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Most creatives come from money. It's not about talent, its about social networks to sites of influence built through private school/elite education, its your family's financial support in early years so you can afford to intern & its your psychological confidence in those spaces.
I was more than 10yrs into making docs for a living before I realize most peers in documentary didn't actually need the money.
Creativity is about making meaning of the world, which is storytelling and it is an expression of our humanity that defines it. When it is monopolized by those who are wealthy/white/cis-gendered, etc.then the rest of us are narrated as marginal.
this is why the arts, the most powerful tool for social change, keeps getting co-opted/appropriated and neutralized. those of us who will remake the world use art as a hammer, a glue and a fuse.
If you want stats, Borowiecki's 2019 study of US census data from 1850-2010, for every $100K in family income, you are 2% more likely to pursue a job in creative sector, if you family networth is $1M, you are 10% more likely.
But I like the anecdotal, because i'm a storyteller. I met my first kids of millionaires when i started teaching documentary grad classes.
So why do rich people like making art so much? Because it's a form of internal & external power. It gives meaning to your life, you accrue social status, your humanity is affirmed & it is a form of mythmaking that validates your exceptionalism. And it is a form of social control
For the oppressed, art is a tool for liberation. We cannot live without art, but for too many of us, we are forced to endure their art.
fwiw, i think all ppl are artists and living is art. But if you want social change, get art into the hands of people who know what to do with it
