Creative Poverty Notes and Tally

Fun Messy Dreadful Ron 2025. Oil on paper, 22 x 30"

I expect in the near future to begin writing a small volume on my experiment with creative poverty. I believe it to be an effective non-violent approach to active rebellion, and when practiced sincerely, is tremendously life-generating. I know that if it ever caught on among the general population, the current regime and its empire would die from malnourishment. This is why I have long hoped for economic depression—one that is lasting and severe enough to render a corrupt central government obsolete, and also get us darning socks and sharing seeds again. Dissolve power by not buying in. “Tune on, tune in, drop out”, Oh, and also get poor asap. During COVID it was a joy to observe government incompetency. So wonderfully lame. Even with trillions invested, it couldn’t provide masks for its tax-payers. Lots of bombs and destroyers, just not any masks, toilet paper or cat food. A funny little big government pretending it had real power. I congratulate the postman for mail delivered on time. My whole life long, he or she has been the only visible representative of the federal nightmare that has overtaken my dreams.

I began the project to protest U.S. terrorism and support of genocide in Palestine. I thought that horror would come to an end long before the year was behind us. I lived each day in frugal expectation, unless I was on holiday to London and Boston, or celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, pretending we could take a break from genocide to enjoy semi-Haute cuisine and fancy cocktails. Take those trips away and I would have had success at being poor. It felt very good scraping by. Of course, unlike real poverty, I enjoyed the always-present buffer of a wife with a steady income, who provides “health” insurance and a competent bank account for both my fickle wants and dire emergencies. Poverty without stress, just challenge. Although I paid rent like any poor boy must, it was to a landlord who loves me, providing a bed and bath that was clean and cockroach free. I paid a monthly rent plus utilities (gas, electric, water, wi-fi, smartphone, Netflix). I was able to offset a higher rent by taking on several heavy and many light-duty chores throughout the year. I charged myself $10.25 for each car ride in the city of Oswego, and calculated (by distance) for any rides outside city limits. For example, a drive to Clay to visit my mother and sister cost $15.50, one way. Suffice it to say, I walked more often to in-town social events, for shopping, and stepping out to dinner with Rose when I could afford to.

To reiterate, this was performance art of making creative poverty, which I believe is no poverty at all. Far from it. It was a symbolic gesture and a teaching moment to all and sundry, a reminder that the strangle hold of brute power can be released with minimal effort and easy non-violence. Just take away its funding! Any money I made under the table (especially paintings sold and the nickels and dimes collected in social media cryptocurrency), I subtracted from my expenses. This was a project to stay below the U.S. poverty line ($15,000/year) in its eyes only. My intention was to live as large as I could by hiding the money from a rogue government, and its monumental extortion used to back stupid (and illegal) violence all over the world, especially in Palestine.

I was meticulous in accounting for all of my expenses. Rose and I split the cost of only those groceries we shared (ex., bag of rice, soap, toilet paper), and I paid in full for my own beer. I was thrilled at week’s end if I kept my life’s accounting under $300. That was the number to remain below of if I was to complete the year in symbolic solidarity with the true sufferers of U.S. empire.

I learned that, for poverty to thrive, car travel and domestic pets should be avoided. Gas, wear and repair for car (local and state travel) and care for the cat (food, litter, vet) were about $2,500. However, the love and comfort shared with Soxy was priceless. It would be a tough love, though useful to the project, to train her (or the next cat) to use the toilet and eat meals with us, and also avoid the doctor’s office like a cat plague. The car is necessary for better romancing, no doubt, but creative poverty isn’t for single people unable to experience daily renewal with a life partner. Being poor alone is no pleasure ride. Scrapping the car could work for those lovers passionately opposed to genocide. However, I would suggest that single men and women keep it as a tool to seek companionship.

Other expenses that could not be sustained were the obvious ones: travel to London and Boston. The creative poor should not expect to move about like millionaires, no matter how enticing Expedia® propaganda is. Yet again, part of life would be taken away without a door open to travel. I would have been denied the once in a lifetime chance to meet up with other artists in the Stuckist movement. This is where creative profits offset expenses that normally could not be afforded. I received a grant in March, 2024, that paid me $1,100 to write a book, and I had two exhibitions that sold enough paintings to offset expenses for my London and Boston trips. Our 25th wedding anniversary was in August, and I had already resigned any hopes of keeping on budget for the second half of the project. From January to June, I spent $7,148.10, which was right on track toward a year of creative poverty. But I knew the challenges that lay ahead, and decided to spend the remaining half of year in normal fashion. That is, be frugal, but carry on without austerity. I still accounted for every penny, though now I could do whatever I wanted to without impediment. I found that to keep me running for a “normal” week, expenses ran between $400-$500. Taken conservatively for a year, I believe I could live quite richly with an annual salary of 25,000 untaxed dollars. Of course Rose’s health insurance would raise the odds that I didn’t die in September from the severely infected bug scratch on my left foot. Cheap, unworried access to the doctor saved my life. I’m not too worried about the future of health insurance. A couple more pick offs of insurance CEOs will elevate the U.S. population to that level of health care enjoyed by Italians and Batswana. It’s only a matter of time.

Total expenses for the second half of the year were $12,061.37. From July 1 to December 31, I went nearly $5,000 over budget. I spent more than normal during the holidays. It’s hard to be frugal when a consumer society judges your worth by how much you worry (or not) about income.

I can offer this advice to those feeling cheated by their government:

Cheat back.

The more cheaters we get, the closer we come to a localized, partial gift economy. The closer to the latter, and we might joyfully witness the demise of a stupidly violent empire. I enjoyed the process so thoroughly that I intend to attempt another year. And this time with lasting determination. I want to finish the year below the U.S. poverty line. As I’ve already mentioned, in 2025, I will offer my art at no cost to any one interested. It will set me back some because now I will not be able to offset my meager spending with meager art profits. One may donate to the cause and be rest assured that I will hide it from the IRS while maintaining a lifestyle to obtain the goal of creative poverty.

If there are friends and family reading this, I hope that they understand where I am coming from. I won’t always be able to participate in reindeer games, no matter how much fun they have in store. I can do trivia, some nights, if I walk to the bar and nurse a beer. I love house parties because I can scarf up some calories without being noticed. I promise to host my own parties again when you join me in creative poverty. I just want you to know how deeply I believe that each dollar I avoid spending is some microscopic slice of organ tissue left remaining on a Palestinian baby, and also a tiny step toward the destruction of this truly degenerate empire.

Let’s leave with Thoreau, my creatively poor blood cousin:

In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

And:

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely…