The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Ten - Being a professional artist puts you in the position of being in business
December 26, 2007
NDK Creative Artist continues the Points of the Creative Artist’s Code with a lesson about the responsibility of knowing your business. - Joel Falconer, Editor-in-Chief
If you seek to be a professional Creative Artist and survive from your talent, skill and ability to perceive and communicate, realize that the decision to be a professional artist immediately puts you in the position of being a businessman. From that point forward you owe it to your creations, your public and the industry professionals you will work with, to understand the business of art. When you know, you can control, and therefore realize a responsible result for all.
Making money making art! What a concept! But it can be done. Must be done. Should be done, and - reality check - is being done. The ethos of many artists goes against this idea and thus pain and suffering ensues, or is that starving?
Most artists detest business.
It’s what keeps them in the amateur-semi-pro-hobbyist field of artistic endeavor, and that’s fine if that’s where you want to be, but not if you don’t. This point is a hard one for some to deal with. Creative Artists however, embrace the business of art & entertainment. They want to know how it works, so they can have a degree of control that ensures their work remains their work and that they reap the benefits of talent that has commercial collector value.
The major problem is a conundrum. How do you market your art? In this society it is usually frowned upon to be a self-promoter, we’re taught from the cradle not to do this, not to be boastful of one’s achievements and successes. And marketing, advertising and selling your work to others on an individual basis or otherwise goes against these very powerful inlaid concepts that are part of making society and culture work. These barriers have to be overcome by every artist if they are to achieve their career goals. The antipathy of artists for business has to be overcome.
Authenticity
Self-promotion for artists, is more authentic than anything else going today. Why? Because the public–individuals all–can feel the passion of the individual that they’ll never feel from a corporation, which is not a living thing, but an abstract legal entity created by a procedure and not beating hearts. It is people that have passion and only people with passion can be authentic. So, we’re not marketers, we’re marketeers, and there is a real difference at Allforart.
Business is simply a part of the process of realizing the value of your craft, skill, talent, investment in time and effort that has been put by you into developing each work. There is far too much to write about the business of art & entertainment and how it works for the purposes of this particular explanation of Point Ten, and the business of art is going to be covered in other articles already slated for different categories and sections of the Free Articulator.
Allforart has also developed an entire system and the resources to help artists become Creative Artists and Creative Artists are most definitely those who grok the business that is their business.
Managing the Risk of a Risky Business
There are many reasons to understand the business of art & entertainment and among them is the fact that doing business with some companies, far too many actually, ends up in the artist being disenfranchised of their rights. There are pitfalls, booby traps, sharks, and all manner of other carnivores and scavengers circling the industry, working within it, seeking advantage for themselves and their companies and to fleece artists of theirs. This is a reality.
In a world where art & entertainment as an industry has become a monopolistic giant dominated by six huge corporations (at this writing), it can be very difficult to find the way without compromising one’s integrity. Any weakness you have will be exploited by these, and the first weakness they endeavor to exploit is always your rights in the properties you have created. This is the first place you start to learn the business of art & entertainment: Intellectual Property Rights.
Real Career Plans
When you know the business of art & entertainment it makes your dreams and career goals more real, more attainable. You can now see the path ahead. More importantly, you are now able to formulate real plans to get there, with minimal pain & suffering, but you still need to roll your sleeves up. But even better, you will have certainty in yourself and with others as you talk to them that will work for you. It all seems simple, but it is not. The creation of a viable business career in art & entertainment, on average takes abut ten years of work to achieve success.
The Creative Career Conundrum
I said the major problem is a conundrum. How does an artist, a skilled communicator market, advertise and promote their art? Well, it’s a conundrum in so many senses. The answer is communicate. But communicate what, when, where and to whom, how? Yes, those are the questions, and those questions put the artist into a spin, because when you are the creator of the work it is very hard to achieve an objective business-position about your work. But it can be done.
At the beginning of this article I also said this: “Making money making art! What a concept! But it can be done. Must be done. Should be done, and–reality check–is being done.” It is being done. Mark that last one well. It is being done. It is being done daily.
So here’s the thing, all those naysayers who tell you, “You’re a dreamer” and “it can’t be done,” that you “shouldn’t give up your day job,” nonsense. The reality is it can be done, and is being done. Just look at the tabloids and all the industry magazines and all the people in bookstores, buying books, CDs, downloading music and movies (legally). What have they got that you haven’t?
Making money making art is possible. Look at the stores and see that it is possible. What we do is help you prepare for that, and the code is a tool that helps make it happen and all you have to do is shift your viewpoint.
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