Laura Molloy’s workshop on personal workflow

“Show Me the Money” Seminar on the 18 November, 2016

“Show me the money” seminar was a one-day event discussing how to make money as a designer. Its main focus was on how designers can market their material so that it has the maximum potential for the client and also allows a designer to earn a living of it. There were many opinions on the topic ranging from a socialist earning model where the government grants sustain a designer/artist to making the right agreements (copyrights) with customers so that money can be made on the artwork. It was interesting to see that all the panelists had their own opinion the matter. Outi Somervuori talked about designing and making art that has the greatest value for the customer. Laura Molloy talked about the importance of digital objects and how they can make money for you by having the right copyright agreements with customers. And Teemu Mäki discussed about an interesting socialist government model where an artist’s task is to make art for everyone and to be supported by the government with grants to do art. The whole event consisted of talks in the morning followed by workshops and to end a panel discussion to wrap things up.

The varied opinions were a refreshing view on the topic and allowed me to ponder my own future plans as an artist and possible working life. It seems to be a never ending struggle to get payed for ones’ work. One has to be creative and very diligent in getting copyrights in place, licenses and other factors to have a pay check at the end of the day. Also a united force of not giving art for free has to be there between artists so that the public doesn’t come to expect free art. Now this is one opinion on the subject. Teemu Mäki had a radically different view. To him artist artists make art not because they want to make money, but because that’s their way of life. Therefore, it’s ok to have art for free, but this should be encouraged and supported by public funds. Now this brought along a lot of questions about the morality in the sense that, just because we are artists are we meant to not earn better depending on our skill level? And couldn