Critical Arts Assumptions

Here's what I want you to do today:

Write down 5 assumptions about your the business side of your artform.  For example, a theatre artist may write:

1.  A Board of Directors is difficult to run and they hardly ever fundraise enough.

2.  People aren't interested in live theatre, they perfer video games, etc.

3.  Artists who work for nonprofit theatres are never paid what they are worth.

Or if you are an individual artist, say a musician, you may write:

1.  No one will ever pay more then $8 for a CD of my music.

2.  There is too much competition in the music world for me to stand out.

3.  The only way I can make money as a musician is by touring all the time.

Once you have those assumptions, take a good long look at them and then understand this . . .

In order to be be successful in your artistic field (however you define success) you are going to have to prove that one or two of those assumptions you have been living with all these years . . . are simply not true.

Because when you think about, that is one of the defining characteristics of many successful people or organizations.  They go straight after a long held assumption and destroy it.

If your path to artistic success doesn't involve, at some point, doing something A LOT of people don't think can be done . . . then it probably isn't a real, viable path to success.

 

Comments

[RVCBard]

Here are mine, for theatre . . .

1. Audiences care more about snappy dialogue and tight plots than enchantment and a sense of mystery.

2. No one wants plays by Black women playwrights unless they're about being Black women.

3. Fairy tales are seen as a genre for children.

4. Nobody will "get" my work.

5. New plays by new playwrights that have a cast of more than 6 or 7 people will not get produced.

[Adam]

Good ones! I don't know about you but your third assumptions seems like it would be a particularly cool one to destroy. :)

[RVCBard]

I'm working on it. It's pretty hard because I want to turn off the part of my brain that insists upon a logical explanation for shit. I really do work better when I'm half asleep with the lights out and no noise but the hum of my computer.

But the problem with writing like that is that I'm half asleep with the lights turned out and nothing on but the hum of my computer (aka, I go to sleep and have weird dreams).