Most people have no idea what it takes to make good art, whether it’s music, film, painting or anything else. They don’t know how much training and study has gone into building the artist’s skills, and how much practice of that skill it took to allow them to make something, especially if it’s great. A lot of people take it for granted.

Most artists have other jobs that sustains their artistic habit. But time is a finite resource. The more time you spend at another job, the less time you have for practicing, studying, marketing and, most importantly, Making your work. The less time you have to make work, the less income you could possibly make from it. The less you make from it, the more likely you’ll continue to work in another job, keeping you further from practicing, studying and making. Over the course of 10 years, working another job that keeps you from practicing your art will keep you from becoming great at it. (This doesn’t even take into account when you reach a time in your life where you might want to have kids.)

This is a vicious cycle, a catch-22.
This is why I believe many successful artists got in most of their 10,000 hours of training before they left home and had to start paying rent.

This misunderstanding about the time and skills required to make art makes the audience less likely to pay for it. (So does how relevant they think it is to their own lives, but that’s a whole other story.)

As new technology has taken hold, many of the middle-men who used to be the ones asking for the audience’s money (publishers, record labels, magazines, promoters, distributors, stores, studios) are disappearing. The artist is the one who’s now asking for money to live from, and some of the audience isn’t used to it, and doesn’t like it. It doesn’t help that as distribution becomes cheaper and cheaper, internet culture at large wants everything for free.

Amanda Palmer, artist best known as the lead of The Dresden Dolls, says:

artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art.
artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye.
artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks…
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it…

it’s also not a matter of whether an artist is starving or cruising on a yacht.
i would hate to see my fans turn on me once i actually have money in the bank with a “well, i would support you if you were starving, but now that you’re eating, no way.”
fuck that…
feel ok about giving your money directly to paul mccartney. he may be rich, but he still rocks. show you care.
feel ok about giving it to fucking lady gaga if you’ve been guiltily downloading her dance tracks for free.
rejoice in the fact that you are directly responsible for several threads in her new spandex spacesuit.
it shouldn’t matter.
it’s about empowerment and it’s about SIMPLICITY: fan loves art, artist needs money, fan gives artist money, artist says thank you.

She is experimenting with ways to make a living, from paid live video to auctioning her artwork. What are other new ways artists are making a living from their work?
Do you feel ok helping to pay their rent?

Read the entire post from Amanda Palmer – Why I Am Not Afraid To Take Your Money

Get the work of Amanda Palmer.

Everybody’s Gotta Live, from Who Killed Amanda Palmer

Related posts:

1. Thank you Richard Florida for giving The Bohemians so much power. Now please tell us – when will we ever benefit from it?

In these recently uncovered fake letters, imagined to have come from the archives of the fake University of Italy School of the Arts at Florence (UISAF), the Minister of Medici Bank, Francesco Sassetti, pleads with the head of the Medici Family and defacto ruler of the Florentine Republic, Lorenzo de’ Medici, to stop spending the bank’s and family’s holdings on the arts.
Available exclusively on Art Here and Now.

Dear Lorenzo,
Though your family has a long history of supporting artists, because of the recent financial and political difficulties, I must request that you consider abandoning this legacy of extravagance.
As I have been balancing this year’s expenditures, I can’t help but notice the exorbitant amounts it requires to not only pay for artworks, but to also house and feed these artists. Michelangelo Buonarroti has been living in your household for five years, in excess of $90,000 per year [currency adjusted to equivelant U.S. Dollars -ed.]. Surely he could rent his own apartment, and you could simply purchase any artwork from him you liked once completed? Must we be responsible for an artist’s entire livelihood and every material need?

We must protect the assets of The Bank and the Medici trust, for the bank’s members and the family, both current and future. These creative works and artist supports are a drain on these financial resources, deprive these members from larger profits, and serve no purpose except the pursuit of notoriety.

I plead with you. We must stop this reckless spending. The livelihoods of bank stakeholders and future Medicis depend on it.

