

Why are artists poor? - cyunker
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6087124/Why-are-artists-poor-Self-promotion-and-making-money-in-the-new-digital-economy.html

======
indigoshift
Speaking as a Starving Artist, I've noticed that part of the problem lies in
artists trying to achieve success by aping corporate methods, which rarely
work for an individual artist. I did that for awhile, and it got me absolutely
nowhere.

There's also this attitude (in the US, at least) that you're a failure if
you're not instantly successful. Rare is the artist who takes the time to
build a solid foundation of fans/patrons. You're going to eat a lot of ramen
in those years, but the base you build will be solid enough to build a house
on.

It also helps to be unflaky. The article mentions artists as being elitists at
least once, and that's an unfortunate stereotype. It's a stereotype you have
to fight against in the minds of your fans, and you've got to fight it in
yourself sometimes, too.

I'm still poor--by standard American standards. However, I live in a 4-bedroom
house with a bedroom all to myself as a studio. I have cable internet, A/C,
two cars, and a couple different computers--one for working on and another
which serves as a file server for the studio.

It's slow and it's grueling, but it's making me a better, healthier person.
Making your own bread (for example) is not only cheaper, it's better for you.
And the stupid impulse purchases I made when I had a Day Job are no more. I
sold off many of the things which were cluttering up my house just because I
bought them on a whim. My credit cards are used only in emergencies, and are
always paid up ASAP.

I'm currently working on $650 worth of private commissions. Ten years ago,
that meant that I'd be doing 12 projects at the same time. However, after
taking the time to work up a rock-solid fanbase, I can happily say that the
$650 is coming from only three different projects.

Now, if that sort of thing could be a little more regular...but that's the
preconceived notions talking again.

It's a rollercoaster ride, but it sure beats all the years I spent answering
the phones in my tech support Day Job. :)

~~~
lux
> Rare is the artist who takes the time to build a solid foundation of
> fans/patrons.

Amen. I'm just getting back into music as my next "career" move (touring
musician/technomad starting 2010 :). This year has been spent getting the
small stuff in place and slowly building a listener-base online and around
town. Blogging, twittering, posting songs for feedback, playing open mic
nights, joining song circles, networking. Mostly the type of stuff any real
business person has to do to make their business succeed, and for artists it's
no different.

I've been self-employed for 8 years now (time flies!), and I know over-night
successes are fiction. It's a constant struggle to maintain or improve where
you're at. Things are made to appear over-night when they took years getting
to the point where the forward motion reached that level. I'm hoping to take
the same approach to slowly building a music career, and I don't expect it to
take just a few years. It will take as long as it takes, doing what it takes,
but it's the only approach that works. It's great to hear of others doing the
same thing too, right on! That's the main reason why I love HN as a community.

One story that stuck with me, cheesy as it was, was from a speaker I saw back
in high school. He was talking about how you see a basketball star, or the
math wiz in class, or your favourite band, and how it's easy to say "wow,
that's magic!" as if they were just born with the natural aptitude and were
instantly where they are today. He said that what's magic is what you don't
see, Michael Jordan practicing every day for hours, the band rehearsing and
playing small gigs for 10 years, the math wiz actually _doing_ his homework. I
always took that to mean we make our own magic happen when people aren't
looking :)

~~~
indigoshift
> It will take as long as it takes, doing what it takes, but it's the only
> approach that works.

And that right there was my first big mistake. I'd jump into an art career
half-assed, and if it didn't take off like a rocket in six months, I'd put it
aside and collect a Day Job paycheck. As a result, I'm pushing 40 and my art
is at a stage right now where it should've been fifteen years ago.

But I didn't stick with it, and all that time is wasted time now. I listened
to people who didn't understand a thing about art, and measured my success by
the "get rich quick and get a Hollywood deal!" crap that everyone thinks is
the true measure of success. I fucked it up and missed out on all those years
of working every day to get better. Right now, I'm scrambling as fast as I can
to catch up.

