SELL WITH SOUL
EPISODE 011: SELL WITH SOUL
The first in a now-and-then series called Craft + Commerce, for those of you who fight the daily fight not only on the canvas or the blank piece of paper, but on a spreadsheet, this one’s about selling your work without selling, or soiling, your soul. Let’s talk about it.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
When I was a kid my art teacher made us all make little creatures from teasels, weird little dried thistles that were common in our part of Canada, something that looked a little like a hedgehog when dried and clipped from its stem. We'd push little pins in for eyes and noses and glue them to pieces of bark. The results weren’t exactly sophisticated. But for some reason I made a staggering number of them, my teasel army growing and - because Christmas was coming - they started sporting Santa hats, and being glued to the bark next to little snowmen made from white pom poms. And then I started selling them.
It didn’t even cross my mind that no one would need, much less want, one of these ugly little things. It was assumed that if I made it, they would buy. It probably helped that I was cute and once you opened your door to me and my Kristmas Kritters, I’d just stand there, looking nervous, pathetic, and very cold, until you bought one. This was my first effort in combining craft with commerce, a fusion of two very different worlds that not everyone finds desirable or easy.
Not everyone wants to make money with their creative efforts, but some see the making of money as an act of creativity as challenging and rewarding as making other, more artistic, things.
I’m David duChemin, and this is Episode 11 of A Beautiful Anarchy and the first in a now-and-then series called Craft + Commerce, for those of you who fight the daily fight not only on the canvas or the blank piece of paper, but on a spreadsheet. Let’s talk about it.
Music / intro
My Kristmas Kritters endeavor filled a jar with money so fast it was staggering to my 10-year old self, so much so, that the following year, because I’m crap at keeping secrets and blabbed about it to a friend, I had competition. His name was Scott and in hindsight I admit he had excellent business chops, but I never sensed he was doing it like I was, you know, for the art. His product just didn’t have the soul that mine had. He was a hack, a wanna-be, and I was certain the local market for Kristmas Kritters would see through his crass imitation and obvious commercialism. And worse, his were twice the price of mine! I figured Scott was doomed.
Instead, Scott cleaned up. He hustled harder, got out to sell sooner and every damn door I knocked on I got the same reply: “Sorry, kid, we already bought one." My short career as a professional artist was over, scuttled by a kid who understood a couple things about commerce that I did not. He knew that value was about more than the cost of the raw materials. And he wasn’t afraid to offer them to everyone and charge what he felt they were worth. It didn’t hurt that he had more hustle than I did but I think that hustle came from being less awkward about selling, and less precious about his creations.
Artists that aren’t also naturally entrepreneurial have a tough time with that. We don’t like to sell. We feel that selling lacks soul, like one of Scott’s ersatz Kristmas Kritters, that almost 40 years later I am hardly bitter at all about. Besides, aren’t artists meant to be above this kind of thing? We tend to mistakenly believe that if we build it they will come, that “our art speaks for itself” and whatever other lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better when no one is buying it or we can’t conjure the courage to sell it. Most of us feel like these kinds of conversations have to be followed up by a long hot shower as we scrub the stink of capitalism from our souls.
And yet we persist, many of us, determined to make it work. We fight against the idea of the starving artist, but we also take a perverse kind of solace in it because the alternative is to wrestle our muse into a suit and tie and put her to work and that feels like selling out.
Here’s where I’m going with this episode: if you want to make any part of your living by combining your craft and the very real world of commerce, you will struggle less and experience greater joy if you re-calibrate your perspective on selling what you make. You can sell without selling out. You can sell without selling, or soiling, your soul.
Selling is a profoundly human activity. It is about desire and emotion, and the things we value. When you sell something to someone you are exchanging something they want for something they want less. If you sell me your painting for $100 and I buy it without coercion, it’s because I desire that painting and I want it more than I want that $100.
So, as long as I’m getting what I believe I paid for, this is a win-win situation. You've made me happy and I’d argue that we could all use a little more happiness. And over the months and years that follow, long after you spend that $100, I’ll still get daily pleasure from your art. In fact, on balance I probably got the much better end of the deal. There’s no reason to feel guilty about it. Selling is just an opportunity for you to put your work into the world, to give it a life beyond your own studio or home, and to do so in a way that allows you the freedom to make more.
I know, it feels weird to sell the painting or put a price on the book or the song, but remember this: you’re not selling those things. You’re selling the feeling, emotion, or experience that your art creates. That is the value. That is what people are buying. It has nothing to do with the price of canvas and paint.
But where we get really weird isn’t just the selling itself. It’s the money. Oh my God do we hate talking about money.
Many of us have grown up thinking there’s something shameful about discussing money. It’s private, in the same way talking about sex or religion is private. And yet start talking about money and everyone gets nervous and awkward and starts wishing we could just talk about sex or religion instead.
