You see, there is a gap between the market and the things that really matter. And while a few people are “discovered” (that is the market comes to their door and finds them), it is a bit like winning the artistic lottery. No matter how much you dream it, it might not happen.

So, check your gut. If this is all there ever is, will you stay in? Is your art important enough to keep producing it?

Margaret Wheatly, has a chapter called Fruition in her book Perseverance. It begins with: “Where does all our hard work get us? What’s left when our work hasn’t shown any tangible results, when we’ve failed to achieve anything noteworthy, when we’ve been disappointed by people, leaders, friends, ideals? A life of discipline and awareness, where we’ve exercised choice, served others as best we could, learned as much as we could bear–such a life yields a very rich harvest. The fruits of our labors are not to be found in the world, however. They’re inside us,in how we feel about self, the world, life and others…We’ve lived fully, we’ve experienced joy, we’ve had some fun, and we’d do it all over again.”

Is your art important enough to you that you would do it even if no one was watching? Would you still create?

We can become so focused on the end result that we forget that the art is part of who we are. Success never seems to look exactly as we thought it might. Every once in a while, we have to change our perspective, and figure out if we can release what we thought this would look like and embrace what is as enough.

Today, May 7th, Marks the first day of Yelp’s Passport to Deep Ellum! ArtLoveMagic has been supporting this campaign by having a mural created on Quixotic World’s wall advertising this focus, illustrated by Harmony Witte & Taylor Cleveland.

From special events to special deals, help us celebrate Deep Ellum!

—

So you’ve got it in your head that you must be signed to be happy. As you know, I am very much against labels as they are 95% of the time a terrible financial decision.

However, you don’t care.

Cool, let’s work with that. 

Since you’ve got your heart set on getting signed, let’s get our heads around how to look sexy for a label. As I’ve mentioned before, getting signed and getting bought out are exactly the same thing. A larger entity with lots of cash is willing to supply you with some sweet, sweet cash money in exchange for future profits and oversight. Not all of these investments (bands) will return as much cash, so a venture capital firm (label) will have a diverse portfolio (artist roster) in the hopes that a few investments (bands) will make enough money to cover the losses for all the failures.

The label’s interest in you is contingent upon how your band performs as a financial instrument. An advance is essentially the label loaning you money for a set period of time with the expectation that you’ll be able to repay the loan plus interest, thus making the label a Return On Investment (ROI).

If you’re making the label less money then they’re spending on you, consider yourself on the short list to get dropped. At this point they may suggest you change your look, sound, or direction. It’s not really a suggestion. Once a label has thrown cash at your band, it’s your duty to help them recoup their cost. Often, a band is given an advance to record an album with the stipulation that the band will not receive any additional compensation until the label makes enough cash to cover the advance. After that thresh hold is met, you’ll still earn only a percentage of profit from each sale. You have to make them that skrillah or you’re gone.

So if you really want to be signed, you want to position your band in a way that signals to labels that “this band is a solid investment.”

Let’s talk about some ways to preen your band for getting signed.

—

1. Study the Labels You Want To Get Signed On: Each label has a distinct personality, and your band needs to be careful about who they choose to do business with. (Death Row Records was affiliated with The Bloods and hired crooked cops/gang members!)

But be aware of this disconnect.

There’s an limited amount of ‘edgy’ that a firm will be willing to tolerate before you cross a psychological thresh hold where people become uncomfortable. the ‘edginess’ works against you. Venture capital firms are less likely to help fund totally new enterprises in wholly unproven markets, as they have to defend their decision to their bosses. It’s much easier to defend investing $10 million when ”the market for all-natural pet nutrition has been growing at 12% yearly, and this young company is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this growth.” It wasn’t until after Nirvana and Pearl Jam blew up that it became incredibly easy for a grunge band to get signed.

This thresh hold exists even in corporate life. Even if the official company policy says “tattoos and piercings are ok”, having ostentatious sleeves and plugs will permanently stunt your career at a corporation. We (humans) like those that look like us. We identify and help those that look more like us, consciously AND unconsciously. Being “too far out” makes others uncomfortable with you AND themselves. Just the same as if you were wearing a full suit to a punk rock show, looking like a punk rocker in a cubicle is asking for others to distrust you. Don’t.

So how do we apply this knowledge? First, cut the songs you have called “I’m Going To Punch Your Mom In The Face”. That’s not mass-market material. You can still keep some swearing and vulgar material in your songs because, hey, it’s rock and roll. But you don’t want to get too avant-garde with your performance or too offensive in your lyrics that your songs would not be playable on radio.

You don’t have to water down yourself completely, but be aware that you’ll want to polish your rough edges so that an A&R rep will spend her time selling you instead of explaining/defending you. And ditch hard drugs. Drugs signal unreliabile people which makes it difficult for a label to trust that dropping $20k on an album won’t end with someone in the band freaking out and ending up in rehab. Don’t be stupid.

—

To be continued next month.

Three weeks after it arrived, a pizza delivery man came with food for our office and as we awkwardly danced with pizzas, the receipt and a credit card, the delivery man set the piping hot stack of boxes on the table. The resulting scar mocked me at every meeting for the next 10 years. It was permanent.

Some things can’t be erased.

There is an art to accepting the unfixable–to assimilating it and making it part of you. (In the case of our company, the scar became a bit of company legend and a moral tale for putting too much stock in appearances.)

