I will do more large pieces in the future, I believe. Just not too many of them. Maybe one or two a year. Unless people start commissioning them, of course…
Sometime during the last year, I suddenly found myself somehow able to make a living from my drawings. Here are some notes:
1. I love it. Why the hell wouldn’t I?
2. “90% of success is showing up.” Like the famous British artist, Tracy Emin once said, “You don’t get to be Tracy Emin by being a slacker.” One thing you learn from befriending successful artists like Hazel Dooney or John T. Unger is JUST HOW HARD they keep at it, just to keep the show on the road. Insane. You can never turn the switch off. Doesn’t happen. Nor would you want it to.
3. I still don’t much like the word “Artist” to describe myself, but I’m getting more OK with it. I still like the word, “Cartoonist”, but I feel myself outgrowing that, somehow. The good news is, I’m not sure if any of this matters in the grand scheme of things.
4. “Good ideas have lonely childhoods”. There are a few art folk out there, trying to conquer this new Web 2.0 world of ours– Hazel, John T., Mary Anne Davis, Amrita on the gallery side, and a couple of others– but the number of people who REALLY GET IT still seems surprisingly tiny. Still, you could say the same thing about bloggers, ten years ago. It’s still early days.
5. Slavery is expensive. Riddle: Hang out in any gallery scene in any big city for long enough– New York, London, Chicago, Sydney, Los Angeles– and what do you see? Answer: The same frickin’ people. Most gallery scenes exist to supply free wine for the hangers-on, NOT to connect artists with collectors. The occasional (and increasingly rare) art star is the exception to prove the rule. Why artists still enslave themselves to an outmoded gallery model that proves itself ineffective IN THE VAST MAJORITY OF CASES still baffles me. It’s not as if the wine is ever that good, to begin with.
6. I’m spending less time asking, “Who are my readers?” and more time asking, “Who are my users?” Funny how having a proper business to run changes everything…
7. I haven’t forgotten about the books.I’m still writing away, having fun. Don’t see myself stopping, anytime soon.
8. It’s getting increasingly harder to wear so many hats. As the market demands more and more drawings from me, other sides to my business– consulting etc.- get harder to make time for. That being said, I am wondering what I’ve learned as an artist that could be helpful to other types of businesses. It’s something I think about a lot, these days.
[UPDATE:] John T. Unger left a great comment below:
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately too. Yesterday in the studio I was just kind of blown away by how much my life as an artist has changed with success. The day was punctuated by trucks arriving to bring pallets, trucks coming to haul away tons of scrap for recycling, trucks picking up art to ship, orders for more materials to complete a 22 piece sale of firebowls that will go to Norway, an interview, a conference call for a major hotel project, etc. if you’d told me I’d be operating like this five years ago I might not have believed it despite the fact that I always had faith that my art was worth pursuing.
The thing about working as an artist is that you never realize how much of the work is on top of making the actual art. I was remembering how when I started out, I would visit the studios of more established artists and couldn’t begin to grasp how they ran the show. It’s taken years to slowly put each piece in place. Every day there’s new problems to solve, but if you can solve them in a way that sticks— so that from now on that issue is covered, eventually you come up with an efficient system for supporting the most important work you do, which is the art.
I’ve got some support staff now, but still, most of the work and most of the problem solving comes down to me. I like to keep it close to hand… but the only way to do that is to work long hours, get organized as hell, and meet every deadline early. The weird thing maybe is learning that the better I get at getting things done, the more I do. I seem to just keep taking on more and more projects and finding time to do all of them by increasing the efficiency of how I do them.
It’s a crazy circus, but I’ve never loved life more.
[UPDATE: Laura tells me that a total of £300,000 GBP was raised that evening. Hurrah! She also told me that my print was finally auctioned for £1,300 GBP (approx $2100 USD), and was the most heavily bid-on piece of the event! Very cool.]
Laura, who handles PR, Marketing & Sales for Gapingvoid Gallery, is currently in London, visiting family.
Through her efforts, we donated one of my prints, “We Need To Talk” to a lovely cause: “Liver Good Life”. As Laura explained in an email to me:
The“We Need To Talk Talk” print will be auctioned at Christie’s tonight. This is part of an effort to raise money to build a new research centre at King’s College Hospital in London. Professor Giorgina Vergani is the head of the unit and renowned expert in the field of paediatric liver disease, treatment and research. She is an exceptional woman, she has known me since I was 3 years old.
Jazzy de Lisser is seventeen years old and was born with Hepatitis C, she is a patient of Professor Vergani’s, she is the founder of Liver Good Life, she is hoping to raise money for a new research centre at King’s College Hospital. They need £1.8m investment to create this new research centre that will enable King’s Scientists to realise their vision of discovering what triggers certain liver diseases and organ rejection, and pioneer new targeted treatments.
The committee list for this charity is notable — Sir Elton John, Thandie Newton, Rachel Weisz, Giorgio Locatelli, Mario Testino, Trudi Styler, Robbie Coltrane just to name a few…
The charity auction will take place today at Christie’s of London, the famous auction house. It’s a wonderful cause, and I’m delighted that gapingvoid can be a part of it. Kudos to Laura for setting it up. Thanks, Laura, you’re a rock star!
Marfa One was 48“x48”. These new ones will be half those dimensions i.e. 24“x24”.
India Ink & acrylic on canvas. Maybe some pencil as well.
I’m calling these “The George Series”. George is a nice name. A friend of mine used to have a lovely dog named George etc.
[The beginnings of a “George”, with DesertManhattan (48“x96”) standing behind it etc.]
Keeping them simple, basic and raw. Not unlike my business-card cartoons or my Moleskines. Cartoons dancing with abstract etc. Social. Existential. Lyrical. The same philosophy behind them etc.
Good! Homes are less likely to *need* brightening the way offices do. I can brighten my home just by making toast.
Whether we’re talking wee cube grenade laser copies or something much larger, like The Purple Cow Print, when I launched the gapingvoid gallery earlier this year, that was my intention– to make art for the workspace.
This desire goes back to my early years working as an advertising creative. There was always cool stuff– fine art, posters, graphic design, cartoons– hanging up everywhere. Stuff to amuse and inspire us, stuff to tweak our brains in the right direction. And though its effect on the agency’s bottom line would’ve been hard to measure, somehow it worked– or at least, helped.
Why can’t all offices be more like this? Is there some law that requires certain types of businesses to maintain a dull, gray, machine-like, life-sucking visual environment? You could ague that maybe for some companies, sure, but that’s not a world I’ve ever aspired to belong to. “Office Art” tends to come in two main categories: 1. REALLY expensive. 2. REALLY cheesy. I wanted to make office art that was neither…
[Afterthought:] Of course, a lot of my collectors work from home, therefore their offices are in the house, not in an office building. But the prints were made with the workspace in mind, not the “living” space, regardless.
[YouTube video homepage here…] [N.B. Yes, I’m planning on selling this one eventually. Please feel free to e-mail me if you’re interested, Thanks!] PHASE ONE OF THREE: THE UNDERCOAT. Sunday, August 30th. [“Marfa One”, which I started this weekend.. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
A blank canvas (see above) that I finished doing the white acrylic undercoat for, earlier today. Four-foot-by-four foot. Titled “Marfa One”, it’s will be the first of The Marfa Series.
Now to get cracking on the pencil…
[UPDATE: Monday, 31st August, 24 hours later:] PHASE TWO OF THREE: THE PENCIL. [Click on images to enlarge etc.] [Close-up. Pencil lines etc.] [Close-up. Taken from the side etc.]
