10 Comments

Wow, very interesting article, thank you! I can clearly see the difference between art and business. Art really should catch the eye and soul.

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What a great, inspiring article, Clint! I'm sending it to a friend of mine.

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As a child of God this is so good! I paint to show God's beauty to the world. Am I matching my art with other people? Not like I want but working on it. But letting that pressure go and just creating with the things I grow and love is my calling. Your article was so helpful as my pressure is the marketing and now to let that go and just create with God. Life changing.

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I think this is your best post yet, brilliant, thank you

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Thanks for your insight! Someone finally gets me— I don’t want to be a brand. I’m not a manufacturer! Great article!

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Great post Clint, love the notion of being a matchmaker. The commodification of art is something I really notice on Instagram and I find extremely frustrating.

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Your writing is a lifeline for me as an artist. Your posts are poetic, inspiring and filled with wisdom. THANK YOU.

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Let's see, I found this article super interesting and surreal at the same time. I also thought it was idealistic. Suppose I believe in God; let's suppose that I don't do traditional marketing, nor do I give importance to marketing my works like traditional marketing tells me. In this case, I agree more with Kandinsky, who said, "Every work of art is the child of its time." Ignoring all the technological advancements and labeling artists who want to market their art online as "selling to algorithms" within an algorithm and having your own business on the algorithms. I find this idea funny, contradictory, and a little lying.

Nor do I suggest even remotely the idea that you have to leave or change what you do, but that to judge the form of commercialization of each artist because it is not the one that seems to you the most correct. It seems authoritarian to me.

I am left with the idea of not making art for client nor treating it as another piece of the market. Still, extremism would do what art does today, starving its artists with the false hope of "someday it will come," "someday your art will be well valued," or "wait for the perfect buyer to appear.

In the meantime, an artist in the third world without resources, for example, ¿what could happen?. All of us know if somebody doesn't look for money, they cannot eat or live in a safe place.

According to my humble opinion, I've seen too many "idealistic" artists of "how things should be from their own perspective," and it's not a bad idea. Still, it's a rather biased look, bordering against classism (since he assumes that the artist can wait patiently and live off something else). But it doesn't solve any problems other than keeping relax the ego of those who think in this way, and maybe the one who can afford to live relaxed while creating, and the "perfect" buyer appears…

I am sharing my thoughts without the intention to offend and with the greatest desire to swap ideas. Excuse me if my message does not reach that effect. Please, try to understand that English is not my native language.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with this article!

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Thank you for your comment and the spirit in which it is shared. I can see your point, especially just from this one article, but in a holistic sense I am certainly not suggesting artists not take advantage of technology and access to markets (I run a SaaS for artists!). What I'm suggesting is more about using that technology in different and more authentic ways that what "normal" marketers suggest. In other words, what works for amazon shouldn't be the model of an individual artist showing their work online. Yes, there is a danger that an artist could read articles like this and become a bit TOO idealistic. There is a time for the creator hat, and a time for the marketer hat and that is a yin/yang balance for an artist. Thank you again!

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Thank you for your answer! Yes, in this case I completely agree. I regret my ignorance about what you do, I have been following your blog for 4 days and I did not have the opportunity to investigate very thoroughly. I really liked your clarification and I think the same, it's a balance.

Unfortunately I see something that is constantly repeated in the figure of the "artist", and it is that false belief that he is a martyr, misunderstood, who lacks money and for that reason sinks into depression, alcohol and drugs. It is an image that frankly bores me, it seems to me a stereotype and I think it should go out of style.

Anyway, thank you again.

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