The Balance Between Business and Art

Monkey reads a lot of marketing and business blogs, courses, and books.  He makes sure he has a strong grasp on the business side of Monkey + Seal, as he handles a majority of those aspects.  However, while educating yourself about the business side of art is helpful and necessary for most, many artists have trouble managing the balance between the business development side of art, and the actual creating.

When Seal is working on a freelance project, she usually hits a 70% creating - 30% business, which is super awesome.  Monkey, on the other hand, is lucky to hit 50-50.  So how do you manage your own creation-business balance and what is the ideal?


While if you're already familiar with the business side: marketing, budgeting, pricing, distribution, accounting, and maybe stuff like web designing or printing, you may struggle to find more time to devote to your creating.  However, if you're already making art like a fiend but have no idea how to do any of that business stuff, perhaps you need to spend more time developing your business skills.

So what's the ideal ratio?  Well, it all depends on you.  Personally, a good balance with a stronger emphasis on the creating is what we recommend.  For us, we'd rather be at 90-100% creating, and doing very little business stuff (maybe we should hire an agent or assistant), but there are definitely people out there who really enjoy some of the business part, so you should lean more towards the business side.

The reality of it is that an ideal is probably about 70-30 creating-business.  Seal has found that works well for her, and Monkey agrees.  Monkey has been struggling with this personally for some time, usually spending closer to 80% of his time on business, sadly skimping on the creating.

If you make this same mistake, what happens is that while you may be great at drawing an audience and making sales, what you soon find out is that you run out of stuff to promote or develop.  Monkey lost focus on what was really important (making art), and focused too much on the "gotta make money" side of things.  He recently shifted more towards 50% creating (a big swing for him), and he found that by doing more of what he loves (creating), the money (the business) is following.

So we encourage you to spend more time doing what you love and less time doing what you don't like to do.  While learning the basics of marketing and selling art is important if you want to make a living off of it, make sure that you don't forget what your main purpose is: creation.  Do more of what you love, and the money will follow.  

Adventures in the Creative Life

Now that it's January, I am seeing a lot of new yoga members at my gym. I have been doing yoga for about 7 years now and I notice the same pattern every year. There is an enormous influx of new members between end of November to mid March and very little attendance around July-October. Both old yogis and new members are as equally guilty. In January, a new intensity fills the air, there is a lot of talk of resolutions and goals. Everyone is very devoted, disciplined, and rigorous to their practice, so much so that they forget that it is supposed to be fun.

Here at the Monkey and Seal cave, we talk a lot about goals and resolutions. Being an artist, it is already difficult to find our "path." Our very mutable industry makes decisions and directions already very tough to begin with. So we think it is very important to have some rough outline or "road map" in where we want to go in our creative endeavors.

Because if you don't know where you want to go, you will either not move from your starting place, end up in a place you were not expecting, or who knows, maybe you make it to your destination, but it was without intention. Goals are road maps: they give us clear indication of where we have been, what our potential directions are, possible featured places we would definitely like to experience, if there is an endgoal, and how long would that distance be. Maps are also useful for when we get off track, we can always adjust, backtrack, or veer off in a new direction. We, at least, always know where we are at.

But the trick is, though we should take our goals and maps "seriously," we should never forget
that art is fun. We must never become too linear with our creativity or too much of a goal/career-orientated artist. Though we may have our trusty map, we should embed it into our psyche that there are multiple roads to get us to where we want to go, and we can always start and stop at anytime. Creativity and adventure is non-linear. The key to being a successful and creatively-fulfilling artist is to find the right balance between goals and adventure. Between direction and diversion. Between Career and Personal. Between Practice and Play. Between Seriousness and Whims. Because often times, it is Whims that create our highly original, unique, and personal pieces that will get the attention of the world.

When we were little, we drew things. They were fun and very different. Perhaps our well-meaning people noticed them, "these have potential - if we're serious enough to pursue it." How many times have artists been told to "get serious." So we become serious. Instead of drawing and painting, we begin to PRACTICE everyday. We have GOALS. We may end up in workshops and intensives and on the fast track towards a hot-shot art studio or design firm. Art becomes something we MASTER : we become constantly glued to looking at the map and we forget to enjoy the sights. We can do yoga poses out of habit and on command, but we have forgotten how it felt to first breathe, to just draw and paint on a whim.

