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Starving artists no more?
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By: JANET DERY Associate Editor
Area artists learn the business side of their craft
Consider, for a moment, the Dutch master Vincent van Gogh. He is one of the world’s most talented and well-known artists, yet he died poor and unknown. In fact, he sold only one painting during his lifetime.
Van Gogh may well be the poster child for the “starving artist.” Artists who excel creatively often lack the business skills necessary to turn their art into a living. The result: they frequently are forced to sideline their craft for a more reliable revenue stream.
Now, thanks to The Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute (AEI), a brainchild of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) and the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), art and business may find harmony at last … at least in Cleveland.
“If artists can begin to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, it opens up new doors for them to make a living as artists,” says Janus Small, one of the founders of AEI, along with Tom Shorgl of CPAC and Joanne Yulek from COSE.
The course also provides artists an opportunity to come out of their shell. “Oftentimes when you’re stuck in your creative space, it can be very lonely,” says Megan Van Voorhis, director of research and business practices at CPAC. “This gives artists the chance to realize they are not alone and that other people are experiencing the same thing they are.”
Matthew Abelson
The sound of the hammered dulcimer is sweet and evocative; the man playing the instrument is caught up in the music, his eyes closed, his brows raised. Thirty-six-year-old Matthew Abelson has been playing either piano or viola since he was 7, but it wasn’t until he was a student at Oberlin College that he picked up a hammered dulcimer (not to be confused with a lap dulcimer, the more commonly known instrument played by Joni Mitchell).
Since then, Abelson, who lives in Cleveland Heights, has gone on to take the stage with Grammy-winners Sam Bush and the late Vassar Clements (both of whom are on Abelson’s latest CD). He played for President Clinton in 1996; was featured in Cleveland Magazine and The Plain Dealer, and has been the subject of a PBS documentary. Add to that countless gigs at colleges and weddings, coffee shops and folk festivals around the world.
While the Princeton, N.J., native has gathered many accolades and awards, his bank account has not grown in tandem with his artistic success. In any given year, his income can fluctuate between $10,000 and $45,000, he says.
Abelson has much to be proud of: his first two albums, which cost him about $20,000 to produce, have been paid off completely; his most recent and most expensive album, “Perspectives,” is about 40% paid for.
“Pretty respectable for playing an instrument no one’s ever heard of,” Abelson muses.
Respectable, but not exactly lucrative. Abelson attended the Artist as Entrepreneur Institute in spring of 2005 to “jumpstart my business to the next level. The program is such a blessing,” he says. “Any artist who is either starting out or wants to be more effective needs to take this workshop.”
Since its inception in 2002, the more than 200 artists who have taken the program have learned the fundamentals of business through an intensive six-session, 24-hour course (cost: $150). Core subjects such as accounting, compliance, marketing, and writing a business plan are offered, along with more artist-specific classes, including pricing, understanding the consumer, protecting your rights, and becoming an “artepreneur.”
AEI students come from many different artistic backgrounds: Performing and media arts, literary, musical, and visual artists are all represented. Some work full-time on their craft; others, part-time, but most share a desire to see their art become their sole source of income. Others just want to find a way to derive a significant portion of their income from their art.
Until now, however, there have been limited opportunities for artists to learn how to make that happen.
Joan Saks, an accountant who has been on AEI’s faculty for the last two-and-a-half years, says many students come in believing they’re making money, or that they have adequate records, when they don’t even have a balance sheet.
“When you start asking them questions, such as, ‘If you were working for a boss and you made $30,000, would you consider that a lot?’ they reconsider,” notes Saks. “If this is going to be your livelihood, you have to make sure you’re well-compensated. You have to treat it as a business.” And, adds the Beachwood resident, it is vital to have adequate records for the Internal Revenue Service. In her class, Saks provides tips on what you need to know for the IRS, including sales tax information.
Dulcimer player Abelson credits the program with helping him “refine his priorities.” As a result, he is exploring the possibility of a second career. “It takes an enormous effort outside of the art to keep things moving,” he admits. “The workshop did not dispel this. I want to actually do what I do more and worry about it less.”
