What’s the way forward for creativity? And the way will creators discover new methods to sustainably make their artwork with compromise? These had been just some of the numerous questions explored at FORM Fest, a three-day artistic retreat and pageant filled with music, artwork, concepts, structure, wellness, and neighborhood.
Joe Barham is the Creator Partnerships Lead right here at Patreon. He was additionally a part of the workforce that helped formed Patreon’s collaboration with FORM Fest and helped convey our activations to life.“We had been excited to ideate round how we may very well be supportive and complementary to this actually fascinating pageant,” says Joe. “We actually wished to ensure it was natural and really creator-first.”
For instance, Joe and some of his colleagues labored with a workforce from Florida known as Pulp Arts to construct an on-site recording studio house at FORM fest dubbed “The Conservatory,” the place artists might join and create with different artists.
“Placing that in place, we didn’t actually know what to anticipate,” says Joe, who explains that they wished to create an area that may encourage creativity and join a couple of totally different worlds.The consequence was fairly particular. By the tip of the pageant, he and different pageant attendees obtained to witness near 17 totally different distinctive collaborations from musicians who wouldn’t essentially get the possibility to work collectively.
“It did really feel otherworldly,” says Joe about witnessing jam periods between the likes of Fred Armisen of Saturday Evening Reside and Portlandia and Lindsey Jordan from Snail Mail.
Along with The Conservatory, Patreon additionally arrange a comfortable Creator Lounge, that featured a 2020 Imaginative and prescient Sales space the place pageant attendees might document their needs and visions for the way forward for our nation.
Final however actually not least, Joe participated in a panel dialogue known as, “Artwork and Work: The Future Creativity.” The panel included poet Aja Monet and neighborhood organizer Phillip Agnew, founders of Smoke Alerts Studio in Miami, Favianna Rodriguez, Government Director of CultureStrike and unbiased artist (and Patreon creator) Julia Nunes.
Collectively, they mentioned how they outlined artwork and what it means to be an artist in 2019. The dialog took many turns however a theme that stored developing was the significance of constructing artwork that’s significant.
“It’s actually necessary to face by your voice,” says Joe. Artistically, should you’re not being true to your voice, whether or not you’re financially profitable or not, that is typically what results in artists to really feel unfulfilled, he says.
For instance, the panel touched on the connection between artwork and social justice, and the way that relationship can change when an artist turns into extra targeted on paying the payments or doing one thing for recognition’s sake.
Many artists really feel pulled between totally different goals, whether or not or not it’s rising their fanbase, or creating artwork that’s significant and genuine or having the ability to have an effect on the world via their artwork, and this may be difficult to navigate, particularly as an rising voice.
As an example, gentrification and the function artists play in it was a subject that got here up through the panel. Sponsored housing communities for artists are sometimes created with the great intention of revitalizing city neighborhoods. Nevertheless, low-income residents are sometimes displaced within the course of as rents enhance and so they get priced out of the market.
“All of us agreed that artwork is likely one of the most, if not essentially the most, highly effective methods and efficient methods to create change,” says Joe.
Nevertheless, with that energy comes nice accountability – and a few arduous decisions. As Joe notes, it’s not straightforward for an artist that’s scraping by to show down a free place to dwell, which is why it’s so necessary that they’ve the instruments to make knowledgeable selections. For instance, he says that there’s a necessity for extra programming and academic providers for brand spanking new and younger artists to assist them navigate a few of these trickier components of this profession path.
Compromise was one other scorching matter coated. For instance, whereas some would possibly interpret having to make the selection between business success and staying true to their values as having to compromise on one space to satisfy the opposite, panelist Aja Monet urged an alternate method to have a look at it.
“Compromise is that this unfavourable phrase, however in actuality, slightly than interested by it as you compromising your artwork, take into consideration how one can create new worth techniques along with your artwork,” Joe says.
On the finish of the day, whereas it’s debatable that artistic industries are noisier than they’ve ever been, on the flipside, advertising and marketing, promotion and distributing content material has by no means been simpler.“You’ll be able to simply publish [your art] and it’s on the market,” he says.
The identical goes for incomes a dwelling. All the things from shopping for a house to elevating a household is tougher if you don’t understand how a lot cash you’re going to make subsequent month. However with platforms like Patreon, artists could make a predictable, sustainable revenue and construct a deeper relationship with their followers, with out counting on inconsistent income channels like grants or excursions or licensing charges.
“Having that core basis of tremendous followers who actually admire your artwork and there’s a relationship there, is the place [Patreon] suits in as one of many options that I feel is useful for the way forward for artwork and serving to creatives create,” says Joe.
So what does the way forward for creativity appear like? It’s an enormous query with no easy solutions. However with the emergence of platforms like Patreon and distinctive creator-first programming at festivals like FORM Fest, one factor’s fairly clear: it has by no means been a extra thrilling time to be an artist.