Sincerely,
Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank

Dear Francesco,
Your bold pleading is certainly brave. Perhaps you have a death wish.
Ah, ha, just a joke!
You have a long history with me, and my father before me. Only from someone so dedicated to our cause would these words be tolerated. Yet I am sure you are not the first to think them.

Even if I accepted your argument that art was wasteful, you act as though we aren’t losing money in more ridiculous, costly ways. May I ask, how many horses do you own? How many rooms are in your house? How many banquets have you held this year? How many guests have you fed? I’m sure you like to be questioned about your expenses as much as anyone. I mention this purely for example, not from any plan to deprive you of your lifestyle.

In contrast to The Bank’s and Family’s complete holdings, housing a few artists and funding their work is a handful of pebbles freed from a mountain. We could indeed just buy completed works, but if so, then where would the artist live and work to make them? Michelangelo’s last work took a year to complete. The Dome took almost a lifetime. By what means should they live to make this work we would later buy? If they took to the trades to sustain themselves, then when would they have time to make this work?

I find your logic faulty.
-Lorenzo

From: Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank
To: Lorenzo de’ Medici, The Magnificent

Dear Lorenzo,
It is my wish to eliminate all waste, regardless of size, so that we may all realize our maximum profits and potential. You must agree that over time, these types of expenditures throughout your history add up to far more than pebbles from a mountain.
You righteously question my horses, even though we have never once questioned The Giraffe? How much did the buildings, heating, feeding and men cost for that one? And to what end?

It is not my concern, and should not be yours, where, when and how these artists produce the work. Men must choose their paths. If they cannot succeed to secure a living from one trade, they must pursue another. If the quality of their work cannot attract enough buyers to support more in the future, then perhaps their work is not of a quality worth making.

Please invest this money in important endeavors, instead of supporting those who cannot support themselves.

Sincerely,
Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank

Francesco,

Enough. Go no further.

I am the highest power of this family, the Republic of Florence and places beyond.
In this area, we will continue in our family’s tradition.
I owe you no explanation or justification. As our Minister, you will do as I command you.

For future clarity, to end this discussion, and out of some respect of your long service, I will conclude with these thoughts.

You have gall to demand we not support those who in their trade cannot support themselves,
when for all of your life we have done the same for you.
Do you think counting our money is more important work than creating The Basilica?

When we are all dead and buried, very few people will remember you and I.

They will remember Michelangelo and Leonardo. They will remember Sandro and Brunelleschi.
They will remember Florence as the place those artists lived. And they will remember us, if at all, as the people who helped them.

From vague, unsure memory they may believe we were kings. In some ways we are kings, because we are wealthy and powerful.
And like kings, we have some duty to our country and its people. Through learning, engineering and art, this duty is fulfilled, bettering the people, and making Florence a destination for others who seek an enlightened life.

Without this impulse, our money and power amount to nothing.
The Bank is not important and will not be remembered. The money’s only real worth is the lasting affect it has on our country and our world.

Midas follows all the others:
Turns to gold the things he touches.
Where’s the joy in owning treasure,
If it doesn’t give you pleasure?
And where’s the sweet taste for a man
Who only feels his thirst forever?
Who’d be happy, let him be so:
Nothing’s sure about tomorrow.

The Medicis will one day be gone, but the art will remain forever.

- Lorenzo de’ Medici

Read more on The Medici Family, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, Filippo Brunelleschi, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Sassetti and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Richard Florida’s latest book, Who’s Your City?, has a lot of interesting ideas. It is a continuation of his work which started with the often quoted, celebrated and vilified Rise of the Creative Class.

In essence, the original book argues that economic greatness in any given place depends on the place’s ability to attract creative people. Creative people like openness, night life, authentic culture and great aesthetics (interesting architecture and grand natural beauty). At the time the original book came out, cities were not focused on these things. Instead they were erecting bigger shopping malls.

