The Other Columbus: Six ways to protect your neck in the art world

In a late January column, I wrote about the potential negative outcomes that can arise in not balancing an artist’s needs against what the local art scene has to offer. Essentially, pitting an artist’s thirst against the hustle needed to navigate the art industrial complex. It was pretty depressing stuff. 

What I didn’t share at the time was that I had an alternate list of steps that artists could take to arm themselves against such outcomes. It’s not a comprehensive list, but to make up for that I’ll take things a step further by adding a note to each one gleaned from personal experience – an anecdote, an admission, a rant… you get the idea. Please note that while I am known primarily as a writer these days, I have worked in several artistic disciplines over the years, which is mostly how I figured out I was a writer.

1. Be brutally honest about your work

When I was trying to rap back in the early 1990s, I hung around people who were actually good at it, including S.P.I.R.I.T. and X Nation. You know, actual emcees. I could have become a sycophant and just hung around them until they gave me something to do. Ultimately, I opted to stop doing something I was bad at. The hardest thing for artists to do is keep things real with themselves. You’ve got to be honest about what you can and can’t do. If you suck, you suck. That’s only a problem if you can’t figure out a) how to stop sucking or b) when to quit. 

2. Book yourself

This one is harder to do if you’re a band, but otherwise, it’s pretty straightforward. You book a space, show up with everything you need to perform, take your money, pack up your gear, and go home. In 2017, I produced a series called “Holler,” which featured 31 straight days of events spread across 11 venues in the city. Each day featured a different Black artist in some discipline – poetry, music, dance, visual arts, and so on. People ask me all the time how I put that programming together, and I tell them that it was simple: I booked a venue for a specific date, scheduled a performer, and then told everyone to come out and see the show. Do that 31 times, and you got a month of shows. Was there finagling and negotiation? Of course. But the process remains the same: book a venue and an artist, pay the venue and the artist, and go home. It’s not easy work, but it is simple.

3. Advertise your gigs

There are reasons why artists don’t advertise their gigs, but almost none of them are good. If the gig is going to suck and misrepresent you, that’s still on you. If you’re bad at promotion, that’s a you problem. If it’s your ego, I hope you enjoy being a diva in front of your girlfriend and an angry promoter. I book people all the time across a wide spectrum of art forms. The ones I book again tend to be artists who actually tell people they have a gig coming up.

4. Minimize putting your work in spaces that don’t respect art

The only solo art show I ever did was in 2009 at the original Wild Goose Creative, back when it was still on Summit Street. The space was just one big room back then, and because the organization rented the space out on top of providing original programming, it wasn’t a dedicated art gallery. Every event that came through was going to be around your art. I didn’t mind because I was so happy to hang my art, and the crew back then treated my work with great respect. It’s not about whether or not the venue is a proper gallery. German Village restaurant Old Mohawk features a different artist every month and it has a waiting list extending out two years. But if you run into a situation where the gallery featuring your art up is more concerned with its liquor license than its exhibit space, they’re not invested in making your art succeed. If the gallery doesn’t advertise your exhibit until two days before it opens, they don’t respect your art. Broaden your concept of venues, but always work with spaces that respect your art.

5. Communicate with other artists about your scene

This sounds like a gripe session, which is fine in moderation but unhealthy in the long run. Communicate the good and the bad, tempering it with an acknowledgement of what your goals were versus the goals of the person with whom you’re talking. That venue might have treated your four-piece band like crap, but a solo singer/songwriter might thrive there. I am always asking artists how they were treated by a venue. Drama is bad for business, but we can avoid drama by asking after each other’s business.

6. Know your art terrain

Know the economic state of your scene and your audience. If you’re a musician, you’re already aware record deals are mostly dead. If you’re a visual artist, you should know that the middle class is dying, which is bad because they were the largest group of art buyers. If you’re a writer, you’re going to have to market your book harder than your publisher. I spend a lot of time in galleries, poetry readings, and bookstores. All of it is homework in a class I call “Know the Game.” I watch how other folks answer the questions that I have as an artist and a venue owner. I spend a lot of time in Sharon Weiss’ gallery, noting how she maintains a vibe, the way she can tell you about every artist in the building, and how she champions these same artists. It’s always a clinic when I go in there, and I am unapologetic about learning at someone else’s feet from time to time. Know the terrain so you can manage your expectations, book yourself accordingly, pick your teachers wisely, and learn to spot red flag venues and relationships.