As an avid reader of The Economist (maybe perpetually chasing the current issue is more accurate), I feel constantly discouraged by the statistics of unemployment.  Even the EU as a whole (see Eurostat’s extensive documentation) has struggled to maintain its relatively low unemployment percentages with the ongoing disintegration of the Euro.  Though worse for some countries (Norway and Austria) would be excellent for others (Spain and the eastern Balkan countries), this developed world sector illustrates the difficult recent times and the even more difficult times to come.  Visually we’re saturated with downsloping graphs, cartoons of giant Euro coins crushing Merkozy and photographs of the affected masses.  The media essentially dictates how we think (whether we realise or not; just ask any rhetoric major). The media rarely reports on the entrepreneurial spirit, and when it does it’s below the fold. So, we believe that the global economy is left to the hands of the the world banker, the policymaker and anyone but us.  While there is truth to what media says about multi-million dollar labour cuts, and the actions of those heavy hitters do affect us masses, there is a much larger force that can reinvigorate the economy before they’ll convince Angela Merkel to use Eurobonds—the creative market.  Artists (herein used as all-encompassing term for all creatives for simplicity of argument) can be the answer to tough times because of their resilience, ingenuity and sense of community.

When many people think of artisanal goods, they think of trinkets and tchotchkes sold at the weekend fair—hardly an economic competitor that can save the world of its debt, largely caused by war.  But this notion of art as excess is an antiquated falsehood that perpetuates misconceptions about how much art can fiscally contribute; at one time art was only for those rich enough to eat and bathe once a month.  Then art became for the dirty, drunk and poor.  Now, art is still one or both of those things, but art is more importantly, a commodity worth just as much as shale gas, corn and even oil.  Just look at the contemporary art market (see The Economist‘s “Bubbly Basel” article), which doesn’t just survive in Europe but expands despite the failing Euro.

Artists are able to work in difficult economic times first because they can work without currency.  Bartering agreements of work for work supersede the need to reconcile dollars versus pesos versus krona.  Messy calculations aside, this lack of currency allows both parties to value their commodity against something other than the intangible federal reserve note—valuation of art as ideas, materials and labour.  Creativity not only makes for good art, but it also makes for clever problem solvers.  The upward-hill battle to find inspiration and afford expensive tools (paint or Photoshop) builds someone who doesn’t give up in the face of financial adversity.  You can’t be a successful artist with out a sense of entrepreneurship.  In fact, most artists are self-employed, which means short of a Jekyll/Hyde crisis or drinking themselves into a stupor, there aren’t any labour cuts here.  In short, everyday is an artist’s recession; they’ll still be here whether the stock market is or not.

Lastly, because all artists are starving over-sexed commune residents, they share a great sense of community.  Before strangers buy, friends, family and colleagues are the first to shell out cash (or in the bartering case, business cards or a bed).  Community buying allows for money to stay in the family (one can extrapolate this as a microcosm to the way many unstable or newly-stable countries like to produce and keep their own goods in-house), certainly, but also is the vehicle on which to spread a name by word of mouth.  Members of a community talk about what they do and what they have.  Beyond support, creative communities can combine talents to create full-fledged services; microbusinesses like such create a more stable workflow for involved parties (and if one person’s sick, the whole operation isn’t placed on hold).  Communities of artists also pool together to create fairs, many of which become significant contributors to their neighbourhoods (think Argentine ferias).

So is it up to artists to save us from economic collapse?  Well no, because the math would be all wrong.  But more importantly, artists produce art.  Artists’ friends can only buy so much of that art (they are, after all, really poor).  So non-creatives need to help support artists—whenever possible.  Get a friend earrings from a street fair instead of some Made in Chinas from Target.  Have a designer make your business cards instead of ordering 5,000 crappy ones off of Vistaprint.  Find a reupholstered vintage couch instead of an impossible-to-assemble one from IKEA.  Buy flowers from your local flowershop instead of biologically creepy ones off FTD.  And artists—you need to remember to be a smart business person.  Know your audience, your market, your competition, and most importantly, the value of your art. Then don’t be afraid to sell it for what it’s really worth, whether that’s 5,000 krona, a custom-made bed or political cause.  Together, artist and consumer may not be the entire solution to the economic problems we face, but they sure can be a significant part.

As an individual, it’s always been hard for me to accept being called ‘well-rounded’ as a compliment.  Besides just its potential innuendo of rotund or portly, it can also mean that an individual lacks focus, or is unable to engage a topic past superficial strata.   In a family that valued specialisation (and professions that required it), it was hard for me to find my niche in any one corner.

Throughout college, this meant that my academic interests fluttered from building to building, never finding rest in any department.  My environmental studies professors found me too hard and logical; relying on definitions, proofs and formulas to prove ethical dilemmas.  My math professors found me too soft and indecisive, seeing multifarious routes when one would suffice. And of course, nothing angered them more than ethical arguments that began “but this way would also…”  (an aside: My random-interest professors—art, languages, economics—found me flat out bizarre for loving both the indecisiveness in environmental studies and concreteness of math.  Then again, they never rejected my “no, you can’t recycle that” and/or computational help on syllabus grade breakdowns that didn’t quite add to 100%.)

In a business, being ‘well-rounded’ carries similar connotations.  Consumers demand, in most vocations, that businesses can complete one simple task—plumbers damn well know how to plumb, and gardeners ought to know how to wield a spade.  Yet no one asks a plumber to nanny.  And certainly, no one would ask Fran Drescher to plumb.   The exception to this rule of course is in the world of design.