To Richard Florida’s credit, ever since the release of Rise of the Creative Class, there has been a big discussion about the quality of life in the places we live, and that this quality does not come from shopping and big business. I think this is true for whatever your passion is, and whatever you do for a living. This is a good discussion to have.

But I have always felt some nagging problem with his approach that I couldn’t quite pull into focus. There seems to be some things that are missing in his big equations. After reading Who’s Your City?, I finally started seeing what they were.

Who’s Your City? shows, through extensive research, that despite first impressions of the global economy, where you live is very important to your happiness and well being. This is a simple idea that seems like common sense. The details springing from this premise are more surprising.

The world has spiky places which are, like ever-growing magnets, attracting more and more creative, innovative people and capital into themselves. This means places like New York City, London, Tokyo and Paris will continue to suck in innovation and capital exponentially, and thus have larger engines to create even more innovation and capital. This also leads to most places outside of these spiky regions to specialize in various industries. Basic examples that you may be familiar with – if you want to be an actor, your chances for making a living at it are very slim unless you are in New York or Los Angeles. If you’re a technology innovator or developer, your greatest success would be found in the San Francisco or Boston areas. There is a lot of interesting detail in this, and if you want to learn more about it I recommend you read the book.

Now for a short break to watch Richard Florida’s appearance on The Colbert Report, because Stephen Colbert sums it up best.

The Gay-Bohemian Index mentioned by Mr. Colbert (“Which may sound like another name for the San Francisco phone book”), which supports some of Florida’s work, sounds like a great endowment of power handed down to anyone who is bohemian, artistic or gay. But in fact, this power to indicate or create new magnetic, economic engines usually benefits people besides the creators, and besides the businesses and families that long lived in the neighborhood before them. Who’s Your City? says

Albert Ratner, cochairman of the board at Forest City Enterprises, one of the biggest real estate companies in the world, likes to remind me that he alone has promoted The Rise of the Creative Class enough to secure its spot on the bestseller list. Another real estate investor once said of my work, “You have provided a map of where to invest.”

Anyone who has lived in a medium sized or larger city for any period of time recognizes a familiar pattern.

A neighborhood is a thriving community. Some type of economic hardship or shift happens in the city, and many neighborhood residents move away quickly. This leaves less sense of community and neighborhood, and as eyes on the street dwindle, crime can rise. At some point, the neighborhood is a shadow of itself, rents are cheap, but the authentic architecture and feeling of community still resonates. So artists and other creative people, who don’t have much money but have a need for space to create in, move to the neighborhood. This creates energy, public artwork (sanctioned or not), new venues to show or perform, and basic renovations. This energy, creativity and center of cultural amenities attracts more people from outside the area to visit and eventually move to. As more people move in, natural supply and demand occurs, causing rent and purchase prices to rise. Larger investors and realtors take note, seeing an opportunity to begin at the ground level, building new condos and luxury apartments. At some point, housing prices become out of reach for the families and businesses that have long been in the neighborhood, and for the artists and bohemians that sparked the neighborhood’s revitalization. They move on to the next neighborhood, or the next city, where the cycle starts again.

King of the Hill covered this in an entire episode, Lady and Gentrification.

Though Richard Florida now speaks to this issue – that a spiky region’s great success often leaves behind a large swath of the population – he doesn’t give it the gravity it deserves. Economic disparities can affect anyone in a region, but the irony is that the families, businesses, non-profits, artists and others who lead the front line of a neighborhood’s revitalization are often the first people to be kicked out by exorbitant housing prices when the fruit of their creative efforts finally appear. The very people that Florida claims are so important to an area’s success often have to move out of the area once that success arrives.

This also applies to businesses that help define an area, and more importantly non-profits. Non-profits find cheap commercial space to grow in, and help a community become a better place. But right when that better arrives, real estate investors buy up the historic building the non-profit lived in, raises their rent by 300%, and off they go to find a new home or shut down completely. This happens time and time again.

