Archive for the ‘Creative Careers’ Category

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Let’s Level the Playing Field By Ruining Everyone’s Chances

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Sometimes I am so baffled by new legislation and the arts.

Via Arts Admin via Createquity…

Getting a degree in arts administration is expensive, and that has an impact on who is financially able to pursue the degree. Does the prevalence of unpaid internships exacerbate the issue? Via Createquity*, the Guardian says that a report by the UK’s Arts Group

… has called the large number of unpaid jobs in the creative sector “exploitation” and is calling for legislation to regulate the use of unpaid internships by arts organisations, suggesting that all placements over a month should be paid the national minimum wage.

As someone who had chosen to work for free in order to gain valuable experience and is not a trust fund baby, I can assure you I am perfectly capable of deciding whether and when I am being so-called exploited or not. Certainly if I have decided to volunteer my time and services to an activity I feel will benefit me in the long run, or if I’m simply feeling altruistic – I should be allowed to do so and organizations should be allowed to offer such opportunities in abundance as long as there are takers!

Legislation does not need to “fix” what simple economics has been capable of solving since the dawn of time: supply and demand. Clearly there is ample supply of free workers as well as work for them to do. I must be missing the handcuffs in this equation.

Furthermore, the additional perks of working at arts organizations, for free or paid – are numerous! In college, while I had a paid (state subsidized) internship with an arts organization – I had access to incredibly valuable networking opportunities, social and educational events, not to mention incredible performing arts programming almost every day of the organization’s season! I would have done this work for free.

As I commented on Michael Rushton’s blog,

I can’t imagine what forcing arts organizations to pay minimum wage will do other than dramatically decrease the availability and duration of internships.

The idea is so comical and detrimental to the arts I have a hard time believing something like this would pass. But satire is dead, and I’m shocked on a daily basis by the things people will allow governments to do to routinely erode their freedom of choice – even when it comes to volunteerism!

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Posted in Capitalism, Creative Careers, Economics, Relevant Blogs | 10 Comments »

A Scathing Admonition for The Artist

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

I was delighted today to come across this lively, and at times, painfully honest speech given by Ismail Mahomed of South Africa’s National Arts Festival. I recommend reading Arts Entrepreneurship Can Smash the Begging Bowl it in its entirety. He begins,

When for far too long we have attributed the term “artist” to an individual or organisation that holds a paintbrush in one hand and a begging bowl in the other hand, is it possible to associate the term “artist” with the now much brandished about term “economic development”?

Mahomed is adamant that individual artists are obligated to change this stereotype, that is, if they expect to make a living and to be taken seriously,

How much of this can be attributed to the fact that the artists have often define themselves in the ways which serve to entrench their un-employability and their positions of poverty? Take a walk down Commissioner Street in Johannesburg and ask any entrepreneur what he or she does. The answer will be clear and unambiguous. “I am a banker” or “I sell insurance” or “I am a lawyer”, “Here is my business card”.

Conversely, walk around the Newtown precinct and ask any artist what work he or she does and you are likely to receive an answer such as, “Eish! I am an artist. Sometimes, I sing. Sometimes, I dance. Sometimes, I act. But eish! It’s tough so I try to do anything.”

Often, the “I can do anything” doesn’t reinforce the versatility of the artist. In fact, the message that it conveys is that the artist is a Jack of all trades and a master of none. In an environment where there is a shortage of resources for the making of art; and where there is a competition for the limited resources, the artist can no longer afford to be complacent about his or her career.

I have had the honor of knowing or meeting many working artists (meaning they make their entire living from the arts). They all have one thing in common: keen business sense and artistic direction. Without naming names, many times these people are not always the most talented, and in fact, they are quite amused to tell you this. A famous composer I once met told me about how there were so many more students more talented than he, but he simply worked harder than any of them and has had a wildly successful career as a composer.

Mahomed’s example reminds me of when I was once criticized for not being a “real artist” because I had little experience begging on the street corners of New York City for people to come see my Off-Off-Broadway show. Now, that strikes me as a peculiar qualifier. I would hope that an artist can be defined by a combination of talent and marketability, whether on the streets of New York, or here in Detroit.

Another “real artist” I once met became very annoyed when I asked him “what kind of music he composes.” He looked extremely put out, and then, as if doing me some kind of favor, gave a speech about the ineffable in art and how his music is beyond definition. Wow. Maybe that kind of bumptious discourse lands him oodles of commissioned work, but my guess is that it does not.

Knowing that these people exemplify the commonly accepted definitions of “real artists,” I’m more than happy to be excluded from their company. Yes, perhaps I am a bit more career-oriented than most “artists,” and perhaps I don’t have a career that most “artists” would call “real art-making,” but that is no matter to me. What I do know is that a “real artist” can and should sell his work and make a living at it.

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Posted in Creative Careers, Fundraising | 2 Comments »

Audience vs. Artist

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Bill Eddins, Conductor

Bill Eddins, Conductor


In a post on the classical music career blog Sticks and Drones, symphony conductor Bill Eddins reflected on the paradox inherent in being creative as a career choice. Even the description “being creative” is so wildly open to interpretation (it seems to me) that artists and their audiences may experience a gap in terms of truly understanding what the role of the artist is.

Eddins puts forward that professional artists (specifically, those who make most of their living from a creative skill) may lose sight of the “magic” of creativity and offering their work to audiences. He says,

We all know that classical music faces some fundamental problems in the world today, and we are all very good at pointing the finger at various aspects of the business.  But there may be a more fundamental problem – us.

He goes on to say that professional artists, in this case, musicians, become myopic. Spending hours practicing their instrument or studying scores and only conversing with other serious musicians creates an atmosphere of intense musical scrutiny. As a result, what may be an enjoyable and uncomplicated symphony program for audiences may be looked at as tedious and uninspired to the players themselves. This is clearly not a good way to do business.

Think of every tidbit of business advice you’ve ever gotten. Doesn’t “Have passion for what you do” rank somewhere at the top? The paradox for the classical musician lies in the fact that because he is involved in the business of entertaining and educating, he is subject to the whims and desires of the audience. He is simultaneously grateful someone is willing to listen to his craft and resentful he must play a few crowd-pleasers to get them in the door.

Eddins points out,

Too often the prevailing attitude amongst musicians is one of gloom, despair, and a hidden intense disliking of our profession.  It is almost as if we have forgotten how lucky we are to do what we do.  Three hundred years ago our ancient colleagues did all sorts of crazy things besides music.  They were footmen, or they mucked out the barns, perhaps labored all day at some physically demanding job.  We have come a very long way from those times and we should be thankful for it.

He goes on,

I think what I’m trying to get at here is that the specialization of music and musicians has had some unintended consequences and perhaps we should reconsider the path our profession is on.  Is the whole conservatory movement a good thing?  Juilliard, Eastman, Curtis, etc., are they helping our hurting?  Sure, the graduates can play, but what do they know of the real world?  Or just as importantly, what does the real world know of them? They’ve already been separated from their age groups by going to specialized institutions.  Is that a good thing?

I have to admit, it is precisely because of what Eddins describes that I decided to leave a career path dedicated solely to becoming a professional vocalist and trying to get into a conservatory for a Master’s degree. After I graduated with my Bachelor’s and did a bit of legwork to find out what “real” musicians did for a living, distinct from the fun and games I experienced taking classes in school. I realized I wasn’t too thrilled about their careers or lifestyles.

I met a lovely woman whose bread and butter was singing Mozart’s Queen of the Night. This sounds great, right? Well, to me I thought the idea of singing The Queen, night after night, on stage after stage for 30+ years sounded just as banal as some desk job. In fact, I promptly got myself a desk job, since at least the competition was less fierce and the income stream more steady. It seems I am just like the musicians Eddins describes, but I could read the writing on the wall long before I dedicated myself to a performance-only career path and did audiences the service of bowing out. I find much more enjoyment out of performing the things I want, when I want, and this way (I hope) my performances remain fresh and inspired.

I am thrilled Eddins’ is pointing to multiple, complex, issues in classical music requiring problem-solving and soul-searching among creative professionals. Perhaps those seeking a creative career will finally understand the will of the audience must come first about 80% of the time and personal creative expression is perhaps only 20% of the job, and those who are not comfortable with that will choose another career. However, perhaps audiences will realize that the “magic” of being creative is not magic at all, but hours of toil, practice, and research – creative muck-raking, if you will. No creative professional rolled out of bed, inspired and creatively perfected. Their needs to be appreciated for their uniqueness is just as great as that young girl with the desk job. To them, playing a well-received Beethoven symphony is rewarding – but it’s been done so many times, they yearn for something else.

Eddins is on to something. I will have to keep mining this topic for clarity and insight, and I know this is just scraping the surface.

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Posted in Art, Creative Careers, Creative Living, Creativity, Work/Life Balance | No Comments »

Arts Funding Woes and Solutions?

Monday, November 30th, 2009

A recent blog post at the blog Arts Admin by Michael Rushton (the director of the Arts Administration programs at Indiana University at Bloomington) talks about scarcity in the arts market,

It’s a struggle to run a nonprofit performing arts organization and stay in the black. That goes for theatre companies as well as performing arts centres. Given the demand for theatre performances, and opportunities for fund-raising for theatre companies, there is only so much money to go around.

Through this long newspaper story, the only clear take-away is that a coalition of arts groups wants more of that scarce pool of money in their accounts, and less in the BAAC’s. And the BAAC doesn’t agree. Not a surprising conflict, and each side is trying to make their case publicly.

So, let’s turn to policy – how should rental prices be set?

Performing space is a scarce resource that costs money to provide. It is not clear to me, and is not made clear anywhere in this long article, why one arts organization ought to provide it at well-below cost to other organizations.

I commented that I have often wondered why more organizations don’t consider consolidating their operations as a way to take advantage of economies of scale, thereby sharing/cutting costs and increasing profits. This kind of talk is usually considered pretty dirty in the arts world. Collaboration, in particular for profit motive, can be seen as tainting the original goal, or perhaps the soul of the original work. Collaboration may require an expanded mission or re-thinking a season’s shows or a gallery’s offerings. However, I would argue this is likely seen more in individual artists or smaller arts organizations, where their focus many be a narrow niche.

I’m of the opposite mind. I believe that collaboration (and thereby, increased dissemination of art) enhances, strengthens, and preserves art.

The Financial Times recently discussed this issue as well,

One of the biggest operatic successes on the London stage in recent years has been the production of Madam Butterfly by the film director Anthony Minghella at English National Opera.

But the critically acclaimed show might never have made it to the stage had it not been for the company’s ground-breaking partnership with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which enabled it to share production costs.

John Berry, artistic director of ENO, says the company’s emphasis on artistic collaboration over the past three years has enabled it to achieve its target of mounting up to 12 new productions a year. “The amount of public funding is simply not enough to sustain the amount of new work we are creating…What is important is that [the collaborations] are artistically driven. They don’t dilute the product; they strengthen it.”

I believe many artists fear sharing or opening their work to collaboration with other people/groups/countries/ethnicities because they feel there is something so special about what they are doing, that they and only they can preserve it.

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Posted in Art, Capitalism, Creative Careers, Economics, Fundraising | No Comments »

Spread the Wealth for Artists Series: Take 4

Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Carlos Miceli - Blogger, Argentinian, Lover of Hats

Carlos Miceli - Blogger, Argentinian, Lover of Hats

Blogger Carlos Miceli of OwlSparks offered to lend his thoughts to the question and problem of why artists are poor. Carlos describes himself as an Argentinian, Questioner of Things, and Hat Lover, which I think is kind of fun. Anyone who loves hats is onto something in my opinion. Carlos took my original questions, which you can see in previous posts, Take 1, Take 2, and Take 3, and did his own spin on the topic.

