Welcome to the beginning of the beginning. This unit is an introduction to our course. We'll discuss some broad goals, helpful conextualization, and course themes.

Sections
The Goals of Professionalization
Conducting Business
Course Themes

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This course focuses on business fundamentals and professional skills as it applies to the creative practices. The content was developed specifically with CFA majors—Art students in particular—in mind. The content of this course is designed based on the some of the most common questions I have received from current students and CFA alumni.

My overall goal is to get you to a point of having productive conversations with professionals in your fields. Taking you to the next step, where you can learn from mentors and competitors; identify business models that would work for your practice; and to think constructively about how to organize a professional creative practice.

Our Five Goals
Empowerment
Self Protection
Sustainability
Efficacy
Resourcefulness

Another way to think of this goal is capability. We're going to dicuss legal standards, business norms, and look at case studies to examine how we can augment our practices.

Martha Wash - Unsung Hero

Putting your work out into the world requires a great deal of courage and vulnerability. There are always going to be people waiting in the wings that will try to take advantage of you, your work and your overall practice. Each unit in this class is oriented around how you can use business thinking and legal standards to defend yourself and place protections around your practice.

The Art World's Patron Satan

Burnout is real. Bankruptcy is real. Business failure is real.

We need to think about not only how we get our creative practices off the ground, but how can we sustain them in the long-run—without killing ourselves in the process. Throughout this course, we will discuss how we can integrate long-term strategy, models of efficiency, and economies of scale to contruct a stable, sustainable creative practice.

Adelaide Kane on making $15k per episode of "Reign"

Creating your work may feel like the culmination of years of practice, labor, and thought—but that final product is just one element of running a creative practice. Getting your work out into the world, making that work profitable, and creating demand in the market for more work are essential elements to a successful practice. And you need to be able to do all of this again and again.

This is why the way you approach the professional side of your practice needs to be efficient and effective. We will discuss methodologies for creating streamlined ways of working, accessing resources, and time-saving measures.

Guerilla Girls - 'You Have to Question What You See'

We can't do everything ourselves. We need help, funding, connections, collaborators, press, sales, shipping, documenting... we need resources to match our ambition. A key goal of this course is to learn how we can augment and extend our abilities to pull off truly ambitious personal goals.

Kara Walker - A Subtley

Discussion Point

How can each of these five goals relate to your creative practice right now?

The formal definition of business, via Merriam-Webster is:

1. a usually commercial or mercantile activity engaged in as a means of livelihood // in the restaurant business

2. a commercial or sometimes an industrial enterprise // the business district

3. dealings or transactions especially of an economic nature

   // took their business elsewhere

Perfectly legit definition of a enormously broad subject. But for this class I want to be more direct and intentional when we think of conducting business in the creative industries. For the purpose of this class, we're going to define business as:

An ORGANIZED, PROFESSIONAL APPROACH to conducting our CREATIVE PRACTICE in the OUTSIDE WORLD.

Discussion Point

What is your personal definition of business?

When I say organized, I don't mean all of your papers perfectly shuffled or a prisine website. What I mean is the literal organization of your business. It's core setup and structure. We want to make sure that our practices are...

• Legally formed — You want to make sure that your practice is operating within the bounds of the law, that you are adhering to the right policies, paying the correct taxes and protected from fraud.

• Efficient and effective — Business is not one-size-fit-all. What works for an actor may not work for a sculptor. The major concerns for an animator are going to be different than those of a new media artist. You want to organize your practice is a way that makes you the most efficient and effective you can be.

• Sustainably practiced — You can't burn the candle at both ends forever. In this class we will discuss methodologies for making your practice last into the long-term without killing you in the process.

Professionalism, to me, is about presentation, conduct, and respect. Having these things as an intrinsic skill set will give people the impression of your professionalism far more than a slick suit or perfectly designed business card.

• Presentation — From personal appearance to web presence, we want to present the best version of ourselves in a way that is articulate, obvious and meaningful.
• Conduct — Business is rife with fraud, abuse of power, and cutthroat behaviors. We do not want to add to the sickly bile of the business world, we want to rise above it. When we conduct ourselves ethically, assertively, and honestly, we build a long-term, professional reputation that pulls people in.
• Respect — This is the emotional core of professional conduct. Whether we agree or disagree with a collaborator, get into a legal battle with a competitor, or enter into a crisis with a customer—we treat everyone with the humanity and respect a human being deserves. Rising about pettiness will always result in being percieved as a true professional.

One of the most irritating questions I remember from art school was "How are you going to turn that degree into a job?" We live in an extremely capitalist society and personally I think there is too much focus on profitability and productivity.

