Originally posted sometime in 2021
The world seems to have imploded since my last blog post. Not my world, necessarily—it’s always been precariously on the brink of implosion. Welcome to the artist’s life. Even if I’m not making art, I still act like an artist. That is, annoyingly dreamy, somewhat aloof, and a little bit flaky. Still, my life has suffered only a tiny implosion, barely a puff of air, not likely to gain any attention much less any sympathy. Not like what is happening around the globe.
What have you been doing in quarantine? Have you been dreaming about making money with your art? Yeah, me too.
This summer I taught a Zoom class through my local community college’s community education department. The class was an exploration of business concepts for artists. Nothing too difficult, just a slow spirally dive into marketing principles, all in the context of their art. Sounded like fun to me. Ten people enrolled, and eight showed up on the first Saturday morning at 10:00, looking a little anxious in the tiny Zoom windows. I invited each person to talk about their hopes for the class and was reassured by their enthusiasm.
The five week course was eye-opening. Adapting to the Zoom environment wasn’t difficult. I’ve always been fine working in my pajamas. The wake-up call for me came in the form of vague comments from the students. I was slow to catch on. Then on the second day, one student thoughtfully reported that after extensive contemplation, she had decided she didn’t want to turn her art into a business after all.
What? Oh no! I eyed the other students’ faces in their tiny Zoom windows, trying to gauge their level of agreement. Was this a mutiny? Was everyone going to bail on Day 2?
In a few seconds, I considered and discarded several responses. First I thought, should I plead with her? No, you can’t quit, the world needs your art! Next I mentally dusted off my hands: Should I merrily proclaim, My work here is done? Probably not.
I asked her to describe her reasoning. She said the prospect of actually treating her art like a business lost a lot of its appeal when I started talking about choosing a business structure, getting a business license, and paying estimated taxes. It appears that in my effort to give them the nuts and bolts of treating their art-making endeavor like a business, I unintentionally revealed the artist’s Achilles heel.
We like the dream of making money from our art, but not the sordid reality of making money from our art.