Yuck. We hate talking about our shows, especially before we’ve made them. Because ultimately what you’re doing is trying to sell yourself, or your ideas, before you’ve actually worked out who you are or what you think.
Friday, October 25, 2019
The Ickiness of Marketing Your Art
Yuck. We hate talking about our shows, especially before we’ve made them. Because ultimately what you’re doing is trying to sell yourself, or your ideas, before you’ve actually worked out who you are or what you think.
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We want to make art that comes from within us, but if the art that we make has to be funded or has to be something that makes a profit, it has to be art that is made with the people in mind. Which then means that it may not be 100% genuine in the sense of it being "of" us. We have to tweak it. We may have to add on or take off or completely change the concept of the whole piece itself so that it becomes a marketable piece of art. I can see how that becomes frustrating, or rather, icky. Especially if your art has a strong political message but then you need the support of the higher ups, who may in fact be the people your art speaks against, to make it "successful." Thinking of visual art, people like Banksy and Basquiat have been lucky enough to successfully market their work and catch the attention of people who saw value in their work. Maybe it's a case of someone being in the right place at the right time for them. But I am sure that in the beginning of their art careers they struggled a bit to have their work appreciated by people who could support it financially. I hate the idea of needing other people to see the value in what you are doing, but it's the sad truth. There are so many talented artists out there creating good work but just haven't been good at the marketing side of things, or they haven't come across the right persons. I always say to be a successful/acclaimed artist you not only have to be talented, but you also have to be a good businesswoman/man with a whole lot of drive and patience. It's not easy.
Art exists in the grey zone of capitalism- no one seems to want to pay for art, yet artists are expected to keep creating it. Especially in today’s digital age, content is so easy to publish and push to the world for mass consumption, but it seems as difficult as ever to make sure that artists are being compensated for their work. But at the end of the day, artists need to eat and pay rent in order to keep making their work. This also becomes difficult when referring to experimental theatre works, or performance art. A lot of times, people can be intimidated by the words “performance art,” because the term is so vague and can be applied to literally any type of performance or interactive piece of art. By referring to such pieces as “plays,” the author of the article attempts to level the playing field by using a general term, in order to make the thought of seeing the performance more palatable to a general audience.
There is a saying I know from my writing friends that goes “When you start to write, write something you want to read,” and I think we can change the word “write” to “create” and “read” to “consume.” When I first heard a friend use it I went “That’s great, but I like reading weird shit, and who is going to read that?” Her response was super clear “If you like it, someone else out there does. But you’ll have to find them, and prove to others that they exist, and then you may have to tweak your writing to being a little less you specific and a little more encompassing of the group you’ve found—but when you start you start with you first.” And I think the thing that stuck with me is, “you’ll have to find them.” That’s what marketing is, in a sense. Finding other people who will like the same stuff you’re making. And if that means telling a white lie and calling every performance piece a “play” then tell that white lie. If that means spending some time before finally finishing your product researching your market area, the demographics and so on and so forth, well, you’ve got to make money somehow and you’re not going to make it by ignoring what can sell. I think what this article tries and fails to do is talk about how perhaps artists, of any kind, should look into the art of marketing and try to get more comfortable with seeing themselves and what they do as a product, and not just a thing they do.
Feeling icky about selling yourself (networking) or whatever one is working on can be uncomfortable except one is very good at connecting and talking. I completely understand the idea that art is something that should not be associated with money. It is an idea that resonates across the world. I think that this comes from one of the myths that author mentions in the article "Artists are selflessly devoted to art." I personally do not see selflessness as something that comes at the expense of my own stability. Selflessness also means taking care of yourself and bring the best you to the work. Humans intrinsically expect reward when they do something and that can come in different forms but in today's society, one of the most important dorms of reward is money. Money makes the world run and it doesn't take an exception to art. It is sad that this supports the idea the idea that we need to make art that sells which is sad but I do believe that when we change the narrative that money is the evil sibling of art, the ickiness would start to melt away.