So, do a gut check. What is it that you simply can’t erase? Is it a physical limitation, mistake that you’ve made, life circumstance that you wish were different?

One of the most important things in your growth as an artist–or for that matter as a person–is to learn acceptance of the things that cannot be erased. And while you can often create “in spite” of them, there is power to embracing them and making them part of your art.

Anne Lamott writes that: “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.” Some things can’t be erased, and it occurs to me that artists are better equipped than most to take the flaws and make them into something beautiful.

You are invited to come and hang out with ArtLoveMagic at our offices (2630 Commerce in Dallas) from 7:30-9:30pm

Find out what’s up with us and our upcoming events
Meet folks in your local art scene
Share you local art events/projects/needs
Create with us (we’ll have art supplies out and available)
Bring your musical instruments for an open jam
Bring cameras and sketchbooks
Snacks provided
Al ages welcome

facebook event page- http://www.facebook.com/events/397067060304686/

Friday April 13th
Art & Coffee: Superstition!

7:30 – 10:30pm at Buzzbrews Deep Ellum (2801 Commerce in Dallas)

Art & Coffee is back with a awesome FRIDAY THE 13th show!

You probably already know it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder or open an umbrella inside. But did you know you should never change your sheets on a Friday, and that you should never, ever sit down to dinner at a table with a party of thirteen? (Unless, of course, what you want is nightmares and an untimely demise.)

Come out Friday, April 13th to the unluckiest Art & Coffee of them all and explore friggatriskaidekaphobia, (the fear of Friday the 13th,) and other silly superstitions with some of Dallas’ more unusual artists:

Kelsey Kincannon
Ixchel Aguilar
Brandy Collins
Becky Taylor
Cori Berg
David Jessup
And more TBA

Featured Poet:
Victory

Open Mic: Musicians and poets are welcome to sign up to perform on stage. Sign up begins at 7 p.m. sharp (usually filled with 20 minutes).

This is a free event. All ages. Cameras and sketchbooks welcome.

Produced by Breonny Lee and Brian Alguire

Facebook event page – http://www.facebook.com/events/270778886335688/

Derek Miller is an MBA in entrepreneurship, painter, and bassist for Onward We March, a local progressive metal band. He teaches business skills to artists and writes weekly music business advice for his blog Derek Thinks Music. Got a business question about your art? Shoot him an email at derekmiller5@gmail.com

—

“Getting your name out there.”

C) Opportunities that tout “exposure” as their primary selling point should be looked at skeptically.

This was actually our first Art & Coffee in quite a few months. The show had grown insanely popular last year, but when the location that hosted it unexpectedly closed down we decided to take the winter off and find a new home in spring.

That place turned out to be Buzzbrews in Deep Ellum. Wow. The space and staff vibe are perfect for what we want to accomplish with this show. Spacious, friendly, and open to doing crazy creative things. I’m excited about how Art & Coffee, which is monthly, will grow here.

Local songwriter Eric Tipton was a guest on the national TV show THE VOICE just days before being the feature musician at the show! Eric’s a friend, a great guy, and an amazing performer. It was a blessing to be able to have him at the show.

…as it was to have the Just.Us.League. They’re a live collaborative painting crew that does monthly jams all over Dallas. For Art & Coffee, their founder Jerod Alexander sketched out a large Alice In Wonderland Tea Party on an 8 ft canvas and let the audience go at it. Yeah.

Outside the front door, poet Amberly Russell and airbrush painter Eddie Walker presented a unique collaboration. Eddie’s been illustrating several of Amberly’s poems, adding a new dimension to the words. Amberly even mounted an Ipod and headphones outside so audience members could hear the poems as they watched Eddie paint.

I love it when we really have a variety of artforms at the show. Artist Leighton Autrey brought a scratchboard to his first Art & Coffee. He used an exacto knife to “carve” an image out of the black background as he met and talked to audience members.

It’s always good to have Kylun Rodriguez in the house. He’s the son of my founding partner, David Rodriguez, and is the youngest producer on the ArtLoveMagic roster. I’m secretly hoping he becomes a lead producer this year and runs his own show sometime.

A huge part of the success of Art & Coffee is not just the feature artists, but the open mic, where audience members can perform. I believe we give young musicians and writers a strong opportunity to grow in their skills. Many local performers who now gig regularly got their start at an Art & Coffee open mic.

Thanks, Kelly for taking the photos! And thanks for sharing your art with us.

The next Art & Coffee show will be at Buzzbrews (Deep Ellum) on Friday, April 13th at 7:30pm. The show is free to attend and all ages are welcome. See you there!

-ML

In your “gut check” you may find that as a “starving artist” you are truly starving. How long has it been since you fueled up? Chances are whatever fuels you is unique, but there are clues within your soul by looking for the things that give you joy.

Do you need a more steady diet of the small stuff like getting a new set of paints, the company of friends, time in nature, time spent alone in your home, browsing titles at the comic books store, soaking up pop culture on a couch in front of your TV?

Or is your gauge so low that you need a major infusion? Do you need to take some time off from your day-to-day to reconnect with the things you love so you can be energized again?

Feeding yourself as an artist isn’t something that you can relegate to the margins. Like food, you have to make it part of your daily life.

–Cathy Hutchison

Art & Coffee’s new home, Buzzbrews in Deep Ellum, is going to work out great. Awesome people there, great space, full menu and bar, etc. Enjoy these photos and join us when we return to Buzzbrews for the next A & C show on Friday, April 13th! Spooky!