Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. ―Andy Warhol
When has making money felt like art to you?
5 thoughts on “Art”
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Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. ―Andy Warhol
When has making money felt like art to you?
Comments are closed.
When I’m teaching a training course and I deviate from my prepared material ad lib to suit the interests of the trainees.
Never. To my disadvantage probably, I have tried to disassociate my involvement in my efforts as an artist from thinking of it in financial terms. Well, I’ll take that back somewhat: I prefer that someone who doesn’t have money to buy a painting, for instance, at a high amount of money, has the opportunity anyway of owning and enjoying the art they desire. Sometimes, rather often, the market “demands” that an artist should not price a piece at a lower rate because it “damages” the value within the market. I prefer to give it away to someone who wants and likes it especially because they recognize that it is an original.
I have learned to be wary this. When I first started my consensus-building training and consulting business, people told me that, although giving a short talk or presentation is a good way to promote many kinds of business, when what you are selling is educational service, and you give it away for free, you teach people that it is not worth paying for. I learned the hard way that they were right. The free sample of training is not good for anyone concerned. The people enjoy the 20 min. lunch presentation, but they don’t value the info enough to go out and put it into practice, so it’s not good for them. And, contrary to what the organizers of the event think, it almost never brings audience members to me for paying work. The people who do come to me for additional training for themselves or their companies are those first heard me after they paid to take a course from me, for example, at Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies. Still, it seems ungracious and surly for me to turn down the requests for short talks, so I give them, but I don’t expect much in the way of results.
I understand your point although an example I offer is not in the direct realm of money making. When I worked at the State Library, we would offer free regional training meetings for local youth librarians around the state. When I mentioned to my supervisor that there were some attendees who slept though the program or socialized a lot instead of attending he said, “Don’t be surprised; some come just to get away from work at home or…..other reasons”. Made me realize that reality.
I can see that. I know there have been times, in a previous profession, when I was happy to get out of town albeit for some mandatory continuing education. In my earlier comment, I hadn’t really thought about people not paying attention in class. My experience has been that, when I teach free, people do pay attention and do give me a big hand and compliments afterward, but they do not remember the skills they were taught and do not go on to practice the skills in their lives the same way those who paid tuition do. But it’s sort of academic ’cause I rarely turn down 20 min. gig, even if all I get is a free lunch. I just can’t handle what feels like an ungracious decision.