I recently became acquainted with a high-profile, brilliant artist. He is very serious about his art. He has won many awards. He gets up at the crack of dawn, marches to his computer to paint, and sleeps at odd hours of breaking daylight. He attends all the independent master classes for artists and all the various workshops and conferences throughout the world. He is constantly sought after for book deals and collaborations. He has projects outlined and target goals posted in his studio and a miniature version of it in a .pdf file follows him around in his laptop. When I met him at a cafe, he has taken out all the "breaks" out of coffee break. He is talking a-mile-a minute, full of energy, but his face looked haggard. He talked about all the different various projects with other high profile artists that he is juggling and has lined up . The sternness in his voice when talking about art and creativity along with the foreign words coming out of his mouth regarding"mergers, maximizing profits, and climbing the ladder," all sounded strange to me. I notice a beautiful loose painted sketch in the first page of his book, and asked him about it. This piece of spontaneous art seemed very different than the person before me. He casually mentioned that it was done during lunchtime on his first day at one of his first jobs at the high-end film studio, many years ago. I couldn't help but asked, "When was the last time he painted with real paints as in the picture?" And he answered in surprise, "Oh," like the sketch suddenly crept up to him without knowing, "I don't remember." At this point, I unconsciously blurted out, "Are you having fun at all?" He stared at me as if I had just put worms in his coffee.

Although goals are necessary to give us a sense of purpose and direction, creativity is not meant to be "calculated." We are not meant to chug up the mountain, but to take a stroll through life. Though we'd like to backpack through the mountain and see what the view up there looks like, too, we'll take our time and take detours and pictures along the way. We'll start projects on whims, but we'll need the goals and road maps to help us finish them.

So when we talk about goals and resolutions at the Monkey and Seal cave, we present them more as personal challenges and changes that we would like to see in ourselves, better habits that would make creating art and sustaining our creativity more fun, guidelines that are meant to point us towards a direction, but we also know, that at any time, we can take a different road. And at anytime, we can stop at a rest area and open our picnic basket. At any point in our creative adventures, though it can still be tough and "serious," we can always choose to laugh through any storm.

The No Jerk Rule

No Jerk Rule - Kick

We all know that some people fall into a certain category of person. These people are sore losers (or sore winners), and they generally try to hound you no matter how much you try to avoid them. They're always talking about themselves and never ask about you, or they insist on telling you how awesome they are. Instead of talking about themselves, they might just constantly critique your work, especially when you want their opinions the least.

These people have a name. That name is "jerk." More accurately, they might not be jerks, but their actions are often that of jerkiness. Whether they try to bring you down or are trying to bring themselves up, they are generally unpleasant to be around. Either way (or even if they reek of some other sort of personality disorder like just being a rude asshat), we're going to call them jerks for now and move forward.

So Monkey + Seal have a rule: it's called the "No Jerk Rule." We actually call it the "No A-hole Rule," but for pleasantry's sake, let's go with jerks.

Basically, we refuse to work with jerks. While it is a lot more difficult to start out following this rule when you're starting out, we've found that it's a great guiding principle for our business. If the jerk is a client, we'll politely and professionally end the relationship. If it's a collaborator, we'll politely and professionally leave the project. No matter how it works - no jerks.

We do realize that at times there are people who seem nice at first and turn into jerks as you begin to work with them. Also, you can be contractually obligated to work with people and you can't back out lest some sort of huge financial obligation. There are many circumstances, but there are ways that sometimes you can get stuck with jerks. How to deal with them? The Jerk Fee.

If you are working with a client who you know is going to be troublesome from the get-go, the best way to deal with them is to basically apply a Jerk Fee. Whatever that fee is, you want to make sure that it's enough for you to feel okay about dealing with this person. This is why for design work you should always limit the number of revisions your client gets for free. The jerks are going to be the one who will make you change a color, then change it back, then add some new text that will completely change the layout, then have you change it back to a new color and remove all the first changes...etc. etc. etc. By basically giving them a free proof or two, but then charging them for each revision, people usually limit their changes after that.

If you're working with a client who refuses to get you assets on time, start charging them a fee for every day late that they turn it in. Your friend of a friend not paying you for that CD cover that you delivered a month ago? Let them know that in your contract, you stipulated payment in full within 7 days of receipt and they you're charging them 10% per day, interest compounding, after each day thereafter.

If you couldn't tell, Monkey + Seal have found that contracts are our best friends. Even for little jobs for friends, signing contracts is important as you can legally bind these people to agree to your Jerk Fees. If they are going to make your life as an artist more difficult, you should be compensated for it, and by putting that in writing, it makes people generally a lot more civil and easier to work with.

Alternatively, if your boss is a jerk, we recommend that you start looking for a new job, ASAP. While there is a myth that everyone hates their boss, it is just that: a myth, so do your best to try and find good bosses. You can have really cool bosses (yes, they do exist!). We don't advise just quitting your job without a backup unless the abuse is too much to handle, and at that point, there are probably other recourses you can take like harassment suits or talking to HR.