Yesterday (Sunday) I cranked out the pencil. Took forever, but it was worth it. Besides some very small touch-ups at the end, I did it all in one session. No messing around.
I got myself in a mind-set that, although it’s large and on canvas, it didn’t intimidate me. I just treated that four-by-four-foot, two-dimensional surface like any other drawing, like any other page in my sketchbook. I didn’t treat it like “ART!!!!”. I just did my thing and got on with it; not a lot of fuss.
I think that’s how I’ll approach all my big pieces from now on… PHASE THREE OF THREE: THE INK. [Update: 24 hours later, Tuesday, September 1st, 2009.] [Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Made a good start yesterday on the inking. Hope to finish it by tonight etc.
This is always the hardest part of making a big drawing. The temptation to “rush it” gets more and more overwhelming, the closer you get to the finish line. But last-minute rushing can easily ruin it. Oh well, I’ve been here many times before, nothing I can’t handle etc. [Update: 24 hours later, Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009.] [Click on images to enlarge etc.]
Got up this morning at 4am and put the finishing touches on Marfa One.
It’s done…
[Close-up of desertmanhattan, in its early “pencil” phase, Autumn, 2008.]
I was thinking earlier today how I had made my reputation drawing very, very small cartoons [i.e. “drawn on the back of business cards”], and now here I am, with The Marfa Series, going in the opposite direction i.e. very, very big cartoons. Two sides of the same coin, perhaps…
Yes, I’m still calling them “Cartoons”, even if the rest of the world will want to call them something else– “Paintings” or whatever. No matter where life takes me these days, I still consider myself first and foremost a cartoonist. Like I said over at Lateral Action, “I never liked calling myself an ‘Artist’. I think History decides if you’re an artist or not, not yourself.”
With the traditional cartoonist’s business model looking increasingly untenable (And it was in trouble LONG before the Internet came along , believe me), I think it’s a good time to ask the question, well, what is a cartoon, anyway?
Does the cartoon HAVE to be what it’s always been? Or can it evolve into something else more interesting? Does the cartoon have to be figurative, or is abstract perfectly valid, as well? Does the cartoonist HAVE to have an editorial or humorous slant, or are there OTHER spheres of human existence worth exploring?
It’s good to push the edges…
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Greetings from Alpine, Texas. I left here two days ago, and flew to New York City from El Paso [a 220 mile drive to the airport], in order to sign the the Ignore Everybody prints.
Yes, it was actually cheaper and easier to fly up there and sign them, than to ship them down here. Go figure.
After a few hours signing them at the printer’s, I rushed off the Island of Manhattan yesterday afternoon, to catch a flight back to El Paso via DFW.
I was in my bed at the hotel in El Paso by midnight. Slept like a log. This morning I went to buy some art supplies in downtown El Paso, had a bit of lunch at Rudy’s, then drove 220 miles back home to Alpine.
A quick visit, to say the least. “Welcome To The Over-Extended Class” etc.
Among my purchases this morning was a big roll of canvas. The plan is to make a series of large, 48“x48” [4 foot-by-4 foot] canvases, i.e. exactly the same height, and one-half the width of desertmanhattan. The wee sketch above should give you an idea what I’m talking about.
I’m thinking of calling these “The Marfa Series”, named after Marfa, the next town over from Alpine, 26 miles away. I drive there and back about three or four times a week; it’s one of my favorite drives in the world. The drive inspired the idea for the the series in a SERIOUSLY big way.
Some will be cranked out in a couple of days. Some will take a lot longer, even a couple of months. I have no idea where this is taking me, other than I think I’ll end up somewhere pretty interesting. Look for them for sale over on the gallery over the next few months or so, or feel free to e-mail me if you’re looking to commission one. Thanks. [Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS.Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
[“Advertising Moleskine”. 5“x7”. Framed. Click on image to enlarge etc.] [Unframed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Just shipped this off in the mail today– a commissioned, framed Moleskine drawing. Dave Whittle, an advertising executive down in Australia, commissioned me to draw him a Moleskine, based on an old cartoon print-out of mine, that he had hanging on his office wall.
A Cube Grenade. Exactly. I sold my first Moleskine to a collector in Paris. This one is going to somebody in the South Pacific. I love the way the Internet gives relatively small operations like my own a global reach. Thanks, Dave!. [gapingvoid commissions…] [More Moleskines for sale on the gallery page here.]
[Click on image to enlarge etc.] [UPDATE: This offer is only valid until 5 PM EST Monday, August 3rd, Thanks!]
I am delighted to report that the “IGNORE EVERYBODY” cartoon, a fond favorite of computer desktops everywhere, is now on offer as a limited edition print. It will sell on the gallery site for $ 495.00 after it is published [mid-August], but is now available as a pre-order offer of $275.00, with just a $50.00 deposit. To make the deposit, click on the PayPal button below. As always, we’ll send you an invoice for the remainder once the print is signed, numbered and ready to ship.
[$50 Payal Deposit Button etc.]
Earlier this year, Patrick Brennan was stuck in an airport lounge for several hours, waiting for his connecting flight. To kill time, he started messing around visually on his computer with the forty chapter titles of my book “Ignore Everybody”. He came up with this, then emailed it to me.
I liked it so much, I went ahead and re-worked it, in my own handwriting. Very cool.
The book began life as a blog post, back in 2004. It had a very simple premise: “So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.”
Then I made a list, and kept adding to it…
I never expected it to resonate with so many people, but it did, somehow.
The fact is, there are millions of people out there who want to do something more creative with their lives. Of course there are. “Creativity” is NOT an exclusive domain for those goofy, trendy hipster types. “Creativity” is a basic human need. And I don’t think a life spent fighting like hell, to get that basic human need expressed and fulfilled, is a bad thing.
So I decided to make these prints, in order to have something on the wall to remind us of this, every day. Rock on. [Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
The “Dinosaur” print is now for sale up on gapingvoidgallery…
Derived from the old maxim, “Never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
Limited edition, signed and numbered, printed with the same high-quality inks and papers as the larger stuff etc.
A nice cube grenade for any office. Rock on.
[A sketch from 2008.…]
There you are, minding your own business, then suddenly you feel “The Call”.
The call to do something totally insane and futile.
But you know you have to do it. You know that if you don’t, a little part of you will be dead forever.
I’ve been feeling a wee bit like that recently. I’ve been feeling another “DesertManhattan” [large painting] calling my name.
“You must create me, Hugh. You simply must. I have to exist, end of story. You have no choice in the matter”.
Aaaargh.… [Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Hazel Dooney. Study For Dangerous Career Babe: The Race Car Driver (Homage To Hellé Nice). 2009 Acrylic on paper, 40cm x 52cm.] Hazel Dooney is a young and VERY successful Australian Artist. From the blurb on her website:
In December, 2007, Hazel Dooney was the only female artist under 30 with works included in the prestigious auction, Modern and Contemporary Australian Art, held at Christie’s in London. In what was a record-setting sale, with major works by Brett Whitely, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin, Sydney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams and Tracey Moffat, two modest early works by Dooney fetched over $AU23,000 each.
You get the idea. We follow each other on Twitter, we exchange the occasional email. I’m a big fan. There are A LOT of artists online, but very few as smart, interesting, talented, successful or as driven as Hazel, so I thought a “Ten Questions” session would be in order. She kindly agreed to answer. TEN QUESTIONS FOR HAZEL DOONEY 1. I’ve described your work to the non-initiated before as “Hard-Edge, Erotic Pop meets Tank Girl”. That’s a MASSIVE oversimplification, of course. For the benefit of gapingvoid readers, could you tell us more about your work?
