"It's Only a Hobby"

We all know the cliché of the recipient of a prestigious award in the arts tearfully thanking everyone they have ever met in their life for their "support."

This is, of course, likely to be pure (to use a less fitting but more polite word than the one I originally had in mind) nonsense.

The reality is that the artiste (as Balzac and London," who both knew what they were talking about, each make clear) is unlikely to find support even among their nearest and dearest, who will not understand the need of an artist to create, or his way of fulfilling it. In London's Martin Eden the protagonist's sister was, if incapable of comprehending it, at least sympathetic to Eden, but her husband, Eden's vulgar oaf of a brother-in-law, was not, never missing a chance to sneer.

One of the clichés of such sneering is that what the artist does is "only a hobby."

To anyone who has sweated and sacrificed for their career such remark is insulting in the extreme--and obtuse as they are the speaker not only likely to know this, but delight in saying so.

Perhaps even after suffering all that it is easy to be gracious in the moment in which one is handed a reward.

But that should never make us forget the reality--especially for the far, far greater number of people for whom the prospect of any such awards night is remote in the extreme.