The other option to quitting a toxic job is to start up your own business on the side. Want to quit your day job? Start the hustle. Find ways to sell your art. Write an e-book. Auction your paintings off on eBay. Get that portfolio together and start submitting it wherever you can. Figure out what skills you have that people will pay for and get out there and find a way to make other sources of income. Escape the jerkdom!

The one caveat to the "No Jerk Rule" is that you have to act like everyone else has this rule as well. You gotta make sure that you are acting professionally and with integrity as well. Be the artist that YOU would want to work with.

All in all, the reason we really want to encourage people to take up the "No Jerk Rule" is because when it really comes down with it, no one should have to put up with bad behavior. You're an awesome, amazing person, and you deserve much better.

How to Solve the Problem of "The Starving Artist"

"Is it a guarantee?" people have asked me, "if I work hard and become an artist, is it a guarantee that I'll make it?" Most people want to hear the answer "Yes, just stick to your studies and you'll be okay. You'll graduate school and find a good job and they'll take care of you for a long time." This is the old way of thinking. The answer is: Only you will know. Only you can determine that answer. Nothing is ever a guarantee (Not even for the lawyers). So is it still worth it for you to pursue it even if you can't predict the outcome? I hope so. It is for both Monkey and Seal.

Often as artists we grapple with a lack of abundance. We think, "jobs are limited and we are beaten by artists younger than us." What is hard to understand is that we become the very image of the "starving artist" NOT because it is the "ultimate truth" or "expected result" of being an artist, but because there is still yet not enough institutional, community support, and resources for the artist. AND we haven't switched our minds from being reactive to society to that of self-determined action. We hope things will fall in our laps, rather than taking action and going for them.

Five years ago, there were barely any books written about the career track of a successful modern-day artist (still very few now). Many older veterans will tell you they simply worked hard and were lucky to have "moved up the ladder." A lot of the Studio Gibli/ Miyazaki artists over 40-50 years old had little or no prior background in animation, they were simply taken under the wings of older mentors. Most have had to carve their own path and learn through others. Many alumni networks exists for ivy-league schools and academia studies for lawyers and doctors, yet only recently are art schools reproducing that format. So although there are internships out there, career help from art schools, this is still an old way of thinking - this is only ONE OF MANY PATHS to become a successful artist.

There is no clear blueprint. No ten-year "proven" track of academia, residency, and practice. Most artist graduates will probably tell you, that their path afterward was wide and unpredictable. Both Monkey and Seal have worked at various jobs: retail, web designer, graphic designer, t-shirt printing, tutor, UI icon artist, logo designer, marketing agent, illustrator, fine arts painter, concept artist, animator, fashion designer, etc.

It is part of the frustration and simultaneous beauty of being an artist: it is a flexible field and having learned the basics, you can do cross-jobs and apply your foundations in any related field.

Enjoy the times when you are struggling. Because this is the time for your to experiment and find your voice. Which field calls out to you more? What should you specialize in, if any? What style and mediums best suit the stories you would like to tell most?

"But I'm sick of being poor," cries the fledgling artist, "give me stardom, give me riches." No one denies that it would be nice not to worry about income and to continually have clients bid for your art. Yet at the same time, shouldn't we enjoy our creativity, our time, and our lives as it currently is? With all its thorns and roses? And shouldn't we walk the path in our own pace and find the beauty of our art through self-discovery? And reach stardom and riches when our artist identities are solidified that it can take on the masses? (Is stardom and riches your ultimate goal? Or is it creative freedom, financial rewards, and being respected by your peers?)

The great composer Stravinsky complained, "I cannot compose what they want from me, which would be to repeat myself. That is the way people write themselves out."

I am not an advocate of masochism. I do NOT believe that "you have to suffer first as a starving artist before you make your big break." I do believe that you can be successful AT ANY TIME YOU CHOOSE. But before you choose stardom, make sure your heart is at ease, then you will be able to continue to create art however you please, without giving in to the pressures of your future fans. Do not choose wealth and fame as an artist out of desperation (I'll make anything you ask of me, just give me money or I'll trade this life of an artist, for anything, anything at all) or avoidance of your responsibility as an artist (Now that I have money, I don't have to make art anymore! or Now that I have fame, it doesn't matter what I paint, people will pay me for it anyways). But choose wealth and fame to further your art, you voice, and your experiences in life.

So in the meantime, enjoy it now. Enjoy the time you are able to experiment, when you live and create and amuse yourself only and not the mass. Enjoy not having the track record to live up to, but to toot and play your own horn, while walking through life to your own drumbeats. And when the time comes, enjoy that too!