I love your description of it – I think I’ll use it in the future. It certainly describes the attitude that suffuses it. In Japan, artists like Takashi Murakami have been labelled Shock Pop and some critics have included me in that. At its core, my art’s about the way contemporary women’s identities and sexuality are defined by advertising, entertainment, even commercial pornography. I’m no different – which is why versions of me turn up in nearly all my work. Moreover, I try to replicate the physical experience of modern advertising and entertainment media which is why my large enamel paintings are produced in series (just like TV shows and ad campaigns).
In some ways, I want to make it harder to tell art (or artist) from product. My works are, fundamentally, conceptual – even if most, so far, have been paintings. But this’ll change over the next few years as I experiment with other media. 2. You found success at a very early age. Was it skill? Luck? Talent? Bad Craziness? How did it all come about?
Desperation, probably. I had a fairly lonely, introspective childhood and an often crazy, drug– and boy-dependent youth so when I finally recognised that I had a modicum of talent, I seized upon it. And I was determined not to waste an ounce of it. I worked bloody hard to put together a solid body of work – mostly large and in enamel (I was nothing if not ambitious). And when I felt ready to show it, I refused to let anything or anybody get in my way. I paid for and promoted my first shows myself and I learnt very quickly how to respond professionally to collectors and the press. I realised that art was the key not to having some kind of success – although I wanted success very much – but to survival. That drove me hard for ten years. 3. The reason you got my attention initially, was hearing about your decision to bag the traditional gallery route, instead electing to sell your work to collectors via online. Tell us a little bit about your business model. Tell us why you decided to circumvent the gallery system. Tell us about what’s working. Tell us about the hard parts. Tell us your thoughts on how social media plays a part in this.
Four years ago, I decided to quit the two highly regarded galleries in Sydney and Melbourne that were then representing my work. We had a dispute over how they wanted to position me and (believe it or not) constrain my prices. I found some very smart people in technology and business who were prepared to help me figure out a way to manage myself – not just marketing and selling my work but creating an infrastructure to manage every aspect of the business of it, from identifying and communicating with individual collectors and producing my own shows to expanding my online presence and exploiting tools such as social networks and email to develop a wider interest in my work and me. Since then, the value of my work has increased to five, maybe ten, times what it was five years ago, and 15 times what it was a decade ago and my career has radically expanded – as has my collector base.
Traditional galleries and art institutions – and the art publications that depend on both for their advertising – have had fuck-all to do with it. Neither did a traditional, ‘high minded’ artist approach. I regarded myself early on as a post-punk performer, a ‘garage band’ version of a modern artist who ends up owning her own label and promoting her own tours. I don’t deal through intermediaries and I try to maintain a direct connection with everyone who has an interest in my work. Which is maybe why my work has done so well at auction recently. 4. You’ve been called “One of the Pacific Rim’s most controversial artists”. That may be true, but I don’t find your work offensive in the slightest– I find it delightful. Sure, Sexuality– Female Sexuality in particular– features heavily in the work, but what’s controversial about that? Everyone’s got a libido, after all. It seems to me that to from your perspective, Sexuality and the Social Conventions that surround it are two things that are there to be played with, like a toy. Like you’re trying to make a serious statement by having fun with it. Am I close?
I think the controversial part reflects my outspoken attitude towards the gallery system – and my rejection of it. I don’t see my work as erotic, really. It just reflects an aspect of how young women in the developed world see themselves. For better or worse, sexuality is always a powerful element of this. Besides, there’s always been both sexuality and sensuality in art. It’s as visible in the works of Michaelangelo as it is in those of Picasso or Modigliani. However, these days, we don’t have the same social, religious or gender constraints. We’re able to delve more deeply and frankly, creating art that is more explicit, darker and in my case, confessional and/or critical.
That said, yeah, I do like to have fun with it. My Dangerous Career Babes series is a case in point. A lot of women like to dress up to pretend roles as adults. This is different to actually being something. It’s a form of play-acting. So in this series, each figure has exactly the same pose, like an action figure or a Barbie doll, with one hand designed so props can be slid into it, the other formed for gestures or actions. Just as in real life, the costumes are the key. The figure is a dress-up doll. The career that the figure assumes in each painting is identifiable because of the clothes.
Needless to say, the glibness of this concept pisses some critics off. Me, I think it’s a hoot. 5. As a well-known and charismatic artist, suddenly you find yourself with a “Public Persona”. This “Meta-Hazel”, as it were, running around, going to all the right parties etc. You seem quite happy with your relationship with MetaHazel. Was this always the case, or did it grow on you?
In many ways, it was part of my early survival mechanism. I was immersed within her the moment I recognised my future as an artist. Now we’re so thoroughly interconnected, there’s no other Hazel but the Meta-Hazel, as you put it.
Actually, she’s still quite reclusive and rarely goes to a lot of parties. She’s way too busy. But she has a damn fine lifestyle and her sex life is… arcane, involving a very cool, hugely talented man and a bevy of young Asian camp-followers. 6. Everybody has a “Fantasy Version of Themselves”. You know, that fantasy person who manages to get all their work done, while still having enough room left over to do everything else– like getting a life, for example. What does “Fantasy Hazel” do with herself these days?
‘Fraid not, in my case. See above. I live every aspect of my dreams to the hilt, even if most of them are still driven by a need to make art and succeed (within a wide frame of definitions) as an artist. 7. No matter how big your “Personal Brand” becomes, at the end of the day, you still have to do the work. As I’m fond of saying, “Success is more complex than Failure.” As your work gets more and more known, beyond Australia and Asia, are you having any trouble keeping up? How do you negotiate the ever-increasing demands placed on you, by your fans, collectors, the media and business interests? This increased complexity is something I always struggle with, so yeah, please do tell.
Some days, the work is tedious, labour-intensive and as repetitive as a production line in a factory. This is particularly the case when I am working with assistants on a handful of large pieces at the same time – and yes, it would be impossible to work on the very large enamels without them, as I’ve become increasing allergic to the medium. On other days, it can be almost languid. I draw or paint alone, in a room overlooking the ocean, and an assistant looks after phone calls, prepares snacks for me, and ensures I’m left in peace.
The most frenetic times are just before my exhibitions – ‘show time’ as my assistants call it. My openings are usually pretty extravagant so the logistics are complicated and usually bloody expensive, mainly because I produce my own shows these days.
The key is having a good infrastructure. Apart from my assistants, I have an excellent business manager and accountant who ensure that the right financial and logistical decisions are made for me. I always listen closely to them and follow their advice. And I have the wonderful Jim, a wise, older man who oversees the work-flow on my commissions and the mundane details of production, like ensuring we have enough frames built or the right colour paints to hand.
But none of it works without discipline. Early on in my career, I was told that success demanded one thing above all others: turning up. Turning up every bloody day, regardless of everything. 8. I’ve noticed a lot of well-known artists, like yourself, like Damien Hirst, are now selling their work via auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s, rather than Blue-Chip galleries. What do you think brought this about? Pros? Cons?
It’s cleaner and a lot less effort than dealing with commercial galleries. Despite what they pretend, very few galleries or gallerists have what is required to develop and manage even a moderately successful career, let alone a stellar one – nor do they even want to. So I manage my own career and encourage my collectors to use auction houses for acquisitions and sales. I don’t yet sell on my own account through them but after Hirst and Sotheby’s… maybe.
I have great relationships with the best of them in Australia and collaborate in their marketing efforts for my works ahead of a major sale. They’re polite, helpful, good to deal with. I haven’t met an art dealer about whom I can say the same. Not yet anyway. 9. You have strong opinions about the art world, especially the big art institutions. What are your pet peeves? What do you think needs to change? What would you change if you could?