Those of you in your 20s, let me say this: If there's something you can't stop
thinking about--whether it's art, music, coding, or whatever--then just _do
it_. Even if you suck at it right now, it's better to get all the suckitude
out of your system now, while you're young, so that by the time you're my age,
you've put all that behind you and your craft is nice and polished.

Hook me up with a link to your music, man! I wanna hear it. If it's something
that jives with my artwork, I'd be willing to give you a free plug. If you'd
like to reciprocate, let me know.

Currently, I'm creating a comic and related artwork for that niche of people
who are tired of all-ages, family-friendly nonsense. The comic's NSFW, but
it's nothing racier than you'd find in an old copy of Heavy Metal.

Link to the comic is: <http://locus.keenspot.com>

You'll wanna read it from the beginning, or it'll make no sense. TOC link is
towards the top, under the banner and above the nav buttons.

And good luck with your music career! I've always wanted to make music, but
have no talent for it. I live vicariously through all my musician friends. :)

~~~
lux
I like your drawing style! I love horror stuff :) Got you bookmarked now,
thanks for sharing!

My music site is <http://www.johnnybroadway.com/> The main album up there is
basically unplugged/acoustic but there are clips from my next one in the
player on the left. I'm actually working on 3 more projects now, a 12 song
album about a mobster (with a producer too, first time in a proper studio in
10 years! :), one EP just for fun I'm recording at home, and I've started
writing a handful of songs for the next one as well...

The styles seem to be ranging from folk/country/blues to faster pop/rock and
with the newer stuff more electronic as well (getting into Ableton, super
fun!). On stage, it's pretty much me on vocals/guitar and I do some harmonica
and use a looping pedal for a lot of stuff too. The video on my page is a song
that starts with just a drum loop and ends up with five guitars going over it
:)

~~~
indigoshift
That's some good stuff, man. I dig it.

I'm an old metal fan, but going back to college gave me a taste for this kind
of stuff.

Hands In The Air is spot-on. It's my favorite. You've got good story-telling
skills, which isn't common in music nowadays. And the guitar work is great!

Question, though:

How on earth do you keep it together on stage when people are talking and
girls are cackling in the audience during your whole performance? That would
totally blow my concentration.

~~~
lux
Thanks, glad you like!

The camera had to be positioned in the middle of a table of girls at that
show, so any talking came through as loud as I did unfortunately. You couldn't
hear them at all from on stage though, and people are going to be talking --
or rather yelling to each other over the music! -- at a bar on a Saturday
night :)

------
tjic
Why are artists poor?

That's the wrong question.

In a state of nature, EVERYONE is poor.

Getting out of poverty means one thing: creating something that other people
consider to have value, and then exchanging it for cash.

Heinlein had rules for writers: 1) you must write; 2) you must sell what you
have written.

This is true for all artists. It's also true for all doctors, accountants, and
software engineers.

If an individual artist is poor, he or she either isn't creating anything of
value, or isn't finding the market and selling the work.

Period.

~~~
abefortas
Depending on the meaning of value. I value lots of works of art very highly,
but I've hardly ever considered buying art.

I think art can have value without being particularly saleable. And with
certain kinds of art, the fact that it's popular and lucrative may even be a
sign that it's crass and inauthentic. Think Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol.

~~~
tjic
> I value lots of works of art very highly, but I've hardly ever considered
> buying art.

Then either the art you admire is way out of your price range (I admire
Alphonse Mucha, but I don't own any originals!), or the artists you admire are
doing a poor job of letting you know that their work is affordable, and would
add to your quality of life.

