This is what $180,000 will get you in Detroit.
No, not the houses. The artwork.
Seriously.
$180,000.
And this is what you get?
For far less money those houses could have been turned into livable houses instead of displays of people’s weirdness and lack of aesthetic judgment.
I know I am revealing that I am not much of an artist, but give me Rembrandt or Ansel Adams over this junk (literally). Or Monet even. I would even take Rockwell. Or one of my favorite paintings, Nighthawks. (I am not sure why I like this picture. It just conveys an eerie sense of loneliness and hopelessness for the man sitting alone.)
For $180,000 those six artists could have been hired to do something productive for the community. They could have been given real jobs. Have them hang a sheet of drywall, or teach them to replace an electrical socket or something. Paint a wall or mop a floor.
Of course, I am all for the free market, and if I could have gotten a bit of this money for something like this I would have taken it. So I don’t begrudge these artists for taking the money of someone who lacks the sense to put it to good use.
But having spent the last six weeks or so working on my house and actually turning it into something livable for far less money, I know $180,000 and a few mediocre skills combined with a willingness to try a few things can actually turn into something acceptable. Grand even for that amount of money.
Or you can find someone to give you a bunch of money to clean out a trash dumpster and hang the junk up in an abandoned house.
One day I will post a few pictures and you can compare my artwork to theirs and see if I should have gotten a bit of the handout.