“Why Artists Are Having Trouble Making Money” by Carlos Miceli

I see five reasons why artists are having trouble making money nowadays. In increasing order of importance:

1) We like our ideas. People don’t know how to be objective with them, just as they don’t know how to be objective with their children. We breed them, and there is pride involved. There’s a lot of breeding and  idea loving in the art industry.

2) Going from idea to reality is as easy as it gets. Execution is everything in this business, and so most ideas get to be products. There’s a much less strict filter compared to the corporate world for example (where the filter is too strict). The problem is too much mediocrity gets out (as opposed to the corporate world where more ideas should see the light even if they fail). Artists consider money too lightly, business people too seriously.

3) Inherent subjectivity. Art is subjective by definition. Nothing is plain good or bad, the popular society’s concept of something’s value depending on who’s watching hits the extreme when it comes to art. The result is a very segmented industry. With so many segments with little audience, it’s hard to make enough money.

The greatest artists in history can claim that title either because they were appreciated by masses in their own time, or because they started trends and were appreciated by masses who lived after they were gone. To make money, enough people need to be willing to pay for what you do. Being edgy may make you money too late.

4) Lack of business concepts. Although this is changing, it’s not changing fast enough. Artists need to stop believing that being good and original is all that matters. If they are selling what they do, they need to think like salesmen. They need to understand the market and play by its rules, or even better, break its rules.

5) Shifting of art preferences. Depending on which field of art you focus on, you will have more or less chances of thriving. Music, movies and literature are the leading arts right now. You will probably do better in these fields that in architecture, sculpture, painting, etc. Accepting this market reality is absolutely important to know what to expect, and the risk-reward ratio of each different choice.

Artists should embrace what they can’t change and focus on what they can. There’s a lot of potential to make money in the art industry, but it takes time and will to learn how to do it.

Posted in Art, Creative Careers, Creativity | 6 Comments »

Spread the Wealth for Artists Series: Take 3

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

This week’s contribution is by blogger and international economist Vicki Boykis (@vboykis), whose self-descriptive tagline reads: “Snark. Economics. Post-Soviet. Jewesque.” She was kind enough to add her thoughts to this series.

Vicki Boykis - International Trade Analyst, Blogger

Vicki Boykis - International Trade Analyst, Blogger

1. Why Are Artists Poor? (a great question, and the title of a book by economist Hans Abbing)

a. Why are so many people who pursue “art” for a living poor, or simply unable to lead a stable financial life?

There are several answers to this question, from my experience as a part-time freelance writer with a steady daytime economist gig.

The first is that writers and other artists are not in demand. That is, literature, writing, analysis, etc. is important as part of humanity, but it is not as an essential need as healthcare, food, water, transportation, etc. So, from an economic perspective, the elasticity for art is very high.

The second is that there is an oversaturation of supply of artists in the marketplace. Many people (myself included) feel a pull to create. Not as many feel the pull to astrophysics or, say, dentistry, which is why artists often have trouble leading a stable financial life.

b. What do you think is the greatest roadblock to artists being able to make a steady living in their craft? Do they trap themselves into thinking financial success=selling out?

The greatest roadblock is the inherent nature of the artist, which lies in inspiration. How many allegorical stories have we heard of the artist not being able to create unless he was inspired? In fact, I just read an interview today with Alasdair Gray (who I’ve never heard of, by the way,) who said that he did his best writing when he was in the end of a miserable first marriage.He says, ” I was writing various chapters of Lanark throughout that time and what I can remember is that near the end of the marriage, I could only relax by describing the horrible state of the city of Unthank and the institution under it. Because what I suffered…”and went on to write a remarkable series. Often, us artists think that we can only paint after a surrealist dream or sing after listening to Susan Boyle or write after having a delicious jar of Nutella and thinking we want to describe the creamy hazely goodness for an audience.

Steady living involves something else entirely: having your nose to the grindstone. So, often, this involves writing copy or affiliate marketing articles or constantly pimping out your writing on Twitter, which creates the selling out feeling that many artists sneer at, equated with a steady living. You don’t need to “be in the mood” to add up an Excel sheet. You do to write the Inferno. In fact, that’s why the patronage system was so awesome. You could pretty much just sit around in your 12th cenutry boxers, go to Ye Olde Starbuckes at noon and crank out The Sun Rising whenever you felt like it. So yes, artists do trick themselves into this model these days, and if anyone is coincidentally intersted in patronaging a plucky economist, please contact me asap.

2. A recent article “Chinese Graduates Increasingly Drawn to the Arts” highlights a significant shift in Chinese culture and art.

a. Based on what you’ve read, what is your opinion of the recent surge of contemporary art in China? What has allowed this to happen?

The less a society is merely trying to survive, the more arts, which are, as I wrote above not necessities, evolving. Something I think about is China as that island in Lost. I pretty much have no idea what goes on in that show, but my husband watches it on Hulu in the same room I have my computer, which means I’m doomed to watching it. I remember seeing some sort of doctor in it, and he was pretty much hot stuff the first couple episodes because everyone kept coming down with some kind of plague or having babies or what have you. No one needs artists in the basic stages of society, which is what China was going through as it struggled to recover from the Great Leap Forward and into an industrial society. Now that things are going much better, its economy is growing exponentially, there is more focus on the more refined aspects of culture, expressed in art.

3. Property rights are a hallmark of a free society. How do property rights affect an artist’s ability to make a living? How can we balance the freedoms of globalization and technology and protecting artist interests online?

a. Is “crowd-sourcing” killing the individual artist?

If you’re talking about things like taking ideas from social media, I would say yes and no. Perfect example of how it has? Saving Face, a chick-lit novel written in real-time and with help from Facebook and Twitter by Dahlia Lithwick. She basically wrote a chapter a day and asked for input on legal terminology, mom terminology, and writing from Facebook fans and on Twitter. I helped out, along with hundreds of other people. Did her novel turn out great? Yeah. But she couldn’t have done it if she didn’t have the legal background on her own and writing talent to boot. So I’d say there are two sides to the coin.

b. How has creative commons changed art, music, and social media?

TONS. Just speaking from my own experience, it allows me to remix things on my website that I would never have been able to before. For example, I make a comic out of creative commons pictures based on current events. I would never have been able to desecrate great photographs in the same way before. At the same time, many great works are still not remixed. So, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in earlier contributions to the series: read Take 1 and Take 2 as well!

Posted in Creative Careers, Creativity, Economics, Technology, Work/Life Balance | 1 Comment »

Learn from Girl Talk’s Pay-As-You-Like Strategy

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

I may be late to this party, but DJ Gregg Gillis has me laughing, dancing, and marveling at the same time. I’ve been a huge fan of mash-ups ever since I got my first Best of Bootie remix from my sister, but Girl Talk takes it to a new level.

A recent article in the Kentucky Kernel, Music mash-up DJ Girl Talk creates art amid controversy, comments perfectly on the Girl Talk phenomenon,

“He’s definitely electronica,” said WRFL General Manager Ainsley Wagoner, an interior design senior. “He plays to the Twitter generation. He condenses dance tracks into just the hooks.”

Describing one of his albums,

It bangs as a continuous mix packed with wildly disparate Top 40 genres and eras. Current hip hop hits, soft rock radio standards, party classics, grunge masterpieces, R&B singles, glossy club-shakers, and rock anthems are all layered and pieced meticulously together into one non-stop celebration of pop and excess. Only Girl Talk’s magical touch could please both dance-crazed teenage masses and mashup geeks with equal love. Mark Hosler of Negativland has declared it “a plunderphonics party record.”

It’s true, I will wager if you are at all into pop music, you will immediately love any and all tracks from Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals, despite its electronica label. And, while the music and video mash-ups are cute, it’s the economics of his schtick that intrigues me. His album is selling pay-as-you-like off his website.

But does it pay the bills?

I’m going to guess his sponsorship by KIA Motors says yes. But to be clear, giving your stuff away as your only artist marketing strategy is putting the cart before the horse. Really, watching the cart roll down a hill, if you do not have the audience development skills Girl Talk has been cultivating for years. At this point, giving away his CD is part goodwill (which, if you are familiar with corporate finance, has an intangible value and gets its own line-item on a balance sheet), and part “traditional” profit.