~~~
gatormax
"The principle of revealed preference." If he's not buying it, he's not really
valuing it. Like the old joke about two economists who walk past a porsche.
One remarks that he'd give anything to own that car --- the other responds,
"Clearly not."

~~~
abefortas
No. There are other kinds of value besides monetary value.

An artwork is not a porsche. Even if I had anywhere near enough money to buy a
Kiefer, there would be no room for it in my house, and it would not belong
there anyway. I think it is valuable simply that Kiefer's paintings exist, and
would be even if museum's weren't willing to pay for them.

------
cstross
More to the point, where does this bizarre cult of the "artist", creating
works of genius in complete majestic isolation from the governing realities of
life in the real world, spring from? Whence the poet starving in his garret?

There's a similarly odd attitude to learning in some sectors of academia; from
one perspective, education is a worldly enabler -- and from another, it is an
end in and of itself and any hint of application to base commerce is
positively contemptible. (MBAs versus classical philosophers, so to speak.)

The idea that art is disconnected from commerce doesn't apply across the
board. Coco Chanel or Karl Largerfeld create(d) costumes that are certainly
revered as works of art -- but they weren't expected to hold base commerce in
disdain: in fact, their art was their business and their business was very
lucrative indeed. Their sector (haut couture) was somehow exempt from the
usual rules ...

I hypothesize that we're dealing with a cultural relic of the age of
aristocracy. To the nobility who expected to inherit wealth, having to work
for a living was a symptom of poverty: therefore it must be denied at all
costs, which meant that anything they engaged in must remain impeccably
untainted by money-grubbing. Anyone in such a culture with ambitions to better
themselves had better play by the rules ... and so the more elevated the
culture, the greater the distance between cultural activity and commerce. An
exception could be made for couture -- aristocrats have employed tailors for
millennia, and the more expensive and extravagant the tailoring the better --
but couture wasn't traditionally a career that aristocrats might enter.
Academia or literature, on the other hand ...

And the aristocrats? Their descendants are still with us to this day, in the
form of the hyper-rich -- and major patrons of the arts fall in this category.

~~~
Goladus
_More to the point, where does this bizarre cult of the "artist", creating
works of genius in complete majestic isolation from the governing realities of
life in the real world, spring from?_

It's been around since the late 19th century, at least:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_boh%C3%A8me>

But Mozart wasn't really treated like a genius working in majestic isolation.
Famous and popular maybe, but that was it.

So I'd say aristocrats were subject to culture in this way, as well.

------
pg
Short version: supply and demand.

The longer version is that artists still make things by hand. In 1500,
handmade things were all there were. Now paintings have to compete with
manufactured products, and they're so expensive that only a small number of
people prefer them. (And if you subtract the people who buy art for reasons of
fashion or prestige, you get close to zero.)

------
cwan
An alternative explanation for even highly visible/popular artists:

Said of Annie Leibovitz as she faces the loss of her personal collection:
"Budget is not something that enters into her consciousness."
[http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2f54f844fc040f6d...](http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2f54f844fc040f6daba9c6b086caf08f.21&show_article=1)

------
branden
Ugh:

 _The job of all artists is now self-promotion. In an age in which the old
cultural gatekeepers are being swept away, the most pressing challenge of
creative artists is to build their own brands. And it’s the Internet which
provides creative talent with easy-to-use and cheap tools for their self-
promotion._

In a sense this is true, but you could replace every instance of "self-
promotion" with "creation" and you'd have a conclusion that is just as correct
without all the craven cynicism. If you want you can interpret every tweet,
webcomic update, or flickr photo as a marketing effort. Or you can choose to
see the internet as a canvas and these as the brushstrokes.

~~~
dasil003
Yes, however with the increasing noise on the Internet it's much harder to
eschew self-promotion in favor of pure artistic ideals (whatever those may be)
because there are no longer just a small number of gatekeepers to convince.
Increasingly you must go viral, though there is clearly more room for smaller
successes given the lower overhead.

------
muckster
Why are rich people so uncreative?

