More artists move in, and sooner or later one of the travel magazines or art publications writes the town up, naming it an art colony. So still more people hear about the place, including the above mentioned pseudo-artists and the hangers-on. And the town begins to fill. Where formerly you could rent a little cabin for possibly $200 a month, there is a housing shortage and rents double. Where formerly you could buy a jug of red wine (in the west) or applejack (in the east) for five dollars or so from one of the local citizens, now a liquor store goes up. Where formerly there was a little local tavern where you sat around in the evenings having a beer or two, a flashy nightclub and two or three neon-lit bars complete with juke-boxes, take over. Where formerly you got your milk and butter, a bushel of potatoes and an occasional chicken, from one of the local farmers, now somebody opens a supermarket and it becomes the only place you can buy food.
Before you know it, the town is booming. Souvenir shops arise, swank hotels go up, the local beanery is expanded into a garish restaurant with high prices and a French chef.
I've seen this happen more than once. Greenwich Village, in New York City, is far from cheap any more and you have to really dig around to find a real artist there. Woodstock, up in the Cats-kills, is another example—a far cry from the days when Harvey White and his friends first started it. Taos, New Mexico, once the bargain paradise so loved by D. H. Lawrence, is now in the way of becoming a tourist trap, although it's still not too bad if you get out of town a ways. There are many other examples of art colonies that have gone to seed. The Vieux Carre in New Orleans, the beloved French Quarter, once the cheapest part of town and by far the most picturesque, is now a combination of honky tonks, tourist traps, and souvenir stores. And, above all, it's become so expensive that few artists can afford to live there.
Laguna Beach and Carmel, in California; Provincetown on Cape Cod in Massachusetts; Boothbay Harbor, Maine; all in their time were ultra-economical beauty spots that attracted the artists by droves. And now they're prohibitively expensive tourist centers, the streets full of gawking visitors hoping to catch sight of a "real Bohemian," whatever that is.
But the artist has a defense against all this. He can always move