So Mr. Florida, how can the people who create so much value, so much aesthetic, creative energy and economic growth benefit from their investments of creativity, and stay where they live to continue helping their neighborhoods and cities grow? Or is it ok that this investment of time, effort, love and creativity in the end only benefits real estate developers and chain restaurants?

Who’s Your City? comes close to diving into this issue. When I read this part of the book, I was on the edge of my seat.

Escalating real estate prices can inhibit innovation. Many forms of innovative and creative activity – whether they are new high-tech businesses, art galleries, or musical groups – require the same thing: cheap space. That’s what Jane Jacobs was getting at when she famously wrote: “New ideas require old buildings.” These spaces, formerly abundant in places like Silicon Valley, San Diego, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and downtown New York City, are where everyone from Steve Jobs to Bob Dylan got their start. Cheap space in these towns is now hard to come by. Several Silicon Valley garages that witnesses high-tech start-ups in the 1990s have been turned into museums. When housing prices rise and buildings are converted into expensive condos or high-end retail shops, venues for fostering creativity disappear…

…They’re forced to move from apartment to apartment as their rentals turn into condos. When creative, productive regions become the province of affluent people who have already made their money (usually elsewhere), the cycle of local wealth building falls apart. At that point, Jacobs once presciently told me, “When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave.”

I have read this section to many friends because it strikes a chord with what we are living with every day. Condos are springing up like ivy, and fewer and fewer people can afford to live here anymore. Or they feel the place is losing it’s vitality and authenticity, as art cars become scarce and BMW’s are more prominent.

Even BMW knows its place in this equation. In this campaign, they appeal to the Creative Class (by name). The thing is most of this class could never afford a BMW, nor could the many other people in the city who help make it tick. This campaign is really aimed at the 2nd wave, wishing to benefit from what the others built.

In the end, what’s left out of these theories, for individuals and communities, is all the stuff that isn’t about money. Regional economic growth and might are the big measurements of success in the creative class model. But how does the majority of the population benefit? Are their lives better? Are they happier and more fulfilled? In many studies, Denmark is often cited as the happiest place on Earth. They are certainly not the biggest economic engine.

And what of human zugunruhe, the desire to move on, and experience something new? What explains some people’s strong desire to quit well paying jobs, giving up money and comfort, to take up teaching, social work or long term travel? It’s definitely not Economics.

This strong human drive for betterment, growth, new experience and beauty is the thing left out of these extensive studies, which ironically focus on the very people who revere these aspects of life most. The reason bohemians mostly do not profit from their action is that profit is not the point. It is instead small accumulating betterment of their own lives and the community around them. This is no different than other people who live in and care about a place. It’s only when other people arrive to try and transform that creativity into profit, causing displacement for the people who were there all along, that an Economic Flag shows up in the study, noting a success, a spiky place.

Why should the benefit and success be measured only when money is made?

Ultimately, it’s much less important what we measure than what we do. Maybe the earlier question should not be directed at Richard Florida at all.

So- bohemians, artists, gays, how can you, who create so much value, so much aesthetic, creative energy and economic growth, benefit from your own investments of creativity, and stay where you live to continue helping your neighborhoods and cities grow? Or is it ok that your investment of time, effort, love and creativity in the end only benefits real estate developers and chain restaurants?

buy the books of Richard Florida

read Richard Florida’s Blog.

Related posts:

1. I Want to be Richard Dedomenici
2. Across the Universe, The Power of Myth, 1967
3. Tekkon Kinkreet – Universally, Land Developers are Seen as Villains

Last week, David Byrne interviewed Thom Yorke of Radiohead for Wired, about their battle with record companies and their ultimate decision to produce and distribute their own music. This was punctuated a few months ago by releasing their latest album, In Rainbows, through their own site, and allowed fans to name their own price for the album. In the interview I am particularly happy with Thom Yorke’s invocation of the book No Logo by Naomi Klein.