~~~
cwan
Quite arguably, rich people are often the most creative (or at least high
income earners are judged by their benefactors as being the most creatively
useful in society). Entrepreneurs need to be incredibly creative in innovating
and meeting market demands. Sure, we may channel it differently but that
doesn't make it any less creative and even arguably more so.

~~~
cstross
This would be more convincing if we all started out on a level playing field
-- as opposed to, say, getting into Harvard because of daddy's connections,
failing upwards to the limits of temporal power, then abolishing the
inheritance tax that (horrors!) might hold our buddies back.

Hint: America isn't classless -- it has a hereditary aristocracy. They just
don't put titles like "Lord" or "Baroness" in front of their names.

~~~
cwan
This argument I'd concede partially to - that there are social advantages some
of us have. This needn't however be an argument about income mobility - which
I think is a separate issue (and I do believe exists), but even those who get
there because of social advantage does not mean that to stay there one does
not need to be creative and at least have a valuable work product. This isn't
to say that all rich people (particularly if it was inherited) are creative,
but I would argue on average, most high income earners must be because of the
value that others are willing to pay for.

~~~
gnaritas
> but even those who get there because of social advantage does not mean that
> to stay there one does not need to be creative and at least have a valuable
> work product.

Nor does it mean that because they're there they're somehow more creative than
people who didn't have those opportunities and couldn't get there.

> but I would argue on average, most high income earners must be because of
> the value that others are willing to pay for.

Just because people are willing to pay for something, doesn't mean producing
it is creative. Being creative is certainly "a" path to wealth, but it's
hardly the only one, and having wealth does not in imply that you are creative
or any more creative than the average person.

Now of you restrict the "rich" people you're talking about to the subset that
were self made, from rags to riches, then yes, I'd agree that they are very
likely much more creative than the average person; but you haven't done that.

~~~
cwan
> Nor does it mean that because they're there they're somehow more creative
> than people who didn't have those opportunities and couldn't get there.

The original question was why "rich people are so uncreative?". With reference
to the subset of high income earners, I'm not saying that they would be more
or less creative than others in those positions who had better opportunities.
I am however saying that the nature of their jobs - as high income earners -
suggests that they need to provide something relatively unique as a function
of their job that reflects value _on average_ at least equal to their income
(unless you're saying that most have somehow lucked into "high income" and on
average the people who pay them are irrational/stupid). Again this isn't to
say that someone else in that position couldn't be more or less creative - it
is however to say that the nature of their job based on the attribute of high
income requires more creativity.

I never said that being creative was the only path to wealth - however,
innovation does require creativity and innovation is how wealth is created
where rule of law exists. Wealth is a reflection that society appreciates a
given idea/innovation. I'd even argue that seeing arbitrage also requires a
certain level of creativity though as noted, I would concede that inheritance
does not. Nor would I restrict it to the self made rich people as the reality
is even those born into wealth would need to exercise a certain level of
creativity to maintain/grow it (even if others might be more effective at
doing so).

~~~
gnaritas
What I'm saying is the correlation between wealth and talent (creativity) is
much weaker than the correlation between wealth and who you know or who your
family is and what opportunities those connections got you. I don't believe
rich people are more creative, they're just much better connected and able to
apply what creativity they have than unconnected people.

~~~
cwan
Let me ask you this - who would you consider to be more creative?

(a) a person who _could_ be more creative doing piece work at a factory (b) a
person who _may_ be less creative performing some form of art

Both these individuals may have arrived at their respective current jobs in
life but I'm not saying that opportunities had nothing to do with it. With
respect to rich people, I am saying that high income earners have to maintain
a higher output of creativity on average to maintain that income as a function
of their job. I'm not saying that luck doesn't have a lot to do with it, or
that geography or ancestry doesn't have to do with it.

~~~
gnaritas
I'll agree with that in some sense; they have a better opportunity to fully
apply whatever creativity they have. However, when creative people aren't
fully utilized at work, they tend to shift that creativity into hobbies.
Creativity doesn't always pay well, many people are very creative in very
unprofitable ways. It's the lucky few who's talent and job cross paths in a
way that pays off financially for them.

------
anamax
Are artists poor, or is it that "artists" are poor?

------
massa
Because people don't value who makes art, they value who sells art.