Realizing he could make it financially as a part-time musician as long as he had another vocation to supplement his music-based income was a sort of epiphany for the long-haired redhead. “I’m getting more out of my career now,” he says. “I’m enjoying my work more and feeling a lot less fear about the future.”
Linda Stiller
Linda Stiller is tired of considering her artistic pursuits a mere hobby. Her goals are clear and unwavering, her New York City accent unmistakable: “I would like to have a self-sustaining, viable business. I want to make a name for myself as a Judaica and jewelry designer.”
Stiller has sidelined her animal portraiture craft because it wasn’t profitable, and she’s eager to turn her next artistic venture, glass art, into a full-time, full-blown business.
The Solon resident is off to a good start. she has sold her glass jewelry and platters at home parties, craft fairs, and two galleries n Pennello in Little Italy and Allen Gallery in Berea. Her platters, which can take days to make, retail for $170 for a small platter, $250 for a large one. Jewelry ranges from $28 to $65.
But PTA craft fairs are not enough for the soft-spoken yet ambitious mother of two. She had heard about AEI through SEAN, the self-employed artists network, and got excited, thinking it would put her on “the right track.”
Stiller also hoped it would put her on a more equal footing with her husband, with his MBA and multiple masters degrees.
“Writing a business plan was important to me, because when my husband had first suggested I write one, I felt like we were speaking two different languages!” Stiller still laughs at the memory. “We were worlds apart in our thinking. I was hoping the course could explain it in language an artist could understand, and it did.”
Stiller works out of Streets of Manhattan, a 6000-sq.-ft. studio on 33rd and Superior, where she provides work in exchange for kiln time and supplies. Her plan this year is to start doing design and production work n mainly on Judaica n for the studio. Stiller estimates she spends about $200 a month on her art.
A couple of months ago, the studio sold her first piece of Judaica, a sand-blasted glass challah plate, to a jewelry store.
Stiller, who says she is “trying to blast into the Judaica market,” hopes she is now on her way.
Pam Millas
When she and her husband became more involved with Judaism five years ago, Pam Millas, a software and theatrical set designer, began making textile pieces such as tallitot, chupahs and matzah and challah covers.
Soon, her rabbi wanted a tallit. Then a girl about to become a bat mitzvah asked for one, too. Before long, the Beachwood resident and mother of two was designing many commissioned pieces and selling her line of Judaic creations at Merkaz Judaica on Chagrin Blvd. Most of her customers had their own vision for the finished design; Millas was simply the artist executing the work.
But Millas, 45, found that the time-consuming nature of the work meant that she didn’t make much profit from her pieces, which sell for $180 and higher.
Millas took the AEI program last spring, at about the same time she realized she wanted to transition away from a primary focus on Judaic art to a more business-oriented approach.
She decided to combine her talents. “Someone said to me, ‘You’re creative and have technical know-how, can you make me a website?’ she recalls. “I’m using the same skill set but applying it in different ways. Her business, Millas Designs, “creates unique, customized Jewish ritual art and customized business solutions,” she notes.
The AEI program helped Millas to think about “all the things I didn’t know, like marketing and branding,” she says. Recently, the entrepreneur won an award in the arts category for the Northeast Ohio Business Plan Challenge; since then, she’s broadened her plan to include the website design element.
Has the transition paid off?
“My goal was to make a decent living while my kids were at school,” says Millas. “And I’ve got that. What could be better n I get to do what I want, when I want. I’m absolutely where I want to be.”
Debra Chwast
How do you measure success? For Debra Chwast, mother of a 22-year-old autistic artist, it’s easy. “I took a class on art and business, then sold a painting of my son Seth’s for $1000. It was a miracle.”
Chwast enrolled in the AEI program last fall to help her find a way to provide for her son’s future. Before the class, her money was all going one way n out the door.
