The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Eleven - The business of art & entertainment is your business

by NDK Creative Artist

In the eleventh article discussing the points of the Code of a Creative Artist, NDK talks about the artist’s relationship with the business and the people working in it to make the artist a success.

We’re continuing a focus on the points of the Code of a Creative Artist that are to do with the business side of creativity.

The business of art & entertainment is your business. As a Creative Artist you are responsible for the industry’s wealth and power. Take ownership of your business and strive to improve its operation and communication between your fellow artists. Remember that the people who work to deliver you and your creations to the world are dependent on you to produce and cooperate with them in order to achieve your creative, artistic and personal aims, goals and objectives and also theirs.

The business of art & entertainment is your business. Huh? Am I mad? Possibly, plenty think so, some are convinced they know so. If you are a Creative Artist then the business of art & entertainment is your business. Anything that happens in the industry can affect your business. But that’s not what I mean by this statement of the code. I mean that it’s your business because without you, the creator, the business of art & entertainment has nothing to deliver, nothing to sell. You create the business by creating original intellectual property and that is an extremely important point to remember.

As a Creative Artist you are responsible for the industry’s wealth and power. More madness? No. What the industry does with the wealth it earns from marketing, advertising, promoting and selling your work is your responsibility. Leave in place safeguards that enable you to rein in that power, so that the industry you create has a check against its own potential for excess. It’s still your business. What that business does reflects on you and your profession.

It’s worth taking some time to consider what your success means. It clarifies perspectives and leads to sound decisions.

Take ownership of your business and strive to improve its operation and communication between your fellow artists. The competition for stage, limelight, ink, broadcast minutes, airtime and attention is fierce. But this just means you have to be better at what you do, than the other guys. And it affords no excuse to sit idly by while things are not going well.

The business exists to service Creative Artists and their public.

It does not exist to service itself. The business sits between public and creator of works of art & entertainment, it’s role is to act as a bridge, not a control point, for the work.

Your fellow Creative Artists are part of the industry, what affects them affects you too. A business starts out chaotic and ends up organized and successful. There are some pretty skilled communicators out there in art land, but most of them are only skilled in their art and not at all skilled in interpersonal communication. This creates a lot of difficulty between artists.

Creative Artists seek to break down barriers to communication and improve the quality of communication between those who practice in different disciplines. This leads to fruitful collaborations and great relationships and impressive accomplishments. However, a word of caution, there are those who do not communicate well and if they persistently do not, then they should be excluded from your career plans.

Remember that the people who work to deliver you and your creations to the world are dependent on you to produce and cooperate with them in order to achieve your creative, artistic and personal aims, goals and objectives and also theirs. So many people forget this and even the most talented artists are among them, talent does not always mean smart or bright as well. I’ve known artists who have completely discounted work I’ve done for them, and/or who have wasted that work by premature release in violation of agreements (including copyright), negating and wasting months and even years of painstaking work to develop a strategy in a tough market, and then blown a fantastic opportunity that they obviously did not appreciate even though it has been explained to them.

The result of their premature release was just what you’d expect: a flop. The opportunity to gain free worldwide promotion worth millions of dollars and earn a place in history through a unique fine art promotional innovation is now gone forever, its value unappreciated and trashed. If you don’t care for and love your work nobody else will either.

Such occasions and realizations made me sad, and angry and left me frustrated, but were necessary to create a robust set of agreements on the road to creating an industry you can trust. Your success is not achieved by you alone. There are many who help make it possible. Sometimes the connections are not immediately obvious, sometimes there are no direct connections, but those who stick with you, who do not betray your trust, do not deserve to have their trust betrayed and their hard work and dedication to professionalism labeled “no long-term survival value.” It’s a short-sighted destructive and ignorant artist who will say such a thing.

Where do we go now?

If you can't wait for more, explore the archives sorted by month via the links in the right-hand sidebar, or use the Category links in the same place.

If you'd rather we did all the hard work, you're in luck. Here's a list of articles that are related to this one:

• The Declaration and the Traditional Industry - How Creative Artists want to do business
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Ten - Being a professional artist puts you in the position of being in business
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Twenty-four - You are not the viewpoint
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Two - Communicate only that which you truly know about in your art.
• The Creative Artist as Global Activist — Applauding Trent Reznor’s Example