Marshall Crenshaw made a live recording a few years back called, "I've Suffered For My Art...Now It's Your Turn" to which I say, exactly.
Had a chance to see Chantal Akerman: Moving through Time and Space on the last day at MIT's List Visual Arts Center and it was really amazing. It was five film/video projects that she produced over two decades. A couple were just single projections of films and three were rooms with installations using numerous video monitors. I particularly liked 'Sud' (South) which was a film that dealt the death of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas in 1996. He was an African-American man who was taken by three white men, tied to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged to death. Akerman's film has interviews with whites and blacks and then proceeds to show the three miles of road Byrd was dragged on. The shot is from the back of a vehicle and allows the viewer to imagine the horror Byrd went through as he was dragged to his death. It is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. A portrait of violence like no other.
I also finished James Lord's 'A Giacometti Portrait'. In it Giacometti refers to things that he's working on as being 'en route'. I really liked that idea. The feeling that while we are working on something and it isn't finished, it's 'en route'. It sure feels better than, 'I started this thing and actually have NO idea where it's headed'. It also reminded me, unfortunately, of something George W. Bush said to Tony Blair. He once commented to Blair that 'the problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur'. The scary thing was that he wasn't kidding. I wonder if they have a word for hors d'oeuvre or cul-de-sac?