I think it's our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we're able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn's case, we as artists somehow made it 'cool' enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
Interpretation
Artists have a duty to advocate for their communities and safeguard their art from commercial exploitation.
In this quote, Mitski emphasizes the essential role artists play not only in creating art but also in protecting the cultural and community contexts that foster artistic expression. She suggests that as artists gain recognition, there comes a responsibility to ensure that the very communities contributing to their artistry are not overtaken by commercial interests, thereby losing their unique identity and significance.
In practice
In a speech at an arts fundraiser, one could quote Mitski to highlight the connection between artists and their communities.
Honestly, in the music business, it's all about being cool or being the newest thing or being the 'It' person, and I've tried really hard to be what is expected of me or what would be advantageous to my career, and I just reached the point where I said, 'No, I'm an emotional loser. I can't pretend to not care.'
The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think of things bigger than life's daily routines... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient.
In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.
The poet, the artist, the sleuth, whoever sharpens our perception tends to antisocial; rarely 'well adjusted,' he cannot go along with currents and trends.
As if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.
All that we did, all that we said or sang must come from contact with the soil.
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