Oh, I’d tear down nearly everything and replace it. Or not replace it at all. The dark creed underpinning my attacks on the traditional commercial and institutional gallery system is that the system deliberately attempts to determine, control and sometimes destroy the destiny of individual artists – promoting some at the expense of others, making arbitrary judgements influenced by fad, self-interest, even government funding – for its own interests, none of which are to do with art.
Nowadays, too many galleries, public and private, see their role as somehow superior to that of the artists they represent. Hell, recently I read an interview with a noted curator in New York who tried to argue that curators were more important than artists. Is that really what it’s all come to?
Worse, more for reasons of social status than anything else, galleries like to think of art as something that should not be too ubiquitous or egalitarian in terms of access to it. They have no understanding of new systems of value that have gathered momentum because of the web: for example, the idea that ubiquity not scarcity is likely to drive value higher or that the repository of real value is no longer the artwork, the product, but the artist, the producer. This reflects what has changed even in mainstream business, where it isn’t the individual product that’s important but the brand.
As far as I’m concerned, the traditional art apparatchik deserves to die. It’s an anachronism that’s outlived it’s usefulness. I think there is still a role for individual curators or even ‘show producers’ but they need to work in a more individualised, specialist way within a networked ‘virtual’ paradigm – not old-fashioned bricks and mortar. 10. You’ve got your schtick, you’ve got your modus operandi, and obviously, it’s a good one and it’s working well for you. How do you see it evolving in the next few years?
It’s not schtick at all. Schtick is what Perez Hilton or worse, Paris Hilton live on. Rather, it’s a commitment to a different way of working, both personally and professionally. And it’ll evolve with the ideas within the work. In the end, that’s all it’s about. [The gapingvoid “Ten Questions” archive is here.]
A couple of decades ago, Ford had a tagline for its car commercials: “Quality is Job One”.
Well, that may be fine if you’re a big, old car company, but it never quite grabbed my imagination. I figured if you’re a young, small company, or a person wanting to make a difference on a tiny shoestring budget (like I was), stronger words might be more appropriate. Events proved me right– this ended up being one of my favorite cartoons of my blog readers.
[“Confused”. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I drew this cartoon earlier this evening.
It’s conveys the state I found myself in, back in New York a decade ago, when I was doing what I consider to be my best, or at least, my most formative work.
No artist wants their best work behind them. No human being wants their best days behind them. Yet my my Inner Doubting Thomas keeps telling me, I’ll never be that young again; I’ll never have my work be that fresh & new again. Nor, sadly, will the world, at least to me.
To Hell with it. I’ll carry on, regardless.
And of course, so will you, at whatever insanely impractical path you chose for yourself. We knew what we were doing, when we signed up for this tour of duty.
We still have a few tricks up our sleeves, don’t we? Doubting Thomas can go fuck himself… [etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
Last week I blogged about a series of small prints I was working on, based on the cartoons in the new book, “IGNORE EVERYBODY”, which as y’all know, launched today.
These cartoons above are some of the most viewed, and have collectively been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. I know they adorn lots of cube walls, been made into stickers and of course, blogcards.
These four reflect a lot about what I was feeling at the time I drew them, three or four years ago. How we all have a need to find “purpose”, and the stuff we do and the people we interact with each day, in order to find “it”.
So today, being a day that for me is a lot about finding my own purpose, I’ve decided that it would be a poignant moment to make these available for people to own. You can throw away your yellow’d download and own the real thing instead, signed and numbered by me. An edition of 100, sold as a set in a portfolio, for $300 [Plus Shipping & Handling]. In a few days we’ll be offering the individual prints for about $100 each.
These are smaller versions of what we have been doing up until now. They measure 11“x14”, and can be framed and hung, or kept in a portfolio to view or use for meetings and then put away etc.
They are all hand-pulled serigraphs, and printed on Rives-Arches paper. For those of you thinking about collecting the work long-term, this is a good, affordable, and fun place to start. I hope to be making lots more of these portfolio editions in the future. Thanks.
[I’m currently accepting both private and corporate commissions for cartoons, company logos, ‘Cube Grenades’, large pieces, Moleskines, speaking engagements, workshops and whatever else you might be in the market for. Please read on for more details, Thanks! E-mail: gapingvoid@gmail.com.]
‘Cube Grenades’, I believe, is where my art works the best– small Social Objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to cause disruption, to spread an idea etc. And I want to work with clients to make more of them. That’s my business. That’s my business model. Exactly.
As a cartoon, it works. As a piece of advertising, it works. As a piece of communication, it works. As a Cube Grenade, it works. As a social object it works. As a conversation starter, it REALLY works. I was happy; so was the client.
Like a lot of bloggers with an advertising background, I have spent a lot of time over the years asking the question, “What is the future of advertising?”
Sure, in the last decade there’s been a lot of speculation about how Web 2.0 is going to change EVERYTHING in the industry– everything from putting mainstream agencies out of business, to Google ruling the world with an iron fist. But in spite of all the talk out there, a definitive answer has always remained somewhat elusive.
I think I may have FINALLY had a major breakthrough:
These last few weeks, while I have been VERY busy working on some new Cube Grenade business, it occurs to me that the Cube Grenade concept somehow manages to get both my backgrounds in cartooning and advertising working seamlessly together.
The Cube Grenades aren’t really designed to “sell”, like traditional advertising. They’re designed to hit a nerve and start conversations. Maybe that will help lead to sales down the road, but it’s not the primary purpose. Its primary purpose takes a more indirect, perhaps more disruptive path.
So what is the future of advertising? Well, I don’t know what yours is, but mine is The Cube Grenade. If that’s what you want, you come to me. If you want something different, go elsewhere.
Some people will get this, some people won’t, but that’s probably a good thing. Rock on.
[If you think the Cube Grenade idea could help your business, as always, feel free to e-mail me, Thanks.]
Above is a photo that one of my friends on Twitter sent me. He basically downloaded one of my cartoons off my blog, printed it out, and stuck it outside his cube at work, for other people to see, hopefully to comment on, and hopefully, to start a conversation.
Again, this, I believe, is where my cartoons work the best– “Cube Grenades”- small Social Objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to cause disruption, to spread an idea etc.
Seth Godin first put his Purple Cow book into a purple milk carton for the same reason– he guessed [quite rightly, as it turned out] that people would see the carton on somebody’s desk, inquire about it, and a conversation about the marketing ideas contained in the book would be started.
[The Purple Cow print]
And the Purple Cow print was designed the same way. OK, it might be a bit big to display in a cube– you need a lot of wall space for this one– but the idea is the same– Conversations that happen around the object are more interesting than the actual object itself.
“Cube Grenades”. Exactly. Cartoons designed to affect change as “Social Objects”. Exactly.
[More “Cube Grenades” in action. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
1. Like I said, my cartoons work best when they’re used as “Cube Grenades” i.e. small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to spread an idea etc. But other social objects can be used as well– purple milk cartons, homemade cookies, funky mousepads, rubber toys, newspaper clippings etc. It’s the people that matter, not the object they socialize around. I don’t claim to have a monopoly.
3. All big change in companies come from the people in the trenches, who do the actual day-to-day work. To change their behavior, you have to change the way they interact. People interact around social objects. Change the social objects, and you change the company.
4. My friend, Mark Earls once told me a story about a friend of his. The friend played a key role in the massively successful corporate turnaround recently undertaken by McDonald’s.