Investing in Seth’s painting has been “exceedingly costly,” explains the former clinical social worker and Cleveland Heights resident. “I pay thousands of dollars a month for mentors, studio space, canvases, and supplies. So there’s an issue of whether Seth could ever become self-sustaining. Could he ever earn enough to pay for his art? Taking this class was a way to answer that new world of art as commerce.”
Chwast’s financial goal is simply to break even. She had been told by a vocational center that Seth, who at age 4 had a non-verbal IQ of 149, could only look forward to a career dry mopping hospital floors.
While she wasn’t looking to get rich from her son’s art, she recognized that it could be a path to Seth’s economic freedom.
“I had never thought of selling anything before the course,” says Chwast. “I didn’t want to part with anything. One of the speakers, Ted Schwarz, said to me, ‘Don’t be a mom. Sell the work. If Seth’s going to be an artist, you have to sell the work.’”
To Chwast’s delight, the program not only met her goals, but surpassed them, both financially and socially. “Now I have a peer group to consult with, to lean on, to encourage. I feel like I’m not alone,” she says, noting that the group gets together once a month for dinner and to discuss their art.
Seth is oblivious to the financial perks his passion provides, but he is well aware of the recognition it has brought. For example, an eight-minute DVD of him painting the life-size “Red Fantasy Horse” was shown at the Cleveland Public Theater, followed by a reception in his honor. In addition, he has been invited to participate in Ingenuity 2006, the art and technology festival begun in Cleveland last summer.
Chwast has now sold two of Seth’s paintings for $1000 each and two for $1600 each. She’s also had offers on others. But even more importantly, she’s learned the true value of her son’s art. “The program was very insistent on valuing Seth’s work. When I offered to give away a package of Seth’s note cards, the professor refused to take it. ‘You mustn’t do that,’ he said. ‘the cards have value.’ It’s not just the money n it’s self-esteem.”
No one wishes these four artists the fate of van Gogh, who died by his own hand at the age of 37, poor and unknown. But the four could do well to follow in the master’s footsteps in one regard: at $82.5 million, van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” is the most expensive painting ever sold.
For more information on AEI, call 216-575-0331.
Consider, for a moment, the Dutch master Vincent van Gogh. He is one of the world’s most talented and well-known artists, yet he died poor and unknown. In fact, he sold only one painting during his lifetime.
Van Gogh may well be the poster child for the “starving artist.” Artists who excel creatively often lack the business skills necessary to turn their art into a living. The result: they frequently are forced to sideline their craft for a more reliable revenue stream.
Now, thanks to The Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute (AEI), a brainchild of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) and the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), art and business may find harmony at last … at least in Cleveland.
“If artists can begin to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, it opens up new doors for them to make a living as artists,” says Janus Small, one of the founders of AEI, along with Tom Shorgl of CPAC and Joanne Yulek from COSE.
The course also provides artists an opportunity to come out of their shell. “Oftentimes when you’re stuck in your creative space, it can be very lonely,” says Megan Van Voorhis, director of research and business practices at CPAC. “This gives artists the chance to realize they are not alone and that other people are experiencing the same thing they are.”
Matthew Abelson
The sound of the hammered dulcimer is sweet and evocative; the man playing the instrument is caught up in the music, his eyes closed, his brows raised. Thirty-six-year-old Matthew Abelson has been playing either piano or viola since he was 7, but it wasn’t until he was a student at Oberlin College that he picked up a hammered dulcimer (not to be confused with a lap dulcimer, the more commonly known instrument played by Joni Mitchell).
Since then, Abelson, who lives in Cleveland Heights, has gone on to take the stage with Grammy-winners Sam Bush and the late Vassar Clements (both of whom are on Abelson’s latest CD). He played for President Clinton in 1996; was featured in Cleveland Magazine and The Plain Dealer, and has been the subject of a PBS documentary. Add to that countless gigs at colleges and weddings, coffee shops and folk festivals around the world.
While the Princeton, N.J., native has gathered many accolades and awards, his bank account has not grown in tandem with his artistic success. In any given year, his income can fluctuate between $10,000 and $45,000, he says.
