My business
teacher--of which there was only one, in the one required class, in a 2 year
$80k program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena--always said, “This is
how you make it in the business: Marry Well.”
And like several other
one-liners to break up the monotony of learning how to balance your checkbook,
I remember little else from that class. I remember being told several times by
several more teachers, even fabulously successful ones, “Don’t get into art for
the money.” Because being an artist is like playing the lotto. You don’t
seriously bank on it. And I did it anyway. I got all those loans, all that
debt, maxed all those credit cards and...and...
The lotto, like many art
schools, is sold to the masses on a great fanciful what-if. What if you’re the
next Walt Disney or George Lucas? What if you run into Donald Trump at
Starbucks and sell him a gold-plated hairpiece? What if you paint giant nudes
with your own hair and laugh all the way to the bank? Oh, that one required
business class may show you how to write things off on your taxes, but you lose
money itemizing deductions if all you did was spend, spend, spend.
Fortunately, financial success
as an artist is NOT just a numbers game, or doomed by the fact that society
thinks artists have no value…that’s not true. Artists are still revered as
aliens, or gods, or people who can draw a killer tattoo. Maybe YOU don’t value
mainstream society’s dorky ideas of what you’re good for, but last time I
checked, getting your art carved permanently into someone’s flesh is still a
pretty nice complement. I know you don't want complements right now--well, of
course you do, but--you want to eat 3 square meals a day too.
So, that absence of business education
on the part of art schools is what’s killing the larger percentage of grads.
And for those of you natural-born savants also struggling to make a buck, I’m
hazarding a guess you didn’t teach yourself any of that either. Academics are
still laboring under the unspoken laws of Renaissance patronage, which only the
uber-elite of fine art still practice. The rest of us plebs are in a glut of
middle class buyer leading middle class artist, blind leading blind. The game
has changed, and with it come some not-so-new yet very counter-intuitive rules
that we need to acknowledge and play by.
Where reality’s foot comes
down--sometimes on your neck while you’re biting the curb--is BUSINESS. If you
want to make money, you don’t just learn to paint or invent a new paperclip,
you make a BUSINESS of paint and paperclips. And the problem is that there
isn’t much business training in art school. Colleges, TV and the funny pages
exist to perpetuate themselves first and foremost, and THEN create the next
generation of well-informed yet snarky doctorates. If art is your life, then
it’s also your job. To make money, you have to sell your stuff. Don’t fight it.
Don’t cite creative prostitution, bad juju, bad parenting, weak meds, your day
job or crushing loans as your crutches. Don’t ponder getting a bigger degree
with more letters after your name and more zeroes at the end of your bill.
Definitely don’t doubt your present ability.
Above all, don’t panic.
This isn’t a doom and gloom
story. I’m saving your
life. If you want it, if you can taste it, if your soul trembles, this IS where
you belong. You’re ready. You only need one thing: business education. It’s not
a magical thing. It’s math. It’s paperwork. It’s planning and promotion and statistics
and a whole lot of stuff artists are somehow “protected” from, and excused for.
Well, you’re no longer excused. That discipline you have for craftsmanship
needs to be turned toward wealth creation too. One begets the other. (I know
what most of you are thinking at this point. You’re mourning the atrophied part
of your brain that once did math or dishes or organization. You don’t have the
time or inclination. That’s fine, you can still get away with that IF you get
someone else to do it for you. But it needs to get done. It’s not a vicious
circle! (Being depressed because you’re fat and eating because you’re depressed
is a vicious circle. They’re perpetuated by knowing better and still copping
out.) You’re creative. So figure it out! Make friends with a business grad.
Read books. Hire out to India
So, Artists, the 3 Game-Changer
Facts:
1. We aren't any longer hunter-gatherers
who can bring home a saber-tooth freelance tiger and eat like kings through
winter. People (not just artists) can't play feast-to-famine roulette without
serious damage to our will to carry on. Don’t follow the herds and pick off the
weak. Fence off some fat cows and start a burger joint with the leftovers.
2. We are in an agricultural
stage of worldwide networking and business where we plant seeds. LOTS of seeds.
Small efforts done in bulk. But that's where the numbers game stops, and we
separate the wheat from the chaff. Get smart about those seeds.
3. We were never lonesome
doves. Every great master learned the ropes from a master before him, and has a
body of worker bees behind him. Those bees will save your life. It takes a
village to raise a barn. Or idiot, or whatever! They are all that stand between
you and a slow, grinding abject failure, choose them wisely and in abundance.
Artists! I implore you! All you
need is business sense, and a network. It'll take all your time and ingenuity
to plant that buzzing orchard, but the ground is fertile and the seed is free.
Be fruitful!