To call oneself a ‘designer’ leaves much to be explained—fashion, graphic, web, interactive, textile, industrial, interior, exterior, landscaping, zen and Buddhist garden, flower float, colour, cake, visual display, packaging, jewellery… you get the point.  Each job presents its own clogs and requires its snaky tools, but yet somehow to those living outside of the design world, they’re all a bit interchangeable.  You might ask your interior designer friend to fix your wedding dress because he/she is handy with a sewing machine.  Your artist friend owns Adobe Creative Suite, so maybe he/she can throw a website together for your neighbour who owns a food cart.

And since this happens more than not, the creative world becomes saturated with interior-exterior-designers SLASH photographers, graphic designer SLASH filmmakers, jewellery artists SLASH muralists SLASH graphic designers.  We’re all double- and triple-dipping our hands in each other’s jars, eager to help the left-brained half of the world add a bit of colour to their otherwise monochromatic, fluorescently-lit existences.

All of these individuals become diluted versions of one another; trying hard to identify themselves amongst a sea of well-rounded buoys. Some certainly much more talented than others; those less talented hoping that the ambiguity of it all will mask their ambivalence.  Struggling to float, these individuals form collectives (professionally known as “design studios” ) which are equally, if not more vague than the employees who comprise it.  Design studios that create websites, clothing, installations, cakes.  Anything peripheral becomes territorial with the simple question of, “hey, do you know how to…” quantified by a “because I need a…”  Uncertainty like this muddles the market, and confuses the general public on how (and why) to quantify design both monetarily and emotionally.

In this, we lose the dedicated few brave enough (myself not included) to define themselves by one term alone—furniture designers, graphic designers and all of those terms that make the obsolete phone book useful.  Individuals with enough wherewithall and restraint to pick and refine. I commend the individuals strong enough to sacrifice throwaway hobbies for their isolated passion.  Please continue to build your individual talents; one day I’m going to recruit you to make the fattest—I mean, most well-rounded—design group out there.  No cakes, though.  I’ll leave that to Duff, Geoff and crew.

If you’re anything like me, (it’s okay if you don’t want to admit it) you’ve found yourself up at 3:30 am watching infomercials.  Insomnia always makes you hit a point where you think that you really do need the Magic Bullet, and good Lord, how have you been going so long without liquefying all of your meals?  You’re ready to charge your low-limit credit card when you realise that your phone is at the other end of your studio apartment.  You have exactly 30 seconds to get three Bullets for the price of one, when you trip over your Snuggie in a panic and die.  You would have avoided this macabre situation had you simply had this brilliant notepad.  Reusing your coworkers useless printed-out e-mails (does anyone read their printed out e-mails?) and failed term papers, you too can make this kind-of-ugly but totally-useful-for-jotting-down-1800-numbers notepad.

You will need:

• Stack of one-sided use paper (found in most office paper bins)
  
• pH neutral PVA [professional quality adhesive (found at specialty paper stores and creepy scrapbooking boutiques)]
• 2+ large binder clips
  
• scissors, paper guillotine OR rotary paper cutter
• old cereal box

Time: 10 minutes

While mostly a mindless dramaction and poor commentary on the Patriot Act, Steven Spielberg’s Eagle Eye did get me thinking. This very fact pissed me off because the last thing I expect to do during a Spielberg movie is think. But, nonetheless, it got me thinking about what identity means in the 21st century, and how much of who we are is what we unintentionally and intentionally share on the Internet.

Back in the day, let’s say Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, a russki‘s identity was dictated by the company russki kept, what sort of vodka russki drank, whether  russki was a farmer like Levin or an aristocrat like Karenin.  Sure, gossip trotted as fast as the mail horse, but identities were relatively safe within the gates of  royal estate.  Fast forward to today, let’s say Josh Schwartz’s Gossip Girl, where identity is partially determined by parallels to Tolstoy’s world—dress labels, artisan cocktails and how high you live in the UES.  The rest of these broken teenagers’ identities are dictated by the eponymous Gossip Girl.  Serena “the impulsive blonde bombshell with an Oedipus complex” VanDerWoodsen.  Chuck “bad boy with trust issues more complex than the Brooks Brothers bowtie pattern” Bass.  Bits and pieces of these farcical characters’ actions are delivered via 3G as fast as the male whores can text it, and instantaneously, who they are is published even before they can figure it out for themselves.

Who we are is not as limited to what we write on our Facebook profiles.  No, it’s an amalgamation of all of the platforms on which we can share our thoughts, actions and tastes.  You would know that I love Flanders reds and am lactose intolerant from Yelp.  You would know that I lived in Cairo from my Flickr photos.  You would know that I own a design studio from LinkedIn profile. You would know that I love short stories from GoodReads.  These are all things that anyone—Ashton Kutcher, Rob Blagojevich or “Eagle Eye”—could find out just by searching my name.  This is the digital equivalent of flashing strangers on the street out your window, then blasting (magazine flyer style)  millions of photo copies of your social security card with a chronological list your exes printed on the back.

But besides perhaps not understanding the full breadth of our ASCII actions, why do we volunteer so much of ‘who we are’—our identities—to anonymouses worldwide?  I’d guess that because who we share is not an accurate, or at least not complete, version of our best selves.  We share relatively superficial (albeit useful for an avid stalker) information on a colossal scale.  If we represent ourselves by the pieces of our likes/dislikes, memories through photos and tweets and our communities by our social webs, we avoid the substance that connects the irrelevant dots—our ethics, beliefs and convictions. We are so quick to shed the outermost layer for the virtual vultures in order to protect the innermost layer from ourselves.  The less we are to access this substance, the more who we are is defined by our internet pseudonyms.  The more our tastes become aggregated suggestions from big brother Google searches, music genius Pandora,  and Amazon ‘thought you might likes,’ the further we run from individualism toward assimilation.  As politics are dictated by the media, not vice versa, we become the very Internet effigies that we fabricate.