Some people are born entrepreneurs; many of us are forced entrepreneurs, as small business expert Irvine Green reminds us in his latest blog. Whether we fancy a career as a business person, or not, many of us are obliged to think like an entrepreneur or we can’t work at what we love doing. Even artists need to be accountants or, quite simply, they won’t be able to sustain their creative endeavours.
But, as Irvine notes, artists don’t look for gaps in the market to fill. First they produce their art and then they find people who like what they have done. This is fundamentally different from the person who is born looking for money-making opportunities. Being an entrepreneur by necessity is much harder, much lonelier, cautions Irvine. – JC
Talent often forces entrepreneurship
By Irvine Green
As discussed recently, people are either born as entrepreneurs or ‘forced’ into entrepreneurship by financial circumstances, often post-retrenchment or post-natal.
However, as no doubt hundreds of thousands would testify, if one has a talent that only requires one person’s involvement (or at best two), one has to buckle up, knuckle down and do it – be an entrepreneur. So inclined or not.
I speak of course of those in the artistic arena, craftsmen and those with other talents that come to bug many on this planet despite the fact that parents wish otherwise for their offspring…!
An artist can only do the work s/he does by him/herself. Whether Boonzaier, Picasso or Rembrandt and the hundreds of thousands before and after them (pre-Raphaelite, impressionist or abstract)…
No artist intends to be an entrepreneur. This aspect of life is forced on them by the nature of the work. Only the artist knows what s/he wants to paint, how it must start, develop, look and reach an end.
It’s unavoidable that an artist will be an entrepreneur. It’s the nature of the job – force of circumstance. The talent often means months to years of near poverty.
Widening the subject a little, sculptors usually have the same experience of life. Now and then, on major projects, if it’s a bespoke work and a known fee is coming in, sculptors CAN employ assistants for welding, carving or such. But, this is temporary, and when the project is complete the sculptor is again in the lucky position of being boss, worker, chief coffee cup washer, head welder, floor sweeper and telephone assistant…!
In the early days of art (until as recently as the early 1970s) ‘art’ was limited to painting, and sculpture. Now there’s installation art, photography, video, recycled/upcycled art, design, and whatever might have been thought of TODAY that we won’t be aware of until it hits an art gallery.
There’s ‘pop up’ art (nothing to do with a ‘jack in the box’), cartoons (as in Zapiro and others, locally and worldwide), comics (most comics are an art form, though written as storylines), etc, ad infinitum. But again the common thread is that the worker behind these is self-employed, an entrepreneur.
In all forms of art, the difference is that the artist has not seen a ‘gap’ to fill (the entrepreneur’s first stop in normal business) but is rather following a ‘calling’ that drives that person to produce what is in his head, visualised via a pen or pencil on paper, and then produced in whatever form is chosen (paint, pencil, pastel – or wax, steel or plastic sculpture, etc).
And the problem that arises in the art world is that the entrepreneur driven by a ‘calling’ usually has it harder than anyone else, as there is no ‘known’ demand for the product. It’s only when the final product is seen in a gallery, catalogue or TV documentary that interest is aroused in some who see it, and on occasion search it out/buy it.
Most of the time the artist is in production mode, driven by both the ‘calling’ AND the need to ‘create’ so that there are items to sell. No two outputs can EVER be the same – no production line with diminishing costs per item. The selling price of the item depends on the product. Generally what the buyer THINKS it is worth.
So, often, if you visit an artist’s studio, you’ll find the brushes have teeth marks (gnawing sub-consciously from stress while using another paint brush), or the hammers and chisels have unexplained cracks in the steel shafts from being thrown around in frustration as the sculpture had to be started a second time with new steel/rock due to over enthusiastic effort. Or like a diamond being cut, was hit in the magic spot (a fault line) that causes disintegration – a spot unknown, until it happens…
Be forgiving to our artistic entrepreneurs and pay a little more than what your instinct tells you the art is worth – even if the artist produces one picture a day, s/he doesn’t sell one a day. There’s more financial stress in that field than even the most pessimistic loans manager at a bank can experience.
Artists take the financial stress in their stride. Responding to a ‘calling’ stops an artist from ‘bailing out’ and trying a different product/field when one approach seems not to work (as in the normal scheme of business).
Like musicians with songs, artists keep churning out what the ‘universe’ guides them to – and one day the ‘hit’ tune hits the paper (in this case the easel, or rock/steel/bronze). But like the tunes that follow that ‘hit’, the next piece of art an artist produces may be the start of another long drought until something comes out that ‘hits the sweet spot’ with a buyer. And like the libretto/music author, the artist has NO idea what the next ‘hit’ will be.
It’s one thing being driven to be an entrepreneur because you have the knack of business and of ‘seeing a gap’. But quite another when your talent forces you to be an entrepreneur – especially if that talent can only be a one person operation. A VERY LONELY and STRESSFUL path in life. But one that no artist would change for all the money (and/or gold) in Fort Knox and all the ‘whatever’ in the world an artist enjoys at the end of a day to unwind…!
I have ‘been there. done that, got the mental scars to show it’ myself. Not necessarily with art as we think it, but with the artistic side of me that I didn’t know existed until I got my hands on a stills camera (and later a video camera) and somehow through various co-incidences found myself involved in figure skating – and managed to corner the visual imagery market in that sport for 32 years.
Granted, it wasn’t ALL I did in those 32 years for income, but it was at least 50 percent of the work I did – though not equivalent income wise. The latter point didn’t matter – I enjoyed it more than anything else I did and found the ‘ doing ‘ and involvement so rewarding the skewed income percentage didn’t matter.
To close, those who write for a living (whatever the subject and whatever the medium) are akin to artists. Long hours alone and not always with success. But, one GOOD book or investigative report, and… they can eat properly again for a few weeks…!
Sterkte to all entrepreneurs by ‘artistic calling’. No normal entrepreneur can ever know your dilemma.
For more by Biznewz.com’s small business expert, Irvine Green, see:
