{"id":1055,"date":"2007-06-13T08:01:33","date_gmt":"2007-06-13T15:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2007\/06\/defining_or_redefining_the_ama\/"},"modified":"2007-06-13T08:01:33","modified_gmt":"2007-06-13T15:01:33","slug":"defining_or_redefining_the_ama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/defining_or_redefining_the_ama.php","title":{"rendered":"Defining (or redefining) the amateur"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are some wonderful and thoughtful comments now attached to my post last week<\/a> about the amateur arts. Many seek to define the difference between amateur and professional, with the usual indicators in the mix: paid vs. unpaid, skilled vs. less skilled, creating for the audience vs. creating for the self.<\/p>\n

These would be clean and useful distinctions if they were true. But I’m realizing that the distinctions I use to understand the professional\/amateur divide aren’t particularly relevant to the real world. What about non-paid artists with professional training and exceptional skill? Are they amateurs or professionals? What about professional artists who choose to create and perform an alternate form of work with their peers for the love of it, rather than for money? What about amateurs without traditional training, and without any interest in being professional, who have an audience focus and a skill level that matches their professional peers?<\/p>\n

For example, I helped found a summer project choir<\/a> here in Madison that performs only once each year, with two weeks of intensive rehearsal. Many of our members are ”professional” singers by most standards (highly trained, earning a portion of their income from their craft). Many of our singers are professionals in other industries with a love and passion for choral performance. None of us is paid for our performance in the choir (in fact, we all chip in to pay the bills). We’re all in it for the love of the challenge and the depth of the repertory we wouldn’t be singing otherwise. Yet, if I dare say, our performance quality is professional-grade, we have a national recording<\/a> of some merit of contemporary choral works (some of which we commissioned), and we certainly provide a positive audience experience to a packed, paid house every year.<\/p>\n

Are we professionals or amateurs? Is our choir professional or community? Does the audience know the difference? Do they care?<\/p>\n

In short, are we sure in our arguments about professional and amateur artists that we all agree on the differences? And are the differences really the ones that make<\/i> a difference?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are some wonderful and thoughtful comments now attached to my post last week about the amateur arts. Many seek to define the difference between amateur and professional, with the usual indicators in the mix: paid vs. unpaid, skilled vs. less skilled, creating for the audience vs. creating for the self. These would be clean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}