Abelson has much to be proud of: his first two albums, which cost him about $20,000 to produce, have been paid off completely; his most recent and most expensive album, “Perspectives,” is about 40% paid for.
“Pretty respectable for playing an instrument no one’s ever heard of,” Abelson muses.
Respectable, but not exactly lucrative. Abelson attended the Artist as Entrepreneur Institute in spring of 2005 to “jumpstart my business to the next level. The program is such a blessing,” he says. “Any artist who is either starting out or wants to be more effective needs to take this workshop.”
Since its inception in 2002, the more than 200 artists who have taken the program have learned the fundamentals of business through an intensive six-session, 24-hour course (cost: $150). Core subjects such as accounting, compliance, marketing, and writing a business plan are offered, along with more artist-specific classes, including pricing, understanding the consumer, protecting your rights, and becoming an “artepreneur.”
AEI students come from many different artistic backgrounds: Performing and media arts, literary, musical, and visual artists are all represented. Some work full-time on their craft; others, part-time, but most share a desire to see their art become their sole source of income. Others just want to find a way to derive a significant portion of their income from their art.
Until now, however, there have been limited opportunities for artists to learn how to make that happen.
Joan Saks, an accountant who has been on AEI’s faculty for the last two-and-a-half years, says many students come in believing they’re making money, or that they have adequate records, when they don’t even have a balance sheet.
“When you start asking them questions, such as, ‘If you were working for a boss and you made $30,000, would you consider that a lot?’ they reconsider,” notes Saks. “If this is going to be your livelihood, you have to make sure you’re well-compensated. You have to treat it as a business.” And, adds the Beachwood resident, it is vital to have adequate records for the Internal Revenue Service. In her class, Saks provides tips on what you need to know for the IRS, including sales tax information.
Dulcimer player Abelson credits the program with helping him “refine his priorities.” As a result, he is exploring the possibility of a second career. “It takes an enormous effort outside of the art to keep things moving,” he admits. “The workshop did not dispel this. I want to actually do what I do more and worry about it less.”
Realizing he could make it financially as a part-time musician as long as he had another vocation to supplement his music-based income was a sort of epiphany for the long-haired redhead. “I’m getting more out of my career now,” he says. “I’m enjoying my work more and feeling a lot less fear about the future.”
Linda Stiller
Linda Stiller is tired of considering her artistic pursuits a mere hobby. Her goals are clear and unwavering, her New York City accent unmistakable: “I would like to have a self-sustaining, viable business. I want to make a name for myself as a Judaica and jewelry designer.”
Stiller has sidelined her animal portraiture craft because it wasn’t profitable, and she’s eager to turn her next artistic venture, glass art, into a full-time, full-blown business.
The Solon resident is off to a good start. she has sold her glass jewelry and platters at home parties, craft fairs, and two galleries n Pennello in Little Italy and Allen Gallery in Berea. Her platters, which can take days to make, retail for $170 for a small platter, $250 for a large one. Jewelry ranges from $28 to $65.
But PTA craft fairs are not enough for the soft-spoken yet ambitious mother of two. She had heard about AEI through SEAN, the self-employed artists network, and got excited, thinking it would put her on “the right track.”
Stiller also hoped it would put her on a more equal footing with her husband, with his MBA and multiple masters degrees.
“Writing a business plan was important to me, because when my husband had first suggested I write one, I felt like we were speaking two different languages!” Stiller still laughs at the memory. “We were worlds apart in our thinking. I was hoping the course could explain it in language an artist could understand, and it did.”
Stiller works out of Streets of Manhattan, a 6000-sq.-ft. studio on 33rd and Superior, where she provides work in exchange for kiln time and supplies. Her plan this year is to start doing design and production work n mainly on Judaica n for the studio. Stiller estimates she spends about $200 a month on her art.
A couple of months ago, the studio sold her first piece of Judaica, a sand-blasted glass challah plate, to a jewelry store.
Stiller, who says she is “trying to blast into the Judaica market,” hopes she is now on her way.