His friend told him, “We knew we were screwed, NOT when the nutrition and green issues started hitting the newspapers, but by the simple fact that our staff on the floor just weren’t cleaning the tables and the bathrooms like they used to. We knew THEN that our people had lost faith in our company.”
What social objects were people using, both during the company’s decline and during its turnaround? What cube grenades were being thrown about, both before and after? I bet you they weren’t the same.
5. Yes, I am fully aware that your customers are paying for the quality of the products and services your business provides, not for the quality of the cube grenades flying around your corporate headquarters. But they are all related. Everything of value that your business creates is the product of a already-existing social dynamic. Businesses are people, not machines. And people socialize around objects.
6. An Open Letter to Ad Agencies: Guys, you are NOT selling messages anymore. You are selling social objects. The work that you create will affect the cube grenades and social objects, that your clients and their customers use to interact with each other.
[More Cube Grenades. “I use them as covers for my binders strewn about my desk, to start conversations”, says the person who e-mailed me the photo. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
7. You see a guy walking out of an Apple store, looking all excited about his new Apple computer he’s carrying under his arm? Why is he so excited? Sure, he just got himself a nice-looking piece of kit, but what REALLY excites him is all of the COOL, DISRUPTIVE STUFF he’s going to MAKE with his new machine. Videos, music mixes, whatever. For his FRIENDS and his PEERS. Again, it’s the SOCIAL that makes it interesting. Apple makes cube grenades, just like the ad agencies. Just like you do.
8. People download my cartoons and stuck them on their walls by the THOUSANDS. A much smaller number spend money to buy the more expensive versions i.e. my prints. But the idea is the same i.e. a way for people to interact. As I’m fond of saying: The conversations AROUND the object are FAR more interesting than the object itself. And what is true for me is true of your product, as well. “People Matter. Objects don’t.” Exactly.
9. So when do I start charging? You can download my stuff for free, so why should you buy a print? Who says you should? I’m guessing that if one of my cartoons is meaningful enough to you, you’ll get tired of seeing it printed on the office laserprinter paper in low-resolution, getting all worn and torn, with the Scotch tape getting all yellow and crinkly. If you like the drawing enough, eventually you’ll want to upgrade. The same way, back in college, that I would upgrade to vinyl or CDs, once the cheap and nasty cassette tape of my favorite band started getting all fuzzy and worn out. The same way I gladly paid $20 to hear the band play live, rather than hear the same songs on the cassette. “Meaning Scales”. The more cube grenades I throw out there, the more meaningful interaction I create for other people, the more people will want to pay for it eventually. If I locked it all down as a cash-only transaction, it would all die a horrible death overnight.
10. My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Grenades” for more clients like agenciaclick. It was a wonderful working experience for me, and I want to spend more time in that business. If you find this idea interesting, please feel free to e-mail me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.
3. CUBE GRENADES: LIMITED-EDITION, FINE ART PRINTS
[Privately-commissioned “Cube Grenades” i.e. limited edition, fine art prints that I did for my Brazilian client, agenciaclick. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
“This, I believe, is where my cartoons work the best– ‘Cube Grenades’- small social objects that you ‘throw’ in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to spread an idea etc.”
Probably the job I’m most proud of recently, is when I was hired by a Brazilian ad agency, agenciaclick to create a privately commissioned edition of cube grenades i.e. fine art prints. See photo above.
They didn’t want these prints for themselves; they wanted to give these out to their clients, as conversation starters.
“All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the picture. The same idea that made The Blue Monster so successful. Again, it wasn’t about the message, the object. It was all about the social.
My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Grenades” for more clients like agenciaclick. It was a wonderful working experience for me, and I want to spend more time in that business.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking with various advertising and PR folk about the Cube Grenade idea. Here are some notes:
1. In terms of the advertising and PR industries, the Cube Grenade is basically conceived as a relatively cheap and effective Social Object to articulate the Purpose-Idea of a brand or company.
2. If the agency has an idea they REALLY want to sell to their client, they might have better luck if they first articulate the idea via a Cube Grenade designed by me, rather than the traditional “agency pitch” model. The agency’s idea is somehow articulated as a commissioned print, the print is given out as a gift, to people within the relevant constituency. The print hangs on a wall, other people see it, and if the idea is any good then people will start talking about it. That conversation will lead to other conversations. If the idea is any good, other ideas [and opportunities] will be spawned from it.
3. The Cube Grenade is not a glorified advertising poster. I’m not primarily interested in why people should buy the client’s product per se. I’m far more interested in the human dynamic, the collective human drive that makes the client’s people want to get up in the morning and go to work. That is where THE REAL VALUE is created.
4. Because the Cube Grenade is given as a gift– an act of love, as it were– AND NOT A DELIVERABLE WANTING TO BE SOLD, it will break through the cultural barriers of the client company a lot more cheaply and quickly than your standard “Big Advertising Idea”. The game here is not about “Selling An Ad”, the point is to make the client more alive, more human, more aware of their own human potential. Again, this is where is where THE REAL VALUE for the client-agency relationship is created.
5. Whether the Cube Grenade “works” or not in the end, both agency and client will find out if the thought behind it works A LOT sooner and inexpensively than executing your average ad campaign. Like all communication, the idea needs to RISK FAILURE if it’s ever to be any good. “Fail cheap, fail often”, as the great venture capitalist, Esther Dyson likes to say.
6. As I’ve said before to the ad agencies: “Guys, you are NOT selling messages anymore. You are selling Social Objects. The work that you create will affect the Cube Grenades and Social Objects, that your clients and their customers use to interact with each other.” This is why I’m talking to advertising folk. At the end of the day, we’re both in the same business.
7. To get more background reading, please visit my Cube Grenade archive here. You might also want to check out “The Hughtrain” to get a better understanding of where my ideas are coming from.
8. As always, if this idea is of any interest to you, please feel free to contact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Or if you know someone in the advertising industry, please send them along to this page [Here’s the link]. Thanks!
This desire goes back to my early years working as an advertising creative. There was always cool stuff– fine art, posters, graphic design, cartoons– hanging up everywhere. Stuff to amuse and inspire us, stuff to tweak our brains in the right direction. And though its effect on the agency’s bottom line would’ve been hard to measure, somehow it worked– or at least, helped.
Why can’t all offices be more like this? Is there some law that requires certain types of businesses to maintain a dull, gray, machine-like, life-sucking visual environment? You could ague that maybe for some companies, sure, but that’s not a world I’ve ever aspired to belong to.
“Office Art” tends to come in two main categories: 1. REALLY expensive. 2. REALLY cheesy.
I wanted to make office art that was neither…
[Afterthought:] Of course, a lot of my collectors work from home, therefore their offices are in the house, not in an office building. But the prints were made with the workspace in mind, not the “living” space, regardless.
I’ve been playing around with this line a lot recently: “Art For The Real World”.
I’m interested in how art affects what some people call “The Real World”- the workplace, the world of work, the world of business. That’s what the Cube Grenade idea is all about.
My advertising buddy, Vinny Warren, grew up in a Roman Catholic household in Ireland. He was telling me that his parents would always have a few religious icons hanging on the wall somewhere. Pictures of Saints, Mary & Baby Jesus, that kind of thing.
Why? Says Vinny, “To remind us who we were.”
Art that reminds you who you are. Exactly. What applies in Catholic households also applies in places of business. Shared Meaning. Exactly. Social Objects. Exactly.
I think surrounding ourselves with icons, art, books and such to remind ourselves of who we are, where we have been and where we hope to go is essential to keeping our hearts alive. It is too easy to lose our way. My office is full of these things.