At the same time, David Byrne wrote an amazing piece about being a musician in the digital world. As someone who has owned his own label and been a musician himself under different levels of label control, he has perspective to see the good and bad from all the types of musical situations available. This piece is the most concise and informative I’ve seen on the music business. If you are a musician it is a great read. The only option I think he leaves out are services like TuneCore, who allow you to place music on iTunes and other digital services with no withholding whatsoever. You just pay the hosting fee per year and per song (not very much) and they get you on the music stores.

Read: The music industry article for musicians by David Byrne or
David Byrne’s interview with Thom Yorke

Buy work by Radiohead, Thom Yorke or David Byrne (and Talking Heads).

Get No Logo by Naomi Klein.

Related posts:

1. David Byrne’s Perfect City
2. Plastic Records, Italy
3. David Hockney’s Advice for iPhone Painting

I used to flip through the Artist’s Market when I was in middle school. Back then, the prices paid for illustrations from books and magazines seemed extravagant. I didn’t understand until later how little artists get paid for their time and skill.

How about $.69 per hour?

Mechanical Turk is an Amazon project which hands out low-effort, repeatable, internet-based work units to people who sign up to take them on. The task units can be created by any organization or business who’s approved to offer them. The work is along the lines of “look at each of these images and click a box if there’s something red in the image.” The pay is based on supply and demand (of workers and tasks), but overall task completion is paid at very low amounts. This is not covered by minimum wage law because the workers can do the work in their own manner, when and where they want to. This means all workers, in the eyes of the law, are independent businesses, and can accept bids and make proposals of any amount they wish.

At the end of last year, artist Aaron Koblin put a set of tasks up on Mechanical Turk. Anyone accepting the tasks would create a drawing of a sheep facing left for $.02 per drawing. Each person could make a maximum of five sheep, for a total of $.10. Average time to create a drawing was 105 seconds. That works out to $.69 per hour.
The artist had 10,000 sheep created this way, and then flipped them on a new site at the rate of $20 for 20 sheep. The artists were up in arms, but the terms of Mechanical Turk clearly state all work becomes the property of the person requesting the task (like many work for hire agreements).

The larger artwork, The Sheep Market, in using this process showed the effects of outsourcing, the state of worker’s rights in the digital era, and the value art and artists are given in modern society.

Why would a company pay minimum wage if they can pay $.69/hour? Why would a stock photo agency pay a professional photographer for their work if they can get it for $1 per photo? How will artists make a living in a sea of cheaper online creativity?

More:
Salon – “I make $1.45 a week and I love it”;
Wired – The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Isabel Wang’s Blog – The User Generated Sheep Controversy

Related posts:

1. There are too many Artists, thus Modernism was Born
2. People Become Sugar Gliders and Flying Squirrels

International art collectors are warming up to a new breed of daring Japanese artists that are no longer beholden to Western styles.

Mentioned in the article is a Contemporary Arts Fund. I’m not sure how well known this is, but there are funds (like mutual funds) created by financial organizations that own artwork instead of stock. A curator or someone else purchases paintings, sculptures or other physical artworks based on their likelihood to increase in value, just like a mutual fund manager might decide what stocks to buy. The artwork is usually purchased across different artists and styles, in a diversification tactic that’s also similar to stocks. When all this is over, the fund is listed on the stock exchange, and prices go up when the artwork value goes up, and they go down when the value goes down. The idea for funds like these came about because when looking at some segments of artwork value, art ownership out performs stock ownership by a wide margin. Of course this is also very risky.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, you have banks and other large financial institutions actually admitting art has great value, and is willing to pay for the work (hopefully paying some artists along the way). On the other hand, except for the curators involved, the people buying into the funds care strictly about the monetary value, and nothing about the aesthetic or cultural value.

Article from Business Week.

New York Sun and Slate on art funds.

Related posts:

1. Momus – The Norwegian, the Scotsman and the Japanese