We're here to talk about how to make your creative pursuits into a successful and sustainable practice but not to put the pressure on turning that practice into a profitable career.

This course is about translation, not transformation. We're going to look at examples from the creative industries to see how we can apply business thinking to our creative practices to translate them effectively to collaborators, customers, and funders. We are not transforming your practice into the most comodofiable and profitable version.

Our creative practices don't need to do it all—provide an income, fulfill us artisically, garner fame and adoration. Our practices could achieve just one of this things, and still be considered a success.

In running your creative practice, I like to think of time and effort as basically split into three groups. Think of these groups as how you dedicate your time every week.

• Practice — Your creative practice. Your artistic identity.
• Career — Your professional presentation to the world.
• Hustle — How you make money.

These things can be related. Your hustle could also be your career. Your practice could be the moneymaker. Your career can incorporte both your hustle and your practice. But these things can also be seperate. The key is to take the tools from this class and create your own perfect mix and to define what success means for yourself.

A major goal of this class is to take your creativity out of the studio and into the market. When I refer to the "outside world", I mean the world beyond your personal studio and group of friends. In a sense this is the "business world."

To understand the scope and scale of things, we're going to use some of the following terms to describe the different levels of the business world, in descending order of size:

• Economy - the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period [Source]

  The highest level. Economy refers to the all encompassing network of business transactions and market forces. For example, in this class we will focus specifically on the United States Economy.

• Sector - a sociological, economic, or political subdivision of society [Source]

  The next level is still very broad, but can encompass specific sections of the economy that revolve around a set of skills and functions. Think of what Manufacturing Sector or the Financial Sector may encompass. In this course we'll contrast those sectors with our sector of the economy, sometimes call the Creative Industries Sector or the Cultural Sector.

  The Creative Industries can encompass industries such as advertising, fine arts, design, architecture, music, film, theater and performing arts, gaming, broadcasting, fashion and more.

• Industry - a distinct group of productive or profit-making enterprises [source]

  This is the level that will be most specific to your life and career choices. Industries tend to have their own sets of standards, practices and norms that take experience and networking to learn.

  Think of what is common for the following industries:

  • The Museum Industry
  • The Fashion Industry
  • The Video Game Industry
  • The Film Industry

• Market - the area of economic activity in which buyers and sellers come together and the forces of supply and demand affect prices. [Source]

  Markets are not necessarily nested within economies, sectors, and industries, but run in parralel with them. Markets are where transactions are made, money is exchanged, and competition is in full force.

  As an example, let's look at some of the different markets that comprise the Fine Art Market

Oscar Boyson - The Art Market: Part 1 - Auctions

Course Themes
All Careers Paths Are Valid
The 20,000 foot view
Think of business like cooking
The correct answers ≠ the right answers
Listen to the walkers, not the talkers
Be yourself

There are going to be endless opinions that you will hear/have heard throughout your life on what makes a great artist, an amazing designer, or a brilliant architect. If you choose to adhere to these standards, that is your choice. We will not debate or discuss the best career path in this course. Likewise, we will consider career success to be however an individual student defines it for themselves.

If you want to work in a corporation, go for it. If you want to run an anti-capitalist social movement, do it. If you want to be an art world gallery star, rad. If you want to be a hermit in the woods, awesome. Any of the units we cover in this course can apply to whatever career direction you want to take, but we will not debate which is the best.

This class is a series of primers. Basic explanations in plain language. An introduction to concepts. My goal is not to make you an absolute expert in subjects like business formation or finance or intellectual property, but to give you the starting language and skills. We're taking the 20,0000 foot view in this course. We're going to cover a lot of ground, very quickly. Units will be primers on business concepts and how they relate to creative practices. If there are topics you want to delve more deeply into, I am happy to suggest further readings or other courses.

I've spent a lot of time over the few years teaching myself to cook. One of my favorite books on the subject is Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat. The basic premise is that mastering four basic factors will make food taste delicious. But these are just elements of good cooking. There is a world of amazing food that depends heavily on our culture, background, personal taste and preference—and our appetites.

The units we will cover throughout the semester are frameworks, guidelines, skillsets, and concepts for achieving business success in creative practices. These are not hard and fast rules. So, while an answer may be correct and match best practices, that does not make it automatically the right answer for your practice.

Primary sources are extremely important to your development as a professional. One of the early mistakes I made in my journey was listening to voices who had not actually done the work. We need to seek out people who have been in our shoes and can speak from a place of real experience. I encourage you to take everything I teach in this class with a grain of salt and check it against the experience of others.

Please consider this class a safe space that, for once a week, for three hours, you get to explore what you want to do with your life and creative practice. Ask the questions that are difficult, that feel dumb, and especially those that feel intimidating to ask out loud.