Picking Your Extreme

I was reading Mead Hunter's take on Outrageous Fortune when I noticed a powerful line that I couldn't let go of:

"The powerful, numinous, affecting work is happening at the extremes"

He's exactly right.  The ability to do powerful, impactful work - in the arts or any other field - comes from your ability to pick an extreme.

The first extreme is to be powerful and small.  In this model you are doing work for a defined group of people, your tribe. 

Your career becomes all about producing work that satisfies your own artistic needs and thrills the 500 or 1,000 or 1,500 people in your tribe.

You depend on the people in your tribe to sustain you.  You actively resist the natural impluse to grow.  You understand that have 1,000 people that love your work is WAY more powerful then having 10,000 people that "like" your work.

What's the downside to this approach?

Well, your tribe may not be big enough for you and your team to make a living.  It may never, EVER, be big enough.  You may always have to produce your art AND do something else to pay the bills. 

Plus, tribes require a bit of handling.  You have to be willing to get outside your artistic bubble and talk to people, listen to what they have to say and adjust to their feedback.  That doesn't come easily for some people.

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The second extreme is to GO BIG.

Here you aggressively and openly go about aquiring the resources you need to become a powerhouse.

You play the political games to get the big time players on your Board.  You build an infrastructure big enough to attract and pay top artistic and administrative talent.

You understand the importance of being visible.  You show up to the galas.  You press the flesh.  You toot your organization's horn LOUDLY.

You develop enemies because loud, aggressive, well resourced organizations (or individuals) always have enemies.  That's just how it goes.

You make compromises, some of which you may HATE.  You sacrifice the here and now for the greater good, over and over again.

People will call you a sell out.  They will tell you that you have lost your way.  It may be years before people really understand why you did what you did.  Some people will never understand.

Along the journey the resources you get will allow you to make the sort of artistic choices that blow people AWAY.

But you'll pay a heavy price for those moments.

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It's one extreme or the other.

The problem is that most artists and arts organizations go for the middle.

The middle is death.

The middle is death.

The middle is that arts organization bringing in just enough cash to pay everyone poorly.  They have just enough audience and just enough infrastructure that they make conservative choices to keep what they have.

The middle is that artistic death zone that crushes damn near everybody.  You don't want to make the sort of choices that will allow you to get big, because you are afraid of the consequences. 

And you don't want to take three steps back and get small because you want to make a living through your art.

That's a horrible place to be.

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You and your team have to consciously, intentionally decide which extreme to choose.

Small, flexible, artistically free . . . and probably with not enough money to give people a full time living.

Or you go for the whole damn thing.  You try to bring in MILLIONS of dollars, with all the complexity such a journey implies.

Big or small.

Choose one.

Please, please, choose one.

Because if you just linger in the middle then you are just waiting for the wave that will wipe you out.

 

Comments

[Scott Walters]

If you ever use "impactful" in a blog post again, I will personally hunt you down. Consider this a cease and disist order! ;-)

[Adam]

Sir, yes sir.

[Scott Walters]

LOL. Otherwise, you are exactly right: Huge or Little. The middle blows.