Pam Millas
When she and her husband became more involved with Judaism five years ago, Pam Millas, a software and theatrical set designer, began making textile pieces such as tallitot, chupahs and matzah and challah covers.
Soon, her rabbi wanted a tallit. Then a girl about to become a bat mitzvah asked for one, too. Before long, the Beachwood resident and mother of two was designing many commissioned pieces and selling her line of Judaic creations at Merkaz Judaica on Chagrin Blvd. Most of her customers had their own vision for the finished design; Millas was simply the artist executing the work.
But Millas, 45, found that the time-consuming nature of the work meant that she didn’t make much profit from her pieces, which sell for $180 and higher.
Millas took the AEI program last spring, at about the same time she realized she wanted to transition away from a primary focus on Judaic art to a more business-oriented approach.
She decided to combine her talents. “Someone said to me, ‘You’re creative and have technical know-how, can you make me a website?’ she recalls. “I’m using the same skill set but applying it in different ways. Her business, Millas Designs, “creates unique, customized Jewish ritual art and customized business solutions,” she notes.
The AEI program helped Millas to think about “all the things I didn’t know, like marketing and branding,” she says. Recently, the entrepreneur won an award in the arts category for the Northeast Ohio Business Plan Challenge; since then, she’s broadened her plan to include the website design element.
Has the transition paid off?
“My goal was to make a decent living while my kids were at school,” says Millas. “And I’ve got that. What could be better n I get to do what I want, when I want. I’m absolutely where I want to be.”
Debra Chwast
How do you measure success? For Debra Chwast, mother of a 22-year-old autistic artist, it’s easy. “I took a class on art and business, then sold a painting of my son Seth’s for $1000. It was a miracle.”
Chwast enrolled in the AEI program last fall to help her find a way to provide for her son’s future. Before the class, her money was all going one way n out the door.
Investing in Seth’s painting has been “exceedingly costly,” explains the former clinical social worker and Cleveland Heights resident. “I pay thousands of dollars a month for mentors, studio space, canvases, and supplies. So there’s an issue of whether Seth could ever become self-sustaining. Could he ever earn enough to pay for his art? Taking this class was a way to answer that new world of art as commerce.”
Chwast’s financial goal is simply to break even. She had been told by a vocational center that Seth, who at age 4 had a non-verbal IQ of 149, could only look forward to a career dry mopping hospital floors.
While she wasn’t looking to get rich from her son’s art, she recognized that it could be a path to Seth’s economic freedom.
“I had never thought of selling anything before the course,” says Chwast. “I didn’t want to part with anything. One of the speakers, Ted Schwarz, said to me, ‘Don’t be a mom. Sell the work. If Seth’s going to be an artist, you have to sell the work.’”
To Chwast’s delight, the program not only met her goals, but surpassed them, both financially and socially. “Now I have a peer group to consult with, to lean on, to encourage. I feel like I’m not alone,” she says, noting that the group gets together once a month for dinner and to discuss their art.
Seth is oblivious to the financial perks his passion provides, but he is well aware of the recognition it has brought. For example, an eight-minute DVD of him painting the life-size “Red Fantasy Horse” was shown at the Cleveland Public Theater, followed by a reception in his honor. In addition, he has been invited to participate in Ingenuity 2006, the art and technology festival begun in Cleveland last summer.
Chwast has now sold two of Seth’s paintings for $1000 each and two for $1600 each. She’s also had offers on others. But even more importantly, she’s learned the true value of her son’s art. “The program was very insistent on valuing Seth’s work. When I offered to give away a package of Seth’s note cards, the professor refused to take it. ‘You mustn’t do that,’ he said. ‘the cards have value.’ It’s not just the money n it’s self-esteem.”
No one wishes these four artists the fate of van Gogh, who died by his own hand at the age of 37, poor and unknown. But the four could do well to follow in the master’s footsteps in one regard: at $82.5 million, van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” is the most expensive painting ever sold.
For more information on AEI, call 216-575-0331.
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