7. MOLESKINES:
[“Moleskine 42″ in a nice wooden frame. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[“Moleskine 42″ before the framing, approx 5“x7”: Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Since then I’ve gotten a lot of requests for them. So I plan to be doing more in future.
ADVERTISING MOLESKINE:
[“Advertising Moleskine”. 5“x7”. Framed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Unframed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Dave Whittle, an advertising executive down in Australia, commissioned me to draw him a Moleskine, based on an old cartoon print-out of mine, that he had hanging on his office wall. A Cube Grenade. Exactly. I sold my first Moleskine to a collector in Paris. This one is going to somebody in the South Pacific. I love the way the Internet gives relatively small operations like my own a global reach. Thanks, Dave!.
Above is a photo that one of my friends on Twitter sent me. He basically downloaded one of my cartoons off my blog, printed it out, and stuck it outside his cube at work, for other people to see, hopefully to comment on, and hopefully, to start a conversation. This, I believe, is where my cartoons work the best– “Cube Grenades”- small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to spread an idea etc. [The Blue Monster] The Microsoft Blue Monster is probably my best-known Cube Grenade, which is why I made it into a limited edition print eventually. Seth Godin first put his Purple Cow book into a purple milk carton for the same reason– he guessed [quite rightly, as it turned out] that people would see the carton on somebody’s desk, inquire about it, and a conversation about the marketing ideas contained in the book would be started. [The Purple Cow print]
And the Purple Cow print was designed the same way. OK, it might be a bit big to display in a cube– you need a lot of wall space for this one– but the idea is the same– Conversations that happen around the object are more interesting than the actual object itself.
“Cube Grenades”. Exactly. Cartoons designed to affect change as “Social Objects”. Exactly. [Check out some of my limited edition prints over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]
[Update:]
Since I posted this “Cube Grenades” idea yesterday, I’ve been giving it A LOT of thought. Here are some notes: [More “Cube Grenades” in action. Click on image to enlarge etc.] 1. Like I said, my cartoons work best when they’re used as “Cube Grenades” i.e. small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to spread an idea etc. But other social objects can be used as well– purple milk cartons, homemade cookies, funky mousepads, rubber toys, newspaper clippings etc. It’s the people that matter, not the object they socialize around. I don’t claim to have a monopoly. 2. Repeat After Me: Cube Grenades are Social Objects. Cube Grenades are Social Objects. Cube Grenades are Social Objects… 3. All big change in companies come from the people in the trenches, who do the actual day-to-day work. To change their behavior, you have to change the way they interact. People interact around social objects. Change the social objects, and you change the company. 4. My friend, Mark Earls once told me a story about a friend of his. The friend played a key role in the massively successful corporate turnaround recently undertaken by McDonald's.
His friend told him, "We knew we were screwed, NOT when the nutrition and green issues started hitting the newspapers, but by the simple fact that our staff on the floor just weren't cleaning the tables and the bathrooms like they used to. We knew THEN that our people had lost faith in our company."
What social objects were people using, both during the company's decline and during its turnaround? What cube grenades were being thrown about, both before and after? I bet you they weren't the same. 5. Yes, I am fully aware that your customers are paying for the quality of the products and services your business provides, not for the quality of the cube grenades flying around your corporate headquarters. But they are all related. Everything of value that your business creates is the product of a already-existing social dynamic. Businesses are people, not machines. And people socialize around objects. 6. An Open Letter to Ad Agencies: Guys, you are NOT selling messages anymore. You are selling social objects. The work that you create will affect the cube grenades and social objects, that your clients and their customers use to interact with each other. [More Cube Grenades. "I use them as covers for my binders strewn about my desk, to start conversations", says the person who e-mailed me the photo. Click on image to enlarge etc.] 7. You see a guy walking out of an Apple store, looking all excited about his new Apple computer he's carrying under his arm? Why is he so excited? Sure, he just got himself a nice-looking piece of kit, but what REALLY excites him is all of the COOL, DISRUPTIVE STUFF he's going to MAKE with his new machine. Videos, music mixes, whatever. For his FRIENDS and his PEERS. Again, it's the SOCIAL that makes it interesting. Apple makes cube grenades, just like the ad agencies. Just like you do. 8. People download my cartoons and stuck them on their walls by the THOUSANDS. A much smaller number spend money to buy the more expensive versions i.e. my prints. But the idea is the same i.e. a way for people to interact. As I’m fond of saying: The conversations AROUND the object are FAR more interesting than the object itself. And what is true for me is true of your product, as well. “People Matter. Objects don’t.” Exactly. 9. So when do I start charging? You can download my stuff for free, so why should you buy a print? Who says you should? I’m guessing that if one of my cartoons is meaningful enough to you, you’ll get tired of seeing it printed on the office laserprinter paper in low-resolution, getting all worn and torn, with the Scotch tape getting all yellow and crinkly. If you like the drawing enough, eventually you’ll want to upgrade. The same way, back in college, that I would upgrade to vinyl or CDs, once the cheap and nasty cassette tape of my favorite band started getting all fuzzy and worn out. The same way I gladly paid $20 to hear the band play live, rather than hear the same songs on the cassette. “Meaning Scales”. The more cube grenades I throw out there, the more meaningful interaction I create for other people, the more people will want to pay for it eventually. If I locked it all down as a cash-only transaction, it would all die a horrible death overnight. [Privately-commissioned “Cube Grenades” i.e. limited edition, fine art prints that I did for my Brazilian client, agenciaclick. Click on image to enlarge etc.] 10. Probably the job I’m most proud of recently, is when I was hired by a Brazilian ad agency, agenciaclick to create a privately commissioned edition of cube grenades i.e. fine art prints. See photo above.
They didn’t want these prints for themselves; they wanted to give these out to their clients, as conversation starters. “All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the picture. The same idea that made The Blue Monster so successful. Again, it wasn’t about the message, the object. It was all about the social.
11. My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Grenades” for more clients like agenciaclick. It was a wonderful working experience for me, and I want to spend more time in that business. If you find this idea interesting, please feel free to e-mail me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.
I took this picture when I was in Miami, while the “Wolf vs Sheep” prints were being packed and shipped. A customer asked me on Twitter for a progress report. So I showed her [and all my other Twitter followers] this photo– the print mounted on shipping cardboard, as “Social Proof”.
When you’re running an online business, where everything is articulated via digital, it’s good to offer your customers a real-time glimpse into the real world, “Where The Molecules Are”.
This is why I ask all my customers to please send me photos. It offers ME social proof, that all this is real, that yes, my idea went all the way from concept, to design, to printing, to shipping, to customers’ walls. It’s a wonderful feeling. These are my “babies”, after all– I love seeing where they end up!
This is also why I set up a Flickr photostream for the prints i.e to offer more “Proof”.
Proof is a good thing. Proof is my friend. The more “Proof” that is freely available out there, the more easy it is for somebody to trust my name, my brand and my product.
And this, of course, is also true with your business…
A few days ago, with the blessing of Seth Godin, I announced the Purple Cow Print. Here are some more of my thoughts, in no particular order:
1. I wanted to create an icon for the world I currently live in. The internet-enabled, Marketing 2.0 world. Seth’s 2003 book, “Purple Cow” seemed to sum up that world for me best. Turning into a print i.e. an iconic version of the world he spoke about, was a no-brainer. You walk into somebody’s office and see that print on their wall, you have no doubt whatsoever which worldview he’s aligned to.
2. I learned this while marketing wine: What’s interesting is not the liquid in the bottle, or what vineyard it came from, but the conversations that happen around it. Same with art. I wanted to make a print that HAD NO CHOICE but to start a conversation. A conversation about what? Not the work of art per se, but what the thing that the icon represents– the ideas in the book.
