Launch

Reverence

I’ve always held a particular reverence for the artists that I like because they are the source of what that I use for imagining. There is so much happening within my head that exists solely because someone spent a moment of their lives producing something wonderful. Without them, my daydreams would be far emptier, and I therefore feel indebted towards them for providing so much color to who I am and how I think.

Downstream from this is my strongly held belief that art isn’t just a consumable, which is woefully how it is often observed and interacted with in these times. It is almost a living, breathing presence that provides meaning. It interfaces with our emotions indiscriminately. Those who make art aren’t content creators, a most despicable and soulless term that chars all great things down to its stimulative potential, but contributors to the whole heritage of humanity.

It is reasonable for artists to make of their art a livelihood, from which great art happens. It is necessary for the betterment of society that we receive great art. If we subtract society from great art, then society will be unforgivably lessened. It is therefore imperative that we have artists who are artists, instead of baristas that are also artists, or janitors that are also artists, or cashiers that are also artists. We need great men that find purpose in art and invests their soul into it.

This investment of soul is impossible with the distraction of labor. We have seen throughout history the greatest artists live because their labor has been art. Therefore, to have great artists, we need to recreate the individual artist whose autonomous and independent art is their labor and their place in society.

We have not, however, sustained a society that is conducive to the existence of the independent, individual artist. We have made their works easier to reach but harder to live on. We have also developed existential threats to human artistry, such as generative artificial intelligence. There is much work to do if we want to restore the prestige of the individual artist.

I long liked the prospect of being personally responsible for the economics of artists, as a subtle but contributing presence to their success, more as a friend and as an enjoyer of art than a financial patron. I’ve liked being friends with artists and having a personal window into the goings-on of their work. Yet, I’ve never found individual contributions to be enough.

This is why I launched the Nazarene Human Arts Fund. It serves to structure donations and to, hopefully, collect funds from third parties who also hold a similar reverence for artists. The organization will remain guided by me, including the choice of recipients. For the time being, it will be privately and personally funded by me, and it may remain that way.

Dual mandates and risk

The fund has a dual mandate. The first mandate is the finding of great artists, and the second is to provide economic lifelines to them. While the second may be inherent of the first, there is a division entirely due to the challenge it creates.

Contributors to the organization invest their confidence in the NHAF for its capacity to identify great artists, and this confidence reflected as donations funds the economic lifelines that helps individual artists. However, if this confidence falls, which results in contributors subtracting their donations to the fund, then the organization’s capacity to sustain these economic lifelines will likewise fall, which will harm the individual artist and restore their dependence on other labor. This is a risk that is acknowledged.

I expect contributors to adjust their involvement depending on the artists picked, which to me serves as a way for funders to signal their satisfaction with the work of the NHAF. After all, the definition of great art is subjective. However, I also expect a gentleman’s understanding that existing artists on the lifelines are to be supported, with any alterations to funding based on exclusively the new picks. I believe this can be competently reflected with a properly developed system, where contributors can change the allocation going to new artists while being locked into a grandfathered rate for previously registered artists.

Principles of exclusion

I choose to exclude art on these principles:

• Is the art pornographic or invoking of eroticism?
• Is the art violent or overbearingly visceral?
• Is the art activist?
• Is the art controversial?

All of these are purposefully vague and subjective as to allow a great breadth of factors, which may change at any given time. It does not mean that erotic, violent, activist, or controversial art cannot be great, but rather that it is not NHAF’s mandate to support these categories of art, and is better reserved to other institutions that possess a more focal understanding of them.

Activist art may be equally interpreted as political art. The term political art in itself has been the subject of controversy over its use in the rejection of some categories of art, with some believing that all art is political. While art is politically informed by the times and circumstances it birthed from, artists can choose not to express politics in their art, which forms apolitical art. The NHAF rejects activist art equipped with this understanding of the term.

Art that isn’t controversial doesn’t exist. Art that is minimizing of controversy, however, does exist. Even these will prove controversial to some, but it is to be treated as a rounding error in the process of finding great art. I will try my best to invest in artists who do not go out of their way to offend, all while keeping it interesting since some degree of controversy may be necessary for art to be great.

An unwritten but obvious rule given the purpose of the NHAF is that pictures created from generative artificial intelligence and automated creative tooling are not applicable and will not be considered great art, even if they can look aesthetic and have a purpose.

Legal

The fund currently exists as me, but will eventually exist as its own non-profit. I do not think it will be possible to register this fund as a charitable organization, at least not in Canada, but it can exist as a non-profit and that should be sufficient for our purposes. The process of legal registration will also involve the production of a charter which will regulate the processes of the NHAF and formally define its rules, which are only broadly defined here.

That said, the fund still does its work without legal registration. For the moment, donations will come from me personally but under the mantle of the NHAF. Of course, until it receives registration, the fund won’t accept third party donations from contributors. I still have to implement the contributor account system and the other things which will make the NHAF operational as an organization.