And remember, the quickest path directly to your dreams is to do more of what you love.

How to Save Money on Printing

Hey everyone, it's Monkey today.

Today, I'm going to go on about a website. Ebates.com. Why? Because as artists and as business people, we are constantly trying to find a way to save money on supplies. I spend a large amount of time looking for the best online printers. By best, it actually changes depending on what I need. For quick turn-around times on order with good quality and a great price, I use PS Print. For high-quality postcards in small quantities, I go for Overnightprints.com. For highest-quality everything, or for stickers, we say Moo.com, but you have to order in advance.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I happened to stumble across Ebates.com. From what it looks like, they've partnered with some of the biggest online retailers, including both PS Print and Overnight Prints in order to give you discounts (and of course, make themselves some money). The site is totally free, and they do what's known as playing the margins. What (I assume) they do is promise large numbers of customers in order to get a large % of each referred sale (for this example, let's say 10%). Then, they offer you (and me, and everyone else) 9% back. So you need to print up some holiday greeting cards, and you use Ebates, and you find a coupon for an extra $20 savings. Then, you'll get kicked back an extra 9% on top of that. Sweet, you just saved some money. Ebates then gets your business, and they get 1%. Everyone wins, right?

So the pros:

*They give you $5 for signing up ($5! )

*They have a crapload of online merchants, including Target, Barnes and Noble, Lulu.com (print your own books!), PS Print and Overnight Prints, Best Buy, Office Depot, Staples, REI, Safeway (you can even buy your groceries...holy crap!) and tons more.

*You get access to pretty much everyone online coupon that store offers (if they offer coupons)

*They send you a check every quarter or so of all the money you've saved

The cons:

*It's an extra step to go to Ebates.com first, then go to the website you want

*They don't have every single store in the universe on there

*You get an email once a week or so about their featured vendors.

So in the spirit of fair play, I'll be totally honest with you. If I refer 50 people who make a purchase, I get an iPad. But like we say about all of our affiliate links - we don't represent companies who do shady things, or offer crap services. Soo, I would be greatly appreciative if you signed up via our referral link here: We love Monkey + Seal! We love ebates!

Also, we want to give you the option of checking out their site, affiliate free, here: www.ebates.com.

Cool, thanks a lot, and back to your regular scheduling of Monkey + Seal.

Taking Advice for What It's Worth

It's sort of a funny thing to give people the advice to question advice, but that's what we're here to do today. So make sure you even take this with a grain of salt.

You see, Monkey + Seal are big fans of taking advice and well-meaning suggestions and that sort of thing in context. Why? Because no one knows you like you know yourself (in theory..sometimes Monkey thinks Seal knows him better than he knows himself). Often times Monkey + Seal will buy information products (ie. books or e-books or guides) to help further their knowledge base. However, we know that not everything everyone says will exactly apply to us.

While it might be nice to start up an e-business that can make us $30k a year in a few months of really hard work, it's not really what we do. We'd much rather go the arguably harder route of doing silly things like making pictures and selling them, and teaching other artists about how they can do the same. Sometimes business models just don't work for us or our plans, and we just learn from them and move on. Sometimes they will provide a valuable insight on how we can adapt our own plans in an innovative way - but either way, we have to evaluate the information for ourselves.

An example of "advice" that artists often hear which can be totally contradictory revolves around pricing. Many of us have heard the story of that one artist who "suddenly" raises their prices to astronomical rates and becomes the biggest thing around. If we take this at face value, then shouldn't we all start selling 16x20 paintings for $4000? Alternatively, we hear that we need to lower our prices as in a struggling economy, a "luxury" item like art needs to come down in price as people don't have as much money to spend. Faced with these conflicting pieces of information, do we raise or lower our prices?

Well, it depends. The artist who suddenly had the price jump in their paintings probably suddenly went from showing in a cafe to showing in a well-established gallery. The gallery wouldn't let you charge $200 for a 16x20 since it's not worth their wallspace, while if you're showing in a cafe you probably won't run into someone willing to drop $4000 on a painting (but then again it also depends where you are). Alternatively, if you're already selling work and you lower your price, suddenly collectors might think that you're devaluing your work and then people might stop buying altogether.

The correct answer is that it depends on you. We can't answer all the questions for you, but can only advice you really exploring and figuring out if any given piece of information is right for you and your situation. We can always (and will) let you know what has worked for us, but you have to take that information and figure out if it'll work for you in your situation.

All in all, the message to take home is that there are no easy answers. Without sitting down and talking one-on-one with you, most guides and books will only take you so far (although sometimes you'll find a writer who works perfect for you!). It's up to you to sift through the advice and get to what is your own personal answer. Good luck!