So, Girl Talk shows he works his ass off (literally: he strips for many of his college shows) and whether or not you like his musical taste, his mash-ups really are remarkable, not just for content, but because of the nature of the content. Mash-ups are, by definition, stolen material, so Gillis plays the edge of copyright and supposedly pisses off the artists he samples. But you have to think that what’s good for Gillis is good for Kanye, (whose Flashing Lights I just YouTubed, inspired by a GT Mash-up) the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and even Avril Lavigne.

Gillis contends his music is protected by the fair use doctrine on the grounds that the amount of material he pulls from each song is not large enough to constitute copyright infringement.

The fair use doctrine contains four main pillars, and Gillis must be able to argue that he is protected against the other three to be safe from lawsuit. Courts take into account whether the infringing work is being used for profit, the nature and content of the infringing work, and the effect on the market value of the copyrighted work.

Gillis’ argument has the edge in the legal community, and he has yet to be the target of a copyright lawsuit. Peter Friedman, a University of Detroit Mercy Law School professor, said in a July 2009 article on the Web site techdirt.com that he would advise the RIAA not to sue Gillis.

“Gillis’ argument that he has transformed the copyrighted materials sufficiently that his work constitutes non-infringing fair use is just too good,” Friedman said in his article.

Artists, take note.

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Posted in Art, Capitalism, Creative Careers, Creativity | 1 Comment »

Under the Influence of Alcohol and Art

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
A bunch of drinking straws, by DaDaAce

A bunch of drinking straws, by DaDaAce

I happen to think hosting events where people get drunk and listen to opera sounds like a helluva time. Obviously other people in my age bracket living in Nashville agree. This article discusses a variety of events taking place in Nashville that have been successful bringing new audiences to operatic and museum events.

Martinis mixed with Puccini? Highballs and hydrangeas? How about beer at the ballet? For young professionals, the arts might go better with alcohol.

Mixing cocktails with culture has become a popular way for local arts organizations to capture a younger age group. The party-like atmospheres offer young adults an appealing alternative to another night at the bar. In turn, the social events may aid nonprofit organizations such as the symphony, opera and theater, which hope the gatherings groom future members and financial supporters.

I thought it would be interesting to delve a bit into the history of the arts and see where drinking has fit in.

I came across this curious blog, Alcohol and Drugs History Society, which has links of interest related to the arts and drug use, including this comical Cruikshank map of the artistic alcoholic’s London. This reminds me that some famous artists have also been famous drug and alcohol users. While this is no endorsement of such techniques to improve creative output, it is interesting anecdotally. There are also artists who have made a point to abstain from mood-altering drugs as a way to prove art doesn’t require some kind of bizarre mental state, such as Jethro Tull (except he inhaled a few times), Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys (who became abstinent after becoming a Buddhist practioner and working to Free Tibet), or Andre 2000 of Outkast (Urban Dictionary informs us that Andre’s urge “to keep it crunk” is possible without drugs, and is simply a powerful metaphysical state of energy and excitement.)

Of course, the art of opera has a strong tradition of incorporating drinking songs and scenes into the music. It makes for comic relief and fun crowd scenes that directors, singers, and audiences love. I particularly enjoyed dressing like a Russian Prince and singing about champagne in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. Of course, even if you are not an opera buff, you are almost guaranteed to have heard Libiamo from La Traviata.

So, what are your thoughts? Do arts and alcohol mix? Is this something we should be promoting like sporting events and drinking? Would it help de-stigmatize high art and culture for those who feel it is too prim and proper?

**Update** Another article I just read had a new twist on the drinking and arts theme, http://www.examiner.com/x-11916-DC-Arts-and-Crafts-Examiner~y2009m8d26-Cocktail-coloring-with-the-McLean-Project-for-the-Arts#mce_temp_url#g.

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Posted in Creative Careers, Creativity, Work/Life Balance | 7 Comments »

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