3. It’s the biggest print I have made so far: 39x28”. That’s BIG for a print. That’s a lot of purple.
4. Though I used “Web 2.0″ tech to market it, in many ways the print was a statement AGAINST what Web 2.0 seems to have been evolving into these last couple of years… a place where the shiny new tools seem to matter A LOT MORE to people than the objects people were building WITH the shiny new tools.
5. Though I’m really, really unbelievably happy with the number of pre-orders we have gotten so far, I believe the print will be A LOT MORE interesting to A LOT MORE people once they see it hanging on other people’s walls. Once they see the molecules with their own eyes. Once THE REAL conversations begin. The central thesis to Seth’s book is “Be Remarkable”. I went all meta and used his book design as a starting point to create something remarkable myself.
6. Somebody asked me recently if the way I marketed my prints [i.e. via Web 2.0] was part of the artwork itself? Well, I believe that all art is informed by its social dimension, including the commercial bit. The fact that you bought the print off a blog, rather than from a traditional art gallery, does indeed inform the story behind it. But you can just as easily take that theory so far. In the end, it’s made of paper and hangs on a wall. Theory can be a distraction. sometimes.
7. One of my great cartoonist heroes, Charles Schultz, once said, “If I were better at drawing, I’d make paintings. If I were better at writing, I’d write books. So instead I draw cartoons”. That’s exactly how I feel about my own work. I don’t see my work hanging in the Louvre any time soon. What I do see, however, and what gets far more interesting to me with time, is how people use my work fro their own ends, for helping them find their own sense of purpose. Seth’s book, or this print, won’t change your life. ONLY YOU will change your life. It’s only the job of the artist or writer to maybe give you a nudge in the right direction.
8. I am insanely grateful to Seth Godin for allowing me to run with this idea. He rules. Thank you, Seth! [Check out The Purple Cow print over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]
The way artists market themselves is by having a great story, by having a “Myth”. Telling anecdotal stories about Warhol, Pollack, Basquiat, Van Gogh is both (A) fun and (B) has a mythical dimension… if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have had movies made about them. The art feeds the myth. The myth feeds the art.
We all know how mythologies build up around art and artists, that over time informs the artist’s work itself.
Warhol’s weirdly destructive social scene at The Factory in the 1960s. Pollack’s excessive drinking. Van Gough’s descent into madness. Keith Haring’s wild party times in the New York gay scene…
Let’s say you spent a sizable chunk of money on a work by an artist you love. Let’s just say you couldn’t really justify it financially, you probably couldn’t afford it, but dammit, you just HAD to have it.
Let’s say you’re showing off the work to a friend, which is now proudly hanging in your office. Let’s say your friend never heard of the artist before.
“What???” your friend says, “You spent HOW MUCH on that? But it’s only some green and blue blotches!”
So you give your friend some background information. You tell him how famous the guy was back in New York in the 1970s, how “Breakthrough” his work was at the time, how he was influenced by Famous Artists A, B and C, and how he went on to influence Later Famous Artists X, Y and Z. You tell anecdotal stories about his tumultuous marriage to a famous, Japanese novelist [who’s work is also now making a comeback], and his up-and-down, booze-soaked relationship with Famous Artist K, his brief, heartbreaking love affair with Famously Tragic Socialite P, his battle with alcohol and drugs, and the old farm he retired to up in Woodstock, New York.
Hopefully by the time you are done with your story, though he may not end up being a collector of the artist himself, he at least will understand more clearly the work’s resonance, and why you made the purchase.
And of course, so will you. Because it wasn’t just your friend who needed to hear the story. You needed to hear the story, as well. You needed to be able to tell yourself that story, that story NEEDED TO EXIST, or else you simply would have not bought the painting in the first place. Without the story, without the “Myth”, you could not have justified purchasing the work to yourself [let alone your wife].
We don’t just do this for $40K works of art, we use the some mythological techniques when we buy computers, breakfast cereal, or bars of soap. Our lives are only as meaningful as the myths we can create for ourselves. And we like to create myths around the objects that fill up our lives. That’s what “Branding” is all about.
The more I think about marketing art, the more I think how what I’m learning applies to marketing everything else. Because art is not particularly utilitarian, the myth is key.
And unless you can understand the myth that informs whatever product you’re trying to sell, the harder your job will be. The more you can TRULY understand the myth, the bigger an edge you will have over your competition. I am right on this one.
[“Murmer”. Ink & Pencil on Moleskine. April, 2009.]
I have some new original pieces for sale on my gapingvoid gallery page, including three new “Moleskine” pieces.
I’m asking myself a lot these days, “How did I get into the art business?” It certainly wasn’t intentional. That could be a good thing, of course…
I hope you’ll check them out. Thanks, Everybody!
Mark McGuinness interviewed me recently over at the Lateral Action blog. Probably my best interview ever. A huge amount of what I’ve been thinking about lately somehow managed to make it onto the page. For example:
2. A lot of artists and creative types see marketing as an evil necessity — or just plain evil. What would you say to them?
“Artists cannot market” is complete crap. Warhol was GREAT at marketing. As was Picasso and countless other “Blue Chips”. Of course, they’d often take the “anti-marketing” stance as a form of marketing themselves. And their patrons lapped it up.
The way artists market themselves is by having a great story, by having a “Myth”. Telling anecdotal stories about Warhol, Pollack, Basquiat, Van Gogh is both (A) fun and (B) has a mythical dimension… if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have had movies made about them. The art feeds the myth. The myth feeds the art.
The worst thing an artist can do is see marketing as “The Other”, i.e. something outside of themselves. It’s not.
Social Markers are a prime form of social shorthand, that people use to STAKE OUT the ecosystem they’re occupying. So why do I find this such a useful term for marketers? Because obviously, if your product is a Social Marker in your industry ecosystem [the way the iPhone is in the mobile world, or Starbucks is in the coffee world, or Amazon is the book world, or Google is in the search world, or Whole Foods is in the supermarket world, or Virgin is in the airline world, or English Cut in the bespoke world etc etc] you will have an AMAZING competitive advantage to call your own. And if the product your company makes is not a Social Marker, I guess the first question would be, “Why the hell not?” Quit your job and start over.
A few weeks ago I read an article in The Economist about how very rich Russians have suddenly started buying the art of Damien Hirst and other Western Contemporaries in large numbers.
Hirst is very, very famous. His work sells for millions. We could argue his work’s artistic merits till the cows come home… his work is cleverly designed to provoke that kind of controversy, anyway. But I’m not here to play art critic. I’m here to talk about something else.
When people buy expensive, famous art, it’s not just about the art in question. It’s also about the social dynamic that surrounds it.
When you spend a king’s ransom on a work of art, you are basically sending a message to the world, “I HAVE ARRIVED”.
“I, too, am now a member of a certain elite group. Like my peers, I too can appreciate and afford the likes of Hirst, or Warhol, or Johns, Rauschenberg, Matisse, Picasso etc etc. ” “Art as Social Marker”. Exactly.
People buy large yachts for the same reason. Or large apartments in Mayfair or Central Park South. Or deerstalking estates in Scotland. Or golf memberships to Augusta. Or islands in the Caribbean. “Social” drives the purchase just as much as the object’s inherent utility, probably more.
As far as I can tell, people don’t buy my work to advertise the fact that they’ve arrived somewhere BIG, like these wealthy Russians buying Damien’s work.
It seems more like to me, people buy my work because they ASPIRE to arrive somewhere, one day. Somewhere interesting and meaningful, with any luck.
