Art Should Be (Almost) Free

One of the things I feel best about from this past week­end’s Open Stu­dios was giv­ing out pro­mo­tion­al free­bies. In my last order to Pho­toworks, I includ­ed a run of 100 4″×6″ prints of a pho­to of the Mount David­son Cross and all week­end I gave them out. I signed them, num­bered them, and dat­ed them and gave them away at no charge.

Part of the ratio­nale was pro­mo­tion­al. I put some­thing in peo­ple’s hands and they have some­thing with my name and stu­dio num­ber on it. They hope­ful­ly feel like they’ve got­ten some­thing of val­ue and have a reminder of vis­it­ing my stu­dio. They may think of me lat­er and remem­ber me when they come back next year. Some were placed near Art Explo­sion’s entry in hopes that it might draw some­one in to Stu­dio 16.

The best part for me was some­thing I had­n’t expect­ed. Dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with an acquain­tance we came across the mean­ing of the word cre­ative. Aside from the def­i­n­i­tion, cre­ative has a num­ber of asso­ci­a­tions, and my rela­tion­ship with the word has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the last cou­ple of years. Where once the word drew up an image of a per­son who is self-involved and pre­cious, who dress­es fun­ny, acts eccen­tric, and demands atten­tion, I’ve reframed my asso­ci­a­tions of the word to some­thing clos­er to its actu­al meaning.

Cre­ative sim­ply is of cre­ation. One is cre­ative when­ev­er cre­ating. The mean­ing has been reframed clos­er to that of pro­duc­tive. I can con­sid­er myself cre­ative when I am mak­ing stuff. Cre­ativ­i­ty is not pas­sive; it needs be active and alive. Addi­tion­al­ly it brings up the ques­tion of what is it that’s being cre­at­ed? The dif­fer­ence between pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty lies with cre­ativ­i­ty imply­ing new val­ue; some­thing being added to the universe.

If my work nev­er leaves my stu­dio, I’m still being pro­duc­tive, but it becomes cre­ative when it leaves the closed sys­tem of the stu­dio and gets added to the open sys­tem of the world at large.

I sell my work for a num­ber of rea­sons: first, these sales should sup­port me finan­cial­ly. They don’t yet, but that’s the ide­al: for my cre­ativ­i­ty to the world to be rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed with the means to eat and have shel­ter and clothes. Sec­ond, the pay­ment I receive com­pen­sates me for my out­lay of the costs of mate­ri­als, equip­ment, and so on. Most impor­tant­ly, I put my work out for sale so that oth­er peo­ple can take it out to the world beyond my stu­dio walls.

Pro­duc­ing a piece to be giv­en away broke down the bar­ri­er to that cre­ative expe­ri­ence for me this week­end. This week­end I removed any depen­dence on sales to get my work out. It did­n’t mat­ter (on that lev­el any­way) whether any­one bought any­thing. Some­thing like sev­en­ty peo­ple walked away this week­end with a pho­to I shot. Many may have found their way into the recy­cling bins, but I know that a few are being appreciated.

I know the pieces that were sold this week­end are being appre­ci­at­ed, but dis­trib­ut­ing these small pho­tos was a minia­ture guer­ril­la act of cre­ativ­i­ty, and it helped cre­ate a whole new realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty. My abil­i­ty to cre­ate and add val­ue to the uni­verse, even to dis­trib­ute it, is not tied to any­one else’s actions. I am not depen­dent on some­one else’s pur­chase to get my work out. Now that’s true freedom.

So by the way, I have a few of these pho­tos left over. They are prints of the pho­to of the Mount David­son Cross fea­tured in my post In Remem­brance. They are signed, num­bered, dat­ed and lim­it­ed to 100 prints. They are also almost free.

Since I can’t just hand them out to read­ers of Mono­chro­mat­ic Out­look, I’m offer­ing to mail a print out to you for the cost of send­ing it. I’ve been brows­ing around office sup­ply stores online and check­ing out postal rates. Looks like I can get small pho­to mail­ers for 50 or 60 cents and postage, even after the rates go up, should be just 41 cents. If the mail­er brings the weight over an ounce it’ll be 58 cents.

Pay­pal a dol­lar (or more if you feel like it!) to me at steves at splicer­dot­com, and don’t for­get to include a mail­ing address. If you want one sent pri­or­i­ty mail make it five bucks. If you want it sent overnight and can tell me an amus­ing sto­ry about why you need it so fast, I’ll do that at cost too.

Oh, and if you’re out­side the U.S., that costs a lit­tle more. A dol­lar and a half should cov­er it. Depend­ing on what coun­try you’re in it could arrive in a few days or a few months.

All the reg­u­lar hype applies: sup­plies are lim­it­ed, act now, don’t delay, void where prohibited.

Thanks!