Capitalism for artists: It's not what you think

 The quintessential opera for starving artists. (Wiki Commons)

Here are two of capitalism's favorite sayings:


There's a buyer for every product.

If you build a better mousetrap, you will prosper.

For artists and artisans, both of those statements are wrong. Totally, profoundly wrong. And yet, art buyers seem to want to hold artists to them, demanding refunds even when the art they purchased was delivered EXACTLY as advertised, on time and at a low price.

First, the universe of buyers for art has shrunk along with the economy in general; in fact, it would be reasonable to guess that the art market has shrunk faster than other markets. When people wonder if they can put food on the table, they will not hang new pictures on their walls. And in case you hadn't noticed, patronage by royalty and the wealthy is a thing of the past, as well.  I may be wrong, but I have heard of  no royals having a writer, artist or composer at their beck and call for a nice yearly stipend. No Antonio Salieris*, in short, need apply.

Second, in art, there is no such thing as a better mousetrap. Each mousetrap is different, unique, original. 

Getting cold cash for warm art; How?

So how, then, is an artist or artisan to entice such buyers as are left to trade some cold cash for warm art? Advertising.

Few artists can afford a huge roadside billboard; few can even afford a few daily sponsored posts on Facebook. But most can afford to put a little soft-sell on their works someplace. Photographers can add their website to greeting cards and calendars they sell, if not to the bespoke or limited edition photographs. So can graphic artists. Painters would have a tougher time adding it to their work itself, but that's not to stop them signing the work boldly and recognizably and including a card with contact information in every sale.

One's first customer is one's best customer, so another capitalist saying goes. This one is at least partly true of art, right up the the time the fashions change or an artist's first collectors are fully stocked on things to display in their home or office. But with luck, they will have sent one of the artist's cards to a friend, who might also become a customer. Or a regular buyer might show a painter's work to friends who would also like to own some.

Key to all of it is letting buyers know your contact information, these days most usually a website where potential buyers can view more of the artist's work, and to which they can refer friends, and on which will be full disclosure about how to commission or buy the artist's work.

How does this REALLY work?

Today, a friend of mine refunded a teeny, tiny payment--2 quid--that a buyer had paid for two postcards because--gasp!--the photographer had included her website information on the cards. She had--in big, bold, capital letters--told buyers via her sales website that the cards came with the website information printed on them.

My friend could have kept the measly 2 quid and let the buyer go scratch. But one can't do that, either; while few people publicize artists for how good or accommodating they are, you can be darn sure they'll publicize the artist as a grasping moron over a 2 quid purchase, all over town and beyond. It's the nature of the beast--humans in general and chintzy art-buyer wannabes in particular.

Is there a solution to this? I'm clueless. I can't imagine it getting any better now that governments worldwide are further devaluing art and artists by withdrawing arts funding from schools.

A friend in the US told me two days ago that in the town where he lives, shop fronts are either art galleries or cute restaurants...for a month at a time, until the latest one goes belly up for lack of business. He is a Juillliard educated pianist and conductor whose last symphony gig went the way of many smaller symphonies as Bush's debacle began to roost. Fortunately, he also has an MBA, so he has gotten a new gig running a foundation to fund arts in the schools. In short, he's digging money out of the pockets of individuals a buck at a time so local kids will know crap from Crayola.

He needs to be making music happen, not dunning already strapped people for money so their kids--the same kids the schools are supposed to educate--won't end up clueless about the arts. People who are clueless about the arts, in a very bone-deep way, would naturally begrudge artists both the right to advertise their work and the right to be paid for it. Like every other sort of business in the world. Like that towering imbecile who spent two whole quid--TWO WHOLE QUID--for two postcards and then wanted her money back because she had failed to read the not-so-fine print telling her what the cards would be like, in addition, of course, to the full-color photograph of said cards. Unbelievable.

My photographer friend is at the threshold of taking a large bottle of Fukitol, but I trust she won't. She's too good for that...although what we are all going to do if a few of the richest 100, whom Oxfam this week said could solve poverty four times over with their wealth alone, don't start greasing the wheels of commerce...I have no idea.



*Salieri, Mozart's mentor, was supported mainly by the Hapsburg rulers of Vienna.