DANGER AHEAD: Working in the Arts
Most of my clients are in the area we call “the arts.”
In British Columbia where I live and work, it’s pretty crazy right now. In the last year, the provincial government has taken the model of funding for the arts, put it in a blender and trickled it out (but they’ve kept some in the blender for themselves).
This has made for a very rattled arts community. People in both professional and volunteer arts organizations are worried if they will be able to continue to operate and if they are able, they worry about how to make things work with so much less.
It worries me, too. Much of my work comes from clients who rely on this funding that is being reduced.
In many ways, we’re no different from companies who just expect customers to somehow keep coming through the door even though they are not coming through the door.
The funding is not coming through the door.
I think of:
- Record stores who, even though the writing was on the wall, continued to think people would still buy CDs
- I think of Kodak, who waited too long thinking people would still buy film
- I think of horse traders who thought cars were a fad
We have to figure out how to change and adapt.
For some, it will mean closing shop, for others it may mean finding new clients in different industries, or maybe it will be radically changing current products and presenting them in a different way.
One thing is for sure, we need to employ all the creative forces we can muster and look all around us, not just at the immediate road ahead. We have to stop doing things the same way.
I know it’s cliché, but hard times often prove the best time to dig down, look hard inside and make dramatic changes that never seem to be possible when all is going along on autopilot.
The times are crazy. We need to try crazy ideas.
We need to be dangerous, ourselves.
Out of crisis comes opportunity and all that jazz. I still think on a macro level, we all need to advocate for the arts and that government/communities/economies benefit from government funding for the arts. On a micro, as in individual artists/orgs, I totally agree, we all need to break through our assumptions and push ourselves into new areas and new ways of thinking. We might even like the results.
Thanks, Harriet. I agree about advocating. That’s why I think what the Alliance for Arts and Arts Advocacy BC are doing is a good approach.
My perspective is so often on the individual and that’s because I am a solo freelancer. As individuals we can be a lot more daring and dangerous than many who work within organizations. Organizations for good and bad reasons, don’t tend to want to be “dangerous.”
I wonder about some of the same issues in areas of business outside of the arts as well. I wonder how this culture of FREE on the internet has been like your government blender of sorts for many things. There is a belief that if it can be found on the internet, it must be free…Music, video, information…etc…
Are artists expected to record a song and then put it on youtube for free?
Are we expected as web marketers to put all of our knowledge online on our blogs for free?
Should software be free?
Should education be free? Online tutorials?
Should news be free?
Maybe we are starting to pay the price of FREE….zero dollars…Gratis…I mean, what kind of business model is that?
Yes, this FREE stuff has created a multitude of offering, lures of entertainment…everywhere. This is probably affecting the subsidy of the arts as well…out of favor, out of sight…no more sympathy capital to be gained by politicians, who are exposed to the same stuff we are on the digital medias. No wonder they think your clients should be working for free…
In a way, I like this democratization of the means to publish oneself, on the other hand, I long for the talent filter that was the cost of publishing oneself…
As professionals, we devalue our work when we work for free…Are the arts stuck in the same trap in this digital era?….I wonder…
One thing for sure, we have to get out of this FREE model soon…or we will lose a lot…and unfortunately, culture is probably the first thing that will go….
Serge,
What an insightful comment you’ve made. I’d not thought before but you make sense when you say that the politicians themselves start to devalue arts because they think it should be free like so much else is.
I’ve wondered a lot about the whole “free” movement. Often the biggest proponents are people who have done very well charging for some things and then tell the rest of us we should give what we do away and we’ll get rich like them. (I’m not into getting rich, but being paid is important)
A standard story that just about any musician will tell is one where they are asked by someone to play for free because it’s “good exposure.” It certainly happened to me on more than one occasion and I can say that it rarely was “good exposure” and more often than not, a free gig.
I guess when politicians feel that supporting the arts is indispensable to their well-being, it will be funded. Where I live, the Premier and others couldn’t stop pinching themselves about how wonderful and valuable the arts were at the Vancouver Olympics. It suited their needs. It’s a shame they don’t see how the arts make their citizens healthy and wealthy and wise the rest of the year through involvement.
I guess, at the end of the day, it comes down to having a service or product that is indispensable and not available in any other way than to pay for it. We are in a shifting world that finds value in new ways, sometimes free. Perhaps this is like during the Renaissance when a lot of shifts happened.
Fun times.