Art and Money

Art and Money

My Art and Your Money

When I was a skinny little black kid my heroes were artists like Bob Marley and Miles Davis and Van Gogh and George Orwell and also revolutionaries Like Mandela and Marcus Garvey.

Coming from a very poor immigrant family was enough in itself to give me a perverted relationship with money, money was the enemy it made my mom cry when rent was due it kept me off my high school football team and forced me to start washing dishes at 15 to pay for school lunch. But if that wasn't bad enough I was seduced by the romantic notion that it was noble and proof of your integrity to be a starving artist. Growing up in the 70s and 80s the mantra among my artist friends-which was a leftover from the beatniks and hippies was "never sell out" and stay "pure".

So I did it, stupid me. Even though I finished high school with a 92% average and could have gone to law school or med school like my Mom was begging me to, I went to art school instead. After art school I was a starving photographer and film director for 18 years. I never took on commercial projects, never compromised my work, never had a 9 to 5 or even part time job, depended solely on my art for my income, never had a family , never had a long term relationship- never did anything that was a distraction from developing my art. I thought I was a hero, but soon discovered that in most peoples eyes I was a loser.

One day, ten tears ago I woke up to find that I was 38- no longer a young hot anything. People around me no longer seemed impressed with how many gallery shows I had had or how many films I had made. The questions were now "how much money did your film make" or "how much money did you make from your gallery show?" People were looking at me differently. People don't expect anyone to make money in their twenties but I was now becoming more of an object of pity rather than admiration.

I was engaged to a Chinese woman and she asked me to ask her father out to lunch to ask for his consent, and I did. Before I even had a second bite of my meal he told me that he didn't care how I treated his daughter or how we felt about each other, what he wanted was to know if I could take care of her. When he found out I was an artist he told me that artists were bums and asked to see my last five years of tax returns. He was a tax preparer for H&R Block and said everything he ever needed to know about anyone can be found in their tax return.

Thankfully I never married into that family but I did get tired of starving so I switched from being a full time artist and became a part-time one instead while earning a living practicing herbal medicine. I was able help my mom retire and I enjoyed all the fruits of a middle class lifestyle. I still did my film and photography work when I could. I got married and had a baby. When that marriage imploded I decided to return to being a full time artist because I needed the emotional fulfillment the work gives me. I still have my herbal medicine practice and it keeps me fed and pays 98 percent of the expenses of my artwork.

Money was never the enemy. Inequality and corruption and greed are enemies but not money. Money is about value. People use their money to acquire things they value. You use your money for the things you value whether it's a trip to Thailand or going to Starbucks or recreational drugs or plastic surgery or whatever people do with their discretionary funds.

I want some of your money. My art projects have always lost money and there's no reason to believe that will change in the near future but I want to know that the work I'm making has some value to you. I want the energetic exchange, I want you to vote for me with your wallet. I do think it's very perverted that Plastic Surgeons and owners of fast food restaurants and drug dealers are pretty rich while artists and teachers are relatively poor. There's nothing noble about lack, it hurts, while abundance can be quite healing.

If my work pleases you and/or your find it meaningful to you, buy into my world. A month of receiving a nude from me each day costs the same as one trip to Starbucks, my ebook costs the same as one cheap concert ticket or a night at the movies for two, my hardcover book costs about the same as an oil change for my vehicle or one night in a good- not great hotel.

My Art and Your Money are a match made in heaven, don't keep them apart.

- Ricardo Scipio 2013