After reading this article I agree that it is very difficult to market your own art. I find it difficult personally to talk about my own work without feeling like I sound egotistical. I also agree that it is kind of uncomfortable that art is measured in monetary terms and judged by how “good” it is to determine its value. It feels like art should be shared and enjoyed by all and not bought by the super rich to be held in there private collection where no one else will see it. Rachel Porters idea about calling all of her artistic endeavors “plays”!is an interesting idea. It’s true that most conventional people would probably rather watch a play than a weird experimental art movement that they don’t understand. It seems a bit untruthful to brand everything as a play even if it is not a play, but I guess if that is working for Porter than whatever.
I think that part of the “ickiness” of marketing yourself and what you create stems from two places. First, we are taught as humans not to brag. Socially, marketing yourself is equal to some combination of bragging and begging. We, as artists, must overcome the social teachings that have been ingrained in us since youth to stand up for what we create. Additionally, it is hard to think about a creative piece (whether it be your own or another’s) in merely monetary terms. To evaluate yourself critically, rejecting any emotions you might have attached to your work and only think of how much money it would be “worth” to another person can often be detrimental as an artist. It is also difficult to do this in a world where there is not necessarily a “norm” because art is a subjective craft. Bankers and engineers and lawyers need not operate similarly because they have established standards of pay. Artist, however, do not. Van Gogh, for example sold his paintings for next to nothing when he was alive. Now, however, they sell for millions of dollars.
This article speaks to a really important aspect of our lives and our careers that none of us like to address. We are part of the bigger system. We like to pretend that we live in our personal little creative artistic bubbles, but those bubbles exist within the world as well. We need money to create our art. That money either comes from actual audiences or rich mommies and daddies, and most of us are left hoping for the former because our lives did not grant us the latter. In order to secure these audiences, we have to advertise, we have to campaign that the art that came straight from our hearts is valuable for some reason and could be relatable and powerful to others in some way. But that means not only opening up our hearts and souls to strangers, but exchanging that intimacy for cold hard cash, which seems unbalanced and scary in every sort of way, but it is that the world we live in and we all need to work on navigating it in a comfortable but still effective way.
Super interesting meta-article. This conversation is one that we’re talking about in my interpretation and argument class about how people advertise themselves and their products. I think it’s interesting how theater is stereotypically an artform that fights back against the man and capitalism, but many times it relies on funding. Funding usually has strings associated with it which I think is an interesting line to walk. The truth of the matter is that all people need to be able to eat and have a roof over their head, so they need money and they have to do what they have to do. She says that as an artist, you’re always marketing yourself to potential clients or employers. I was thinking that as an independent artist, you need something that makes you stand out from the crowd, sort of like the college application process. I’m looking forward to figuring out what it is I can use to make me stand out.
It's very difficult to market something as personal as art. It's almost impossible. At least for me, art and theatre are so incredibly personal that it's awful to try to monetize. But this is what we do for a living, and the mature of capitalism means that we have to monetize our work. Being an artist is difficult; people want you to be constantly producing art, but don't want to have to pay you for it. We are so often expected to be happy to get ANY money for our art that we forget the worth of our work. We put so much time, effort, and money into our work, how is it possible that we're expected to get nothing for it. So, how can we advertise to get the profit we need that doesn't make us feel gross? That's not really a question that I have an answer to, but I do think that a lot of new artists are doing it in a really interesting way. Marketing yourself on sites like Instagram and Twitter is a really new, interesting concept that so many artists are using. This is something that helps to take the corporations out of advertising art. But, there is always the susceptibility to others stealing your art when you advertise it online. So, really, there is no right answer here. There's consequences to all types of advertising for artists and most artists really need to think about what's right for them and their art individually.
Marketing yourself as an artist, in my opinion, is always holding you back from being the best artist you could be. You are always worried about living up to your market, and the art separates from becoming something you are proud of and are passionate in and turns into a type of business tool. I see this a lot with both the college admissions process, as well as maintaining online portfolios. We are forced to display ourselves in the best possible way in order to gain approval from the university or a client in the professional world. One of the nice things about going to a university to learn this skill is that you are able to work in a no stakes environment for a short amount of time. You are able to focus on the art that you want to create for at least freshman year. You can virtually create anything that you are passionate about and it is a very great environment to be in.
