Art without Commerce is a Hobby

Art without commerce is a hobby.

Chef Joe Bastianich offered up this statement in the NY Times magazine as his motto a few weeks back, and it resonated with me.

I’ve been having lots of conversations lately with people who are trying to crack the business model code for art.  Benjamin Reece, Robert Fogarty, Ross Hinkle are all building businesses around beautiful artistic expression.  But they’re building businesses, so commerce is key.

Business model options might be:

  • Consumer pays to consume the content
  • Brands pay to commission and be integrated into content
  • Advertisers pay to post ads beside the content
  • Give away the art to generate service business

What other methods of monetization do you see? What do you think works best?

Platforms like Kickstarter are today’s version of art patronage with a crowd-funded model, but they just fund the creation of art, not revenue generation from the art.  Ben pointed me to this post by Mark Cuban about the exhaustion facing content creators.  The bottom line is the independent artistic content production business is incredibly difficult to monetize.

We stand at an inflection point in the creation of content.  The cost of the tools to produce professional quality content have fallen dramatically, and more people than ever before are creating art as “prosumers.”  Yet the ability to capture value from content is has not yet been disintermediated, the traditional payment gateways are still firmly in place, and new models have yet to emerge.

Most content creation businesses remain controlled by the traditional gatekeepers to the content.  People pay monthly cable bills, buy magazines, newspapers, movie tickets, and concert tickets yet have been trained not to pay for these services on the web.

As internet content consumption moves away from the computer towards other devices, it seems important to build these monetization schemes into the platforms that control access to the content.   Apple has trained people to pay for apps by making it easy and affordable.  What will happen with the emergence of set-up boxes?

Its crucial that people creating art can make a living doing it.  Let’s find the commerce for art.

Why We Do It

Once in a while life offers up a truly humbling moment.  Last week I had the pleasure of seeing this piece in Portfolio magazine proclaiming me “The New King of New Orleans.” While it is truly a treat to read an acknowledgment of all of the things we are working hard to accomplish, I was most touched by this email I received.  I’m posting it with her permission.  A good reminder of why we’re working so hard. Thanks Renée.

Chris:  I just read the article on you in the Portfolio Today e-newsletter & want to say Thank You. As a native of La, I get such pleasure seeing people like you who aren’t from La help my wonderful state.  See, I love Louisiana and I make sure everyone in my current state of Texas knows it.  I have not conformed to a Cowboys or UT fan … I stay true to my roots and have always been proud to be from Louisiana.  Being in Dallas when Katrina/Rita hit was one of the hardest things for me.  All I could do was watch every devastating moment on CNN and hope that everyone I knew was okay, including family.  No matter how hard I would cry when I watched CNN nightly, I couldn’t stop watching.  My home state was devastated.  More importantly it was hitting parts where I grew up.  I grew up in Houma, going to Grand Isle and New Orleans frequently.  My mom went to school at Loyola and my parents met while both living in NOLA.  The Camellia Grill is their favorite restaurant … as children we hated it because we were forced to eat there every month when we went to NOLA!  Now, I appreciate it and am just glad it is still there.

Louisiana is often a state that gets the wrong attention and is often overlooked.  It’s really hard for “us” to see other states devastated and tended to so quickly; yet our state suffers and suffers and it feels as if not much is done.  When people like you move to La and do what you do, it makes all the difference in the world.  I only wish I was in a position that I could do that myself.  My 7 year hiatus in Texas has been much longer than I’ve wanted, but I know I’ll be able to give back to La somehow, someway.

So, thank you from the very bottom of my heart.  You’ll never know how much people like you mean to Louisiana natives like me.

Let’s Geaux Saints!

Renée

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