Recently, I’ve been focusing some of my art-as-a-career time on one goal:  To help people — especially fellow artists — admit and get past economic problems.

Are you or your audience in a temporary financial jam? In recent years, that’s been sadly commonplace.

If you (or your fans) get stuck in denial or embarrassment, you’re still stuck. A quick, cold look at what’s going on… that gives you the realistic springboard to start from.

If you don’t know where you are and what the existing situation is, it’s difficult to chart a path to where you want to be!

So, let’s get very real for a minute.

Reality check

The fact is, Half of Americans don’t have $2000 for a rainy day.

I don’t mean they don’t have $2k in the bank or investments that they could get their hands on if they needed it.

I mean, in an emergency, even with 30 days to come up with $2000, only 25% of Americans are sure they could beg, borrow or steal that much money.

(I could launch into my discussion about an alternative economy, barter, and finding the silver lining, but that’s another discussion for another day.)

Where your friends, fans and customers are

If you’re in business, you need to know your potential audience and customers. If they’re among 75% of Americans, it’s not realistic to expect them to buy your $1500 painting, wall hanging or assemblage, no matter how gorgeous it is.

Sure, your art may be worth that much or more. Value isn’t the issue here.

The more pertinent questions are:

• Do your business practices make your future customers feel better or worse about themselves?
• Do they like how they feel around you and (especially) around your art?  
• Do you have rapport with them?

If they don’t feel that sense of mutual understanding on a personal level — even as artist-to-customer — they won’t be as open to connecting with what your art communicates.

Sure, you can focus on the minority who can afford your art. That may be a smart tactic, for now.

However, that probably shouldn’t be your exclusive focus.  Even if you don’t put as much time into laying a foundation with the rest of your audience, they’re still important to your future as a successful artist.

Reaching the 75%

If you’re meeting some of that 75% at art shows, galleries, or even as you’re running errands — and hope to attract them as clients, customers and collectors in the future, when they’re back on their feet – now is the time to establish rapport. They’ll remember it later.

Think about what you can do, so they feel a connection with you right now. What can you give or sell to them that they can own, and — at the same time — help them feel better about themselves?

Even if the person can’t purchase any of your art right now, he or she should walk away thinking, “That art is so great.  I’m going to own some of that, some day.”

Contrast that with the sad, “That art is beautiful, and yet another thing I can’t afford. Maybe I never will.”

See the difference?

So, make it possible for the person to connect with your art and feel good about it, right now.

The importance of gifts

Whether it’s a happy conversation, a free art postcard (like VistaPrint’s freebies, which I use), a link to a webpage where they can download something… make sure you connect with your friends and fans, and they remember it as a happy meeting.

This isn’t a reciprocity thing.  It’s not, “I’ll give you this now, and you agree to give me something in return, later.”

The gift economy is a little different.  It’s about bonding as individuals, and as a community, to establish a personal connection and goodwill for the sake of the group and each other, period.

What do you get out of this?  You get to be part of a happier, more connected community in a happier, more connected world.

You get the satisifying sense of having done something good.  That’s been vastly underrated in a society that values the external more than the internal.

Take your head out of the sand, at least now & then

It’s important to stay current about the world in general.  Use other people’s surveys (such as the article linked above) to understand your audience and what’s going on with them.

Of course, if something there resonates with you, too, acknowledge it and find the silver lining as you chart your path to success.

Right now, the global economy is in transition.  This effects artists as much as anyone else, and perhaps more than most.

Just as your financial challenges — if there are any — are temporary, that 75% aren’t people to dismiss because they’re temporarily in difficult times.

This is your opportunity to do something nice and helpful… and be remembered for it.

Everyone wins!

Pave the road to your successful future

It’s fine to focus on the minority with cash who also like your art.  That’s common sense.

However, pave the road for your continuing success — and invest in a little happy karma — by making it possible for everyone to own some of your art, right now.

There are ways to do that.  It’s not difficult.  It may require a little creativity, but you can do it.

(Note: If you liked my graphic at the top of this article, it’s a free download.  You can click on the image or here to download it as a 5″ x 7″ poster.  If you collect ATCs, click here for that free download.)

To understand more about
our economy and the importance of gifts
be sure to read Linchpin by Seth Godin

Well, my recents posts on the topic of copyright — especially related to Flickr and Google Images — seem to have opened a can of worms.

I did a little more research so I could refer people to the best resources & opinions I could find.

Here they are:

Flickr photos and images are not in the public domain. The photos and images are generally copyrighted.  Some members of Flickr choose to release some of their rights via Creative Commons licensing, and you can search the photos for pictures that are okay to use.

There are several copyright-related threads at the Flickr forum.  Click here to read one of the best replies, by joepphoto.

Here’s one of the clearest explanations of what’s what at Flickr:  Understanding Copyright on Flickr.

