m just going to find more opportunities. You don’t go to Ohio to drill for oil and you don’t stay in Seattle if you want to make your living as an actor. That is not to say that there aren’t wonderful actors here who I respect and admire. I will miss working with them (although LA is only two hours away by plane, so maybe I won’t). But those people are actor/waiters, or actor/baristas, or, like myself, actor/administrative assistants. I want to at least try my hand at being an actor/actor, so I’m afraid I must decline to join your moratorium.

Thanks for reading my reply. I’m not as comfortable with the written word as the spoken, so please forgive any awkwardness of style or composition that may have made this difficult to read.

Sincerely,
William Salyers

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Sent: 7/28/97 8:52 AM
Received: 7/28/97 8:23 AM
From: WIGWATCH@aol.com
To: clark@speakeasy.org

dear clark,

how timely your article was for me, since ten days ago i decided to leave seattle to begin a new life in san francisco. i have closed the book on TRYING to be interested in seattle! i am an illustrator and fine artist, in my mid-thirties. after eight and 1/2 years of wading about, trying to find the pulse of this city, i’m through! for me, there is no pulse. i will head to san francisco, close to desperate, for an essential gasp of air.

the greatest barrier i have found in seattle relates to it’s peculiar “vibe”–i’ve tried to understand and transcend it, but have concluded that for some people this is impossible. i’ve found some interesting and lovely people here, but there is an overall lethargic and dull energy. this past winter i’ve gone to dance clubs more than once (kid mohair, moes) to find they had closed up for the night since no one had showed up. i can’t find interesting thirty-something people that want to get together and do interesting cultural events! this town seems to be made up of pierced twenty-somethings hanging out on broadway or emerging patagonia families breaking into sweat as they unload groceries from thier utility vehicles in wallingford. under all the piercings and fleece is a conservative town that refuses to open up or let it all hang out. it’s great to see people in seattle are finally dancing, it was hard to find ANY of that (save for a mosh pit and the re-bar) until a few years ago. i try to be productive and proactive in my life, and conscious of the choices i am making. i hate to complain, and i hate putting blame on things that i feel are within my power to change…after much concentrated effort to try and make seattle work for me, i realize that i simply don’t belong here. seattle, i have felt since the very beginning, has continuosly been trying to spit me out.

i initially came to this city and began to volunteer with Reflex magazine in hope of meeting artist types and aiding “our” community, but immediately received an unfriendliness, lack of appreciation for my efforts, & attitude up the whahooey. that was simply the beginning, i’ve found this to be the case ever since–from the music scene to the microsoft crowd.

attitude attitude attitude! and not much to back it up. why stay in such a cold, unextending, unstimulating environment? i feel no connection with seattle. my rent has just gone up to meet san francisco prices–i figure i may as well get my money’s worth, and put my life back in action. your plea perked my interest because it’s so unusual. i’ve often commented to friends that i’m surprised The Stranger doesn’t do an article on how disorganized and lacking the whole “scene” is here. there’s no focus, there’s no voice. it’s a void sporting a goatee (with a dab of latte foam)!! something i find really interesting is the resentment of people who are leaving. it seems so strange to feel this way about A PLACE, but ultimately it seems to boil down to this pretentious vibe. i’ve never come close to finding any sort of community. this makes it hard to feel any loyalty.

i realize i may sound like a bitter old spinster, and i apoligize for that, but my converse sneakers are about to burn some rubber as i head south where there appears to be life. thanks for your concern and effort, i hope seattle makes a breakthrough! The Stranger magazine has been, by far, the best thing about my seattle experience–the closest thing to making me feel connected.

i would prefer to remain anonymous. thanks.