why patronage?

my main point is to encourage leaders to challenge the rich amongst us to become patrons… artists themselves cannot do it, because it will always sound like begging…
i believe that the church has a responsibility towards the nurture of artists… it should not be optional.
an irritation of mine is that as an artist you are expected to be good at making money… this is not the case for a nurse, a doctor, a teacher, so why an artist? the only reason this can possibly be, is that we simply do not value the role of the artist… do we even understand the point of the artist anymore? if we don’t, then what a poor and dowdy lot we have all become, with few ways of saying anything meaningful to the world at large. this is a serious issue.