I have a wide definition of “art”. Also, I think many of us do care, and those who don’t care perhaps should ask themselves more often why they find themselves appreciating something and not something else.
> We don't value artists they struggle financially and most do contract work and not their art.
True, but I also know artists who earned money from commissions. Unfortunately, I also know business owners who would commission such works previously but now would rather pay $5 to a big corporation for an image to be generated. Considering those models are based exactly on tons of those underpaid artists’ work, scraped without consent and licensing, it’s not a very great look.
People pay for art, not always with money but always with priceless intangibles like admiration and recognition. In fact, these intangibles can even be mutually exclusive with money. That is why some artists would rather be poor than “sell out”.
A situation where you can make a living from art but maintain the original spirit that motivated you to do art has been pretty rare. Many would keep a dayjob or some business while doing art on the side, for example, or have patrons or a community of some kind that partly subsidizes their life.
And do we all actually care that much? No otherwise it would not be a breadless job.
We don't value artists they struggle financially and most do contract work and not their art.