(Flickr itself, and its parent company, Yahoo, default to the normal rules of copyright as outlined by the U.S. government.  And frankly, that’s fine.  Flickr shouldn’t have to repeat the laws.)

Google Images are usually copyrighted, as well.  Google aggregates (or “scrapes” or collects) images from all over the Internet, the same as they post the titles of webpages, and summaries or excerpts of them.

• Nobody’s webpage is automatically in the public domain because Google indexed it.
• Nobody’s photos are automatically in the public domain because they’re among the visual indices at Google Images.

A copyright thread at Digitalpoint includes good answers and some stupid ones.  Correctly attributing ownership is not enough to meet copyright laws.

That’d be like someone copying a recent movie and thinking it’s okay because all the credits are intact in the copy they added to a torrent site.

(Oh. Wait.  People do that.)

Google explains the rights pretty clearly.  In a nutshell, you have permission to view the images in Google Images.  You don’t automatically have permission to copy and use them.

However, you can use some of the Advanced filters to find images — in Google Images — with Creative Commons licensing.

Highlighted in yellow on the page linked above, Google reminds people to verify the exact terms of using images that appear at Google Images, even when the images bear Creative Commons licensing.

Here’s what Google says:

Before reusing content that you’ve found, you should verify that its license is legitimate and check the exact terms of reuse stated in the license. For example, most licenses require that you give credit to the image creator when reusing an image. Google has no way of knowing whether the license is legitimate, so we aren’t making any representation that the content is actually or lawfully licensed. [Link]

I hope that helps explain what people can & can’t do with your images, and what’s okay (and not) if you’d like to use someone else’s images in your art or other products.

Personally, I’m rabidly enthusiastic about Creative Commons licensing.  I’ll talk about that in a later post.

For now, I’ve ordered the following book. I want to see suggestions about apparent conflicts between unbridled creativity and the copyrights of those who’ve created works of seminal (= strongly influencing later developments) importance.

See larger image Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (Paperback) By (author) Lawrence Lessig List Price: $16.00 USD New From: $1.99 In Stock Used from: $0.01 In Stock Release date February 22, 2005.

Do you need to change a Yahoo Group moderator or owner? Here are step-by-step instructions.

I’ve started around 20 (or more?) Yahoo Groups, including AJmarketing, wildartdolls, and ArtistsJournals2 (AJ2, now WAJ2).  When they become too popular for me to manage, I generally turn them over to new owners and moderators.

So, when people need to change Yahoo Groups moderators or ownership, they often ask me how to do this.  Here’s my reply:

Here’s how to switch moderators/owners at any Yahoo group:

1. The current moderator/owner goes into the list of members.  That’s accessed by clicking “Members” in the left column at the Yahoo Groups page.  See the long, tall graphic at right.

2. Click on “Edit membership” under the name of the person who will be the new moderator/owner.  (See the second illustration, below.)

3. Click on “Change to owner” … or “Change to moderator” if that’s more appropriate.

4. If the person is simply being appointed as a moderator, the owner will assign privileges in the next screen… how much the new moderator is allowed to do, that affects the entire group.  (For example, unless the moderator is trusted, the owner might not want to give him or her permission to delete the entire group.)

5. Click “Make moderator” or “Make owner” at the foot of the page.  At the next screen, if you’re back at the individual’s membership screen, click “Save changes”. (That’s important.)

6. The new moderator/owner will receive notice of the change, and may have to reply that it’s okay.

7. If the old moderator/owner is leaving, he or she will go to his (or her) own membership page in that group, and select “Make member.”  Be sure to save the changes similarly to what you did in step 5, above.

8. If the old moderator/owner is leaving the group, he or she will then choose “Leave  group” at the group’s homepage. (There may be a similar option at the membership page.  Either one will work.)

That should do it!

Today, I was reading a blog entry by Rick Sheffren, Leverage: Maximize your income in minimum time.

It reminded me of the potential leverage of past accomplishments.

As artists, we don’t always pause to update our resumes (CVs).  We participate in swaps, group shows, and see our works published in zines and magazines… and all we do is tell our friends.

Everything that you do as an artist holds the potential to move your career forward.

No matter how small the project, or how many other artists were involved, your participation is still news.

It doesn’t matter if you were part of the project because it was open to the public and you simply signed up for it.  Frankly, art collectors don’t always know which are invitational projects and which aren’t… and many don’t care.

It’s the quality of your work that matters, as well as the audience that see it.

Sign up for every project that you can, if you can participate with quality work.

Then, be sure to add your participation — and a photo or scan of the art — to your website and your CV.

Some of your most powerful leverage is what you create for fun.  That’s where the best energy can be, and it’s the energy — not necessarily the technical expertise — that separates mediocre art from art that soars!