Artistic Value And The Value Of Art

[SLICKHAWK]

Perfect. simply said our minds will dilute all meaning and prove itself wrong to make a right. 

[Epiphany_Inspired]

#1. Do it for passion/ purpose regardless. #2. Price based on how much of your heart/ soul is in it...our time is priceless, but consider how many hours you actually spent on it....value your time by respecting yourself #3. Guide your price based on truly similar works, even if their success/ status is a rung up #4. use your intuition for pricing without allowing insecurity or visions of grandiosity to cloud it #5. Most importantly, realize the true value is in it's existence, regardless of purchase! Keep creating!

[Sevi]

We don't bake our own bread every morning or sew our clothes; someone does it for us and through our profession we do something for others and we exchange our products and services through our (current) value system which mostly appears as money.

So a baker bakes, a dry-cleaner cleans our clothes; what does an artist do for others to buy?

(Here, we need to clear something: if someone chooses art as a profession, to appear in society as an artist than, that person there already acknowledges that his/her art is not just a personal journey anymore.)

Now we have two questions:

1) what is the supply as in art form?

2) what do we buy other than our usual standard mundane needs?

1) What does an artist do?

The answers can vary a lot. I'll give mine. An artist is a translator. Also transforms and heals.

He translates images, dreams, emotions, deep undiscovered darknesses of psyche into the vibrations which can be sensed and experienced also by society.

He transforms consciousness of the society. Not just consciousness but also the emotions. He transforms the collective subconsciousness into consciousness. Example: watching a play can do this for you, without you knowing the actors representing your deep traumatic experience you had with your uncle. It can release some of that steam for you. He can create a crack in your mind for light to seep in.

He heals. By reading his poem that night, you can allow yourself feel the pain, feel the joy and might cry a bit and feel a relief without needing facing your own issues. So a painting on your wall can invite you to contemplate on relevant images pops in your mind.

He creates a meaning, an escape, a connection.

List can go longer. But let's cut it here for now.

2) What we buy, other than the necessity?

Basically we buy hope. The possibility to something to happen. 

More specifically in our mainstream culture; we wanna buy some warmth, some escape, some attention, some friendship, some appreciation, some release for deep loneliness, some ideas to feed a lost, worn-out soul, some sensation that makes us still feel cool.

Can art give some real medication to such cases without fooling those people? Not as permanent as actualization but yes it surely can.

How? That's the real work of an artist of our age.

Could some artists and media take advantage of this modern vulnerability of ours? Hell yeah. But there will be people with good work ethics and frauds in any profession.

Editing: when we buy something luxurious, out of necessity: that's an emotional purchase right there: we want it emotionally then we justify it logically. It's important to know as an artist if we gonna market our product.

So. This is the supply and demand situation. If we gonna create financial outcome we needed to know little bit about the value we are offering.

Okay, I'll  start a new post now for the marketing and the business uphold of it.

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by Sevi

[Sevi]

Marketing as an artist:

Issue Number 1: I am this such cool, deep, enlightened artist who can reach to the mysterious depth of existence; look at those petty, little shallow mainstream culture miserables! Of course they can not get it! ?

First of all we need to remember that we are all together part of 'that' culture. It's not something over there, it's: us.

Marketing=communicating to your audience/ your clientele: understanding them and their needs, their reasons and respecting their difficulties, their challenges; to be treatment to their issues.

Oh! They ignore, they just want relief... well, sometimes to continue to the hardship there is no way other than disregarding something: Now I see that gap as an artist, so now it's my job to call them out, bring them about back to the wonders of life in my own artistic methodology: 

Everyone has their artistic side in them, but they don't have time, energy, courage to do the follow through, but, they can reach it through me:

Hi! Come on here! I'm gonna hold your hand and guide you to a joyful beautiful mysterious little trip of our livelihood... wanna join me? Wanna see the world from my lenses? I sat and faced the life wildly at its edge for you; you might be tired a bit of your life, do you wanna give a little break and hold my hand?

Then, who will not be willing to create a little difference and spice and taste in their lives?

Here, at this point, pricing will be the factor. Then we need to know where is our audience financially and how I value my effort and my mastership.

Issue Number2: "but I am an artist not a 'salesman'!" Well, I chose this as a profession, the way I contribute to society: it's like I'm baking all of those breads and then I'm keeping them in my kitchen cupboard, and no one knows about it. I may like to cooperate with someone else for it, but I need to let my audience know. Of course 'how' is a complete different thread topic:)

Issue Number3: To keep it continues: when you start to do something artistic and different, yes scarcity arrives before than anything else? when you hold your ground and be very consistent about it, it's for sure you'll create your demand (of course if you are understanding and meeting their needs through your art). But it's like your baby, 24/7 you need to require your product; so it's about being really determined. The difficulty here is artistic personality generally doesn't like structural rules, wants to be 'free' and on the flow? but of course, for the sake of continuity of your profession, it's one of the sacrifices to make. Especially for the financial gain, consistency of your work is the most important element.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Sevi

[ShadowWalker]

9 hours ago, Nahm said:

Good luck! Post some of your work here? Please

Hopefully it's not against the forum guidelines:

 

9 hours ago, see_on_see said:

Are you trying to make a lot of money or are you trying to make good art? Hopefully the latter, in which case all that matters is that you can survive with it and pay the bills.

In short, I actually think that if the art is really good, it kinda markets itself. So, instead of focusing on marketing, it would be better to focus on creating better art. Original, interesting, with personality and style that STANDS OUT, that's what matters. If you got that, you don't need marketing, you just need to put your products out.

The real problem, is that art with these qualities, art that's ACTUALLY good... is hard as fuck to create. 

Definitely the latter and that's always been the case for me. It has worked so far, but turning 30 and not having at least some half-decent financial security and prospects for growth doesn't sit right with me. Hence my interest in researching the topic and ultimately improving my situation and abilities.

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course your work has to be exceptional. But even exceptional work can not be enough. And exceptional work still has to fit some kind of market need.

Even niche music is still massively popular because it demands so little of the listener. It's like comedy in that regard. Everyone loves good comedy. Because it's naturally easy to like.

In today's world I would say attention is one of the scarcest resources, so I would actually consider it as demanding a lot from your listener, who's drowning in a sea of mediocre music blasting him from every side, as well as social media and other distractions. I was actually in an underground band before taking up photography and I would honestly claim that it was much harder to reach people despite our band being among the most well-known locally. I should probably point out that I live in a small country with an almost non-existent market for the less popular genres of art. However, I'm fully aware that with online connectivity there's no room for justifications and limiting beliefs.

I fully agree with the rest of your points, and that's what I'm struggling with. Without being arrogant I can say that I'm confident in the quality of my work, yet I can't claim with certainty that it fulfills a market need.

[ShadowWalker]

@Emerald Wilkins  Thank you so much for this insider's view, I kept nodding in agreement while reading your post!

@Epiphany_Inspired Thanks for the practical advice!

@Sevi Beautiful insights with a lot of clarity and truth in them!

 

I can't believe I thought that forums are in decline. I'm truly grateful for all your input and very impressed with the quality of the discussion. I hope this thread will provide valuable guidance for other artists struggling to make sense of the whole thing.