This article digs into a subject that I think about frequently. It is similar to the contradictions that Banksy is currently tangling with, except it seems very unlikely that Banksy needs money. I think that this also gets at the inherent privilege involved in being an artist. Banksy is a good example of this; they are internationally renowned, their art pops up all over the world (implying access to “all over the world,” and they actively push back against people who want to buy or sell their art. If Banksy were not a person of means, I seriously doubt that any of this would be accessible to them. That said, their art is wildly popular and fits right in with art that is made to sell. Meanwhile, there are folks (like the author, seemingly) who make the art that they want to make, and while they obviously want an audience, the audience is not the purpose. I am not certain that this stance is entirely blameless, either. Art is necessarily public, and necessarily consumed, so it might be missing the boat when it is not created for an audience.
The copyright is the closest concept to the double-edged sword that I can come up with in the broader art scene. By claiming or designating the owner ship of a created piece, we can undoubtedly ensure the benefits and rights of the creator of the work, which encourage and protect the importance of doing art. But on the other hand, we are also hurting the art itself with barring people outside of the door to beauty of art. This is a boundary that is so blurred that it has been turned against the artists, several times in the history. Nowadays it is getting more serious and complicated when Internet became our main platform of sharing information. The copyright laws suddenly shifted into a favor of capitalism, which is usually the tall wall we try to overcome by doing art. In a brief summary, I personally think copyright should remain what is was meant for- protecting only the original creators of the art, not the companies or organizations that benefits from individual effort and talent.
This article presents a very real truth for artists not only in our industry but of any kind. We as artists often pride ourselves as being anti-capitalist and working against the ideas of those who control and project what they want into the world while at the same time we need that structure and funding to sustain our work in the first place. I’ve never been comfortable showing of my own work and I’ve also never been very good at selling myself in interviews and the like but I can’t imagine how uncomfortable I would personally feel trying to sell my art what ever you would like to classify that as to anyone. Art comes in weird forms as it is created to be consumed by others and shown off to all but often needs to be created for something or someone whit a specific set purpose in mind.
As many people are already mentioning above, nowadays, arts or any other creation cannot be separated from capitalism. In fact, modern Theatre, which is distinguished from Drama that are considered more as a part of literature with authentic sense, includes a sense of social factors including the business-based value decisions by its definition. "I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged" These are the words of Peter Brook, the British director. Considering Theatre as what happens between the actors and the audience, it seems to be a natural phenomenon for the artists to seek for the people who demands. However, I consider the artists having a difficult time handling sales and marketing in business a problem. They are the ones who create 1 from 0. I believe this is where the study of arts management comes in to make their 1 into 10, 100 and 1000.
The notion of art being sacred or that it’s a donation to the greater society, no longer fits the economic model, and we shouldn’t be afraid of demanding remuneration for our efforts. We’ve all sat through theatre history classes, we all know theatre started as rites for better crops, and for a better hunting season. Later with the Greeks it became entertainment, and a way to teach and educate the masses. Which we still do, theatre production still aim to entertain and educate, but the world around us has changed, we’d like to eat and have a roof over our heads. The fact that most of theatre companies right now, survive through patron donations and government funds, and most of the labor is cheap labor from interns says a lot about how the non-profit model is not capable of sustaining an economically stable life, where an adult can maintain themselves, I’m not even going to go into procreating.
I think it is hard to market anything you are deeply invested in and passionate about because there is always a part of art that is sacred (even if it that’s a myth that isn’t fully true). Art is still an industry, and with industry comes capitalism, even though we want to think of art as just being a creative endeavor. Marketing can be scary from any aspect, but it can also be a lot of fun. There are so many ways that marketing can be used in ways where it doesn’t look like marketing or it is playing into the subconscious decisions of people, which is why it can be interesting to find ways to strategically market yourself and your art without being overt and shoving it in people’s faces. While both are ways that work, one feels more subliminal and connects with the societal perception of an artist and the other can seem desperate. Social media marketing is definitely something that artists can utilize more when playing into this idea, since it is the best way to connect with the categories of people who may be interested in what art you have to offer. Marketing your art can be terrifying, but it’s all about finding your market and finding the people who want to see your work, because they are out there, you might just have to work harder than you expect.
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