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Chapter 6 - America's Art Colonies

THE art colony is an interesting institution peculiar not only to the United States. In fact, you find them even more often in Mexico and Europe, and for all I know all over the world where there are artists. Since retiring from the grind, I have personally lived in such art colonies in America, Mexico, Spain, Italy and Morocco. And always I've found stimulating qualities in both the towns and their populations.
When I say artist, I don't, of course, mean just painters. Your art colonies will attract the practitioners of every art in the book— and some not in the book. There will be painters, sculptors, writers, composers, actors, photographers, musicians, handicraft practitioners and what not. Above all there will be large numbers of pseudo-artists who do a great deal of talking, cocktail in hand, about painting or writing, or whatever, but very little real work. And then there will be even larger numbers of folk who like to hang around artists and consider themselves intellectuals, whatever that means.
But in spite of the large number of phonies to be found in the average art colony they still have their fascination. Usually there is an art school or two, in case you are interested yourself seriously or just as a hobby, and always there are the stimulating conversations, the strange new ideas, the heated arguments, the striving for expression.
Why and what is an art colony? Well, it usually goes something like this. An artist, or group of artists, finds some cheap place in which to live, trying to locate it in a spot of scenic beauty and preferably where the weather is good. The economical part of it is a prime necessity since artists seem almost always to be short of money. Having located such a place, they write their friends and in one way and another the word gets around. Here is a beauty spot, here are other artists with whom to associate, here one can get a little cabin and work at one's art very well indeed on very little money.