writing and the MFA

Are you an artist? Do you claim that word? Do you actively avoid it?
Do you think about the difference between art and craft and art and food and art and life? Do you miss photography before everyone became a photographer? Do you remember what paint smells like? Or old books?

How do you make your living? Are you doing something you love, or something you always wanted to do? Are you doing what comes easy to you? If you are working for money do you dream of a different life, where you can do something rewarding if not financially so? If you are poor do you dream about shucking it all away and making piles upon piles of money, somehow, someday?

How do you support yourself and are you doing a good job at it? How do you continue to make art when you no longer have a community for it? When society has no great need to consume it?

This week over at the Fringe blog I have some suggestions for newly-minted MFA holders (otherwise known as The Useless Degree). Pop over and add some suggestions of your own?