'Cathedral Thinking' for Writers and Artists

ALCS's recent report 

Imagine you are asked to name ten famous novelists, poets, artists, dramatists or composers. There’s a good chance quite a few of them would no longer be living. The same is probably true, to a lesser extent, of musicians, songwriters and filmmakers. Generally, it takes a long time – often a lifetime ­­- for creative artists to become recognised, let alone celebrated. The writers’ organisation ALCS (of which I’m proud to be a member) last month published a report called Creating a Living: Challenges to Authors’ Incomes.

    The report shows that the earnings of writers and artists are in significant decline globally, despite international growth in the creative industries that make use of their works. Factors in this decline include the impact of digitization and online publishing and a growing demand for authors to work without payment. If it’s so hard to earn an income from the creative arts surely more and more are going to give up trying.

    I’m in the fortunate position of being able to write and to make music without needing to rely on either for my livelihood. But I still feel annoyed and affronted by the normalisation of ‘free art’ – the magazines on sale in major shops that don’t pay their contributing writers, the organisers of music events who hope the musicians don’t expect to be paid for their performance.  The global pandemic and economic recession will have only made this problem worse since it was prevalent even in the ‘good times’ before venues were forced to close and readers began cancelling subscriptions to economise.   

    So why should creative artists go on trying to produce work and find an audience if they may not be properly remunerated - let alone critically appreciated - in their lifetime? One answer might come in the form of ‘cathedral thinking’, a phrase used by Labour’s former environment, sustainability and housing minister for Wales, Jane Davidson. Davidson is the author of a new book One Planet, One Future and, in it, she describes planting trees that wouldn’t bear fruit in her lifetime, but which her children and grandchildren would be able to appreciate. This is an example of cathedral thinking where “long-term goals require decades of foresight and planning so future generations can enjoy their realisation.”

New College, Oxford - built in 1386

    The idea is, of course, that those involved in conceiving and building our great cathedrals knew that they may not live to see them completed, but future generations would. There’s even a website devoted to cathedral thinking which tells the story of New College in Oxford, built in 1386. The story goes that, at the time the college was built, a grove of trees was planted so that, when the beams that supported the roof needed replacing some 500 years later, the trees would be ready - big and strong enough to replace them.

    New College was built when Geoffrey Chaucer was alive. Now, I’m sure Chaucer would be delighted to know his Canterbury Tales is still being read 600 years after his death, but I’m not sure how comforting this thought is to today’s creative artists who may be struggling to find a publisher or a promoter. No doubt one reason artists create is to leave a lasting legacy but, to be able to go on producing work, it's very helpful to gain recognition and appreciation here and now. I’d like to think that the books I have written and had published may be of interest to readers for many generations to come, even if Steven Spielberg has strangely still not yet contacted me to buy the film rights.

    I'm happy to let Steven Spielberg take his time, though, because this month I became a grandfather. It strikes me that parenthood is itself an act of cathedral thinking. We don’t know, when we become parents, what mark our descendants will leave on the world. Specifically, we don't know whether or not we will live to meet our grandchildren. If we do, it’s a great blessing. Meanwhile, I don’t know if the novel I’m writing will ever get finished, let alone published, let alone read, let alone critically acclaimed in perpetuity. But, if I don’t try and finish writing it, no one will ever know that this grandad was also a novelist. Better get on with building that cathedral.