In 1929, Virginia Woolfe wrote that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." When she penned this, Ms. Woolf was resisting a system that tried to tell her what she could be, and she was offering a clear, pragmatic goal for others in her position. The particular fascism that she faced was patriarchal. However, her message speaks to anyone honestly engaged in the rare act of trying to be an individual - anyone attempting some true, good work in a largely disinterested world.
The need and vindication of the true artist arises internally. In the end, no one else can tell the artist what work she must do, nor when it is done. Woolf naturally understands this and so does not to speak to any artistic objective: she knows that if the reader is hungry enough for her advice, this question will already be within her hands. No, Ms. Woolf’s dicta is simply a clear, logistical message from an artist who wanted to help us acquire and maintain a freedom that she herself found so precious and necessary. Independence is the only path to artistic integrity.
RIP AVW 032841