Wherever that place may be, I can relate. I hope to arrive there one day, too…
[The “AgenciaClick” prints being signed and numbered…] [The “Wolf vs Sheep” prints, freshly signed and numbered…]
I’m in Miami for the weekend, mainly here to sign some more prints and do some more drawing…
Drawn in Alpine, Texas. Printed in NYNY. Signed in Miami. Sold all over the world, via the Internet. A global microbrand, if ever there was one…
In my last CDF Newsletter I asked people to please send me any pictures they might have of my prints in their possession.
Larry kindly sent me two, with the following note:
Attached is my “Purple Puppy” on my far kitchen wall, alongside a Haring print I bought 20 years ago at his Pop Shop in NYC.
Also attached is “Techcrunch Party 2006″ in my old office space. What’s interesting is that it survived an major electrical explosion and fire in that building two years ago, and was the first thing I checked when allowed a brief visit while the building was closed for weeks afterward.
And, yes, I am a Crazy, Deranged Fool. Started my own small PR firm on Nov. 1, 2008, while Wall Street was imploding, replaced my prior income, and just recently exceeded it, with more growth imminent. Won’t kid you — the first two months were scary. But I stuck with it, and am merrily pressing on. – Larry Bouchie
Thanks, Larry! If you have any print photos yourself– especially ones with PEOPLE in them, please feel free to send them to me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks!
We’ve always seen the Kinetic Quality working in marketing, working with brands. “By buying Brand X, I feel hipper, cooler, sexier, more secure, more in control” etc etc. But what I’m finding out is, this also works with art. To me, the interesting thing about art is not the usual “Heroic, absinthe-soaked, vision quest lone individual archetypal artist crap”, but how the art is USED by the person who has it hanging on the wall. What’s it actually there for? Decoration? Showing off? A conversation starter? An ice breaker? A way of telling a story? Something to brighten up the room? A symbol of social status? An expression of individual worldview? An expression of emotion? A totem to remind oneself of something inspirational and/or important? Perhaps a bit of all these?
So I’m seeing two worlds collide here: The internal, solitary part of making the art, and the external social part of how the piece of art is actually used.
Art? Used? Is art actually allowed to be “used”? Would the Art Police allow that? Instead of calling them “Patrons”, can we call art buyers “Users” instead? Would you be offended if I called you that? There’s no wrong answer…
Potential Energy turning into Kinetic Energy. I guess one of the reasons I’ve always had such liberal licensing terms [“Want to use my stuff on your PowerPoint Slides for free? Sure, go right ahead!!!.…”] is that I like seeing my work being USED. If people like my work, that’s great. But if they can actually find it tangibly useful, even better.
Soon after, Tony Kirton of The Experience Stuido sent me the photograph above, with the following note:
We positioned the your cartoons at the entrance of the studio, to kick-start a relevant conversation. Never failed!
It’s little mental trick that Kathy Sierra taught me– Don’t think of them as “Customers” or “Patrons”, think of them as “Users”. Whatever thing you’re selling, it’s not what it does that’s interesting; it’s how people use it that’s interesting. “People Matter. Objects Don’t.” Exactly.
Fresh from the framing store, it’s one of just 85 signed Hugh MacLeod prints from the first in a series of limited edition prints he’s doing. This was always my favorite cartoon of his. I used to have a b/w printout of it on my office wall. It pretty much sums up how I feel generally. And I love the wildly optimistic yet utterly truthful tone. The text reads: THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.
This advertising connection got me thinking about something I posted back in February, 2004, during the tail end of my own advertising career, called “The Kinetic Quality”:
“The Kinetic Quality”: All products are information. The molecules are secondary.
The future of brands is interaction, not commodity. It’s not something you buy, but something you paticipate in.
i.e. a brand is not a thing, but a place.
[…]
In the old days, the three most important words in advertising were “Unique Selling Proposition”. To me, the three most important words are “By Interacting With…”
–By interacting with Gerber, she becomes a better-informed mom.
–By interacting with The Wall Street Journal, she becomes more tuned into the world of capitalism.
–By interacting with Apple, she brings her entrepreneurial dreams closer to reality.
–By interacting with McDonald’s, her busy schedule is made slightly easier by avoiding a lot of fuss over lunch.
–By interacting with Ralston Purina, she becomes more attached to her canine friend.
–By interacting with your brand, she becomes…?
A good brand is a two-way conversation.
What we bloggers know about the nature of information (a great deal) can be applied far beyond our usual diet of media, politics and journalism. Because all products are information. All products are ideas. The molecules are secondary.
Back when I wrote that, I was an advertising creative i.e. selling other people’s stuff. Now I’m selling my own stuff i.e. my prints. And the same rules still apply:
–By interacting with gapingvoid, Vinny Warren [or whoever] becomes…?
The short answer is, roughly: “Better able to articulate his own worldview to himself and to people around him.”
That’s the idea, at least. Which of course, is THE WHOLE PURPOSE of art in the first place: Self-expression through third-party “Social Objects”.
Anyone who’s ever owned an iPhone or a Harley Davidson will know exactly what I’m talking about… [Sign up to the gapingvoid “Crazy, Deranged Fools” Newsletter here.]
[YouTube video page is here.]
I started on DesertManahttan last September. I finally finished it earlier this evening, around midnight.
Yeah, it took a a long time to finish. Well, I was a busy fellow, after all, doing lots of other stuff.
I could have worked on it forever, however like the old art school adage goes, paintings are never finished; they are ended. It was time.
Thanks to everybody who followed me along on this project, encouraging me all the way. It’s been quite a journey. Rock on. [Sign up to gapingvoid’s “Crazy, Deranged Fools” Newsletter…]
[Tablet PC sketch of what I have in mind. Click on image to enlarge etc.] [UPDATE: 12.10am, 23rd March. “DesertManhattan” is finished. Hurrah!] DesertManhattan is nearly finished. Four x Eight foot worth of insanity. Months of work. Will be posting pictures soon.
My next painting will be half that size– 48″ x 48″ square… the sketch above should give you an idea. Again, the theme comes from a familiar place. Like I said when I first started on DesertManhattan:
I think being out here in Alpine, Texas, covered under a blanket of desert air and “Big Sky” brought about a wee change in me, at least in what I find interesting artistically. The “cartoons on the back of business cards” format came about in New York City, when living conditions, shall we say, were far more intense, crowded and cramped. Not to mention, I was ten years younger. Things change.
There’s a certain intensity to being out here in the desert. There was a certain intensity to living in New York. I’m trying to create objects that somehow capture both. Hence its name.
Yeah, I know, it’s a silly, stupid, insane way to try to make a living, to try to spend a life. I’ve spent the last twenty years learning this the hard way. The damage is already done. Alea iacta est. Rock on. [Sign up to gapingvoid’s “Crazy, Deranged Fools” Newsletter…]
One of John T.‘s “Great Bowls Of Fire”. From March, 2006:
Chris Carfi points to John T. Unger, an artist and regular gapingvoid commenter who has used his blog and the global microbrand idea to carve out a nice wee career for himself (for more money than his last day job paid him, I hasten to add).
Go read John T’s take on it here. Very uplifting.
John and his girlfriend left Alpine, Texas this morning. We hung out and drank beer, and I got to take him to my favorite Mexican place in town, Alicia’s. Since I first wrote about him a a few years ago, we’ve become great friends.
John’s checking out Texas. He’s had enough of Michigan winters. He’s looking to buy land down here and build another studio for his sculpture. Alpine is on his short list of possible locations.
I may have coined the term, “Global Microbrand”, but John has actually lived it to the full. Now it’s my turn to play catch-up. Rock on.