But isn't money the root of all evil? No. It’s not. Greed is. And for those of us that damn-near choke on the word “money” I’m not sure our souls are in any real peril, given that we can barely talk about it. Money is just a symbol. It’s a mechanism of exchange. If we all used turnips or cucumbers to buy and sell things I don’t think we’d be as weird about it. 100 turnips for that painting? I’ll take two! God knows I don’t need all these turnips. But dollars? Somehow it suddenly feels like one of us is winning and one is losing. And those of us with a soul and a conscience feel rightly uncomfortable with that. It doesn’t jive with the story we tell about ourselves as caring people.
As with much in life, this is about what we believe and how we see ourselves. If you do not see money as a mechanism for achieving good and beautiful things, you will have a hard time asking for it. And you’ll have less of it, less to give your kids, to invest in your art, to donate to whatever causes are most important to you. If you do not remotely believe that your art will make someone feel something that is valuable enough that people would give some of their money to experience it, why in God’s name are you wasting your time and energy making it?
Some would rather just give it away for free, but even if you’re not asking for my money, you’re asking for time and attention, both of which are even more scarce. If it’s not worth money, it’s certainly not worth those. We’ve made money into the most valuable commodity: it’s not.
But it is valuable. And if it’s valuable we can do good and beautiful things with it. And when we trade our art for it whether that’s a modest twenty dollars or an astonishing million, we’re doing the same beautiful transaction humans have been doing thousands of years: trading value for value so we both get what we want and need. Money represents the possibility of doing good things, and creating change. Making money can be as beautiful and creative an endeavour as creating art, and can often create even greater change than the art we so believe in.
When I look around my studio I see things people designed, made, wrote, photographed, and carved. Almost all of them I paid good money for, mostly because no one is taking turnips on barter these days. I look at these things, sit in them, read them, experience them, and they give me tremendous joy. They are the material things with which I’ve chosen - no one made me do it - to surround myself. And not once have I thought about the artist or maker or designer and thought poorly of them for making these things available to me. I’m grateful for their willingness to not only make their art but to put a price on it so I can own it and experience it daily, and they can continue to do their beautiful work not just with their hands but their minds and souls. All they got was some cash.
I know some of you are at listening to this and thinking about what you make and thinking, “Sure, but this isn’t anything the world really needs. It’s not important like curing cancer or building shelters or saving the world,” Let me ask you this, do you want to live in a world without art, do you want to win the fight against cancer and live without music, poetry, dance and great stories? These are the things we live for and while there are times in life when they are not the most needed and the most urgent, they are the things for which we live, the things, among others, that give us joy and meaning. What you make and that you make it has inexpressible human value. We need you and your art more than you will ever know.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know where Kristmas Kritters fit into this. I’m pretty sure no one got much pleasure out of the ugly little things themselves, I’m certain the adults that bought them aren’t passing them down to the kids. Can you imagine getting that in the will? Why would Mom leave me some moldy bark and a thistle with googly-eyes? But I know this: the people that bought them valued the experience and the feeling of buying the work of my hands more than they valued their $2. And I know I underestimated that, and if I had charged $5 I would have made more money and not for a moment diminished their joy. It might have increased it. And that would have been a good thing for ten-year old me. I might have persevered. I might not have given up so easily. I might have made more art, such as it was, instead of throwing in the towel and getting a paper route.
I know it’s a crap metaphor, and I’ve come up with better. But if you want to make even part of your living with your creativity, which despite my early set-backs I have now done all my adult life, you need to come to peace with what you believe about money, and how you value what you do. You’re not the only one who struggles with this stuff, not the only one that finds it hard.
You need to believe that what you do matters, and is worth the piece of your soul that it’ll take to make it. Because if what you make is art then it contains exactly that, a piece of you. A part of your soul. No matter what you sell it for, it’ll be a bargain. The world, for you and for the person that owns that work, will be a better place. There is no shame in trying to make that happen and believing in the goodness of the effort.
If you’re enjoying this podcast and want more, I’ve just started a small project called On The Make - think of it as a heartfelt monthly kick in the pants sent to your inbox. Call it a dispatch, a missive, perhaps even an epistle, On The Make is a chance for me to address other issues in the creative life, recommend some great books, and continue to do what I created A Beautiful Anarchy for - to encourage you, to remind you you aren’t alone, and that the fight is worth the effort. And every month I’ll draw the name of one subscriber and send them a signed copy of my book, A Beautiful Anarchy. All you have to do is tell me where to send it. Go to ABeatifulAnarchy.com , scroll to the bottom and trust me with your email address. I’ll also immediately send you a small pdf ebook called Escape Your Creative Rut, 5 Ways to Find Your Groove Again.
If you’ve got questions about this often awkward intersection of creativity and money, or other issues about the creative life, I’d love to hear it and consider it for a future episode. You can drop me a line at talkback@abeautifulanarchy.com.
Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0