On a related note - I have a possibly naive question. When you find music you like it’s easy to carry it around with you in your pocket and re-listen as many times as you’d like, and create a collection (playlists, saving albums etc)
How do you do this with visual work? Do you bookmark it and revisit it in the future? Just curious, as someone who actively seeks out music, but usually not visual media
When I find the work I’m really looking for I buy the original from the artist or commission something new from them, but otherwise the Instagram bookmarks folder has something like 8,000 posts in it 😂
But the key thing with commissions is that I don’t ask for something that I want, I ask the artist what they would be excited to make next and sponsor their next dream project. I get out of their way, but I sponsor it. Maybe this is equivalent to sponsoring one single or one song from a musician/band, but I don’t think the public is allowed to just do that, are they? There’s kind of a detached or indirect relationship between the musicians and the audience because the music labels are handling most of those decisions.
Which may also be true of visual artists who are represented by art galleries, where the direct kind of one-on-one collaborations that I do become closed off. But I’ve never worked with artists who are represented by a gallery like that. I tried to once but the response was, Sorry you have to go through one of my galleries to work with me, and I didn’t like that.
I’ve seen it happen where a popular band is no longer represented by a music label and simply goes to Kickstarter or GoFundMe to raise the funds needed to record the next album they want to make. That’s a very similar idea with crowdfunding patronage vs. the patronage of one individual. It’s just that the nature of original works of physical art cannot be shared or distributed so easily!
I love this way of thinking about commissions 💜
I think about it like this: the artist has their portfolio that they want to share with the world. What can I sponsor that would upgrade their portfolio in a way that showcases this artist at their best?
Nice, seems like this is the ideal way to do it. Not as direct, but I try to treat music in a similar way
- I have my “likes” (just lists of saved stuff that I like and would like to listen to again, only very loosely supporting through listens on streaming platforms )
- I have my “loves” (will pay for the physical vinyl or mech because I want to support the artist directly)
Then next level would be all of the above plus maybe attending live shows.
I’ve never directly contributed towards like a next albums type crowd sourcing situation though, I should seek that out for often
I’ve been learning about music superfans who attend 50% to 100% of all live shows across an entire cross-country tour. It sounds really brutal because the logistics, transportation costs, lodging costs eat up so much of the budget, but for them each of those live experiences is worth the effort. But I do wonder how much of the total spent goes to the artist? 10%? 15%? What I like about direct art patronage is that 90%-100% of what I’m spending is going to the artist, and I’m not sure there is an equivalent for that for musicians who are tied to a label. Granted, I’m just one person, and famous musicians could have tens of thousands of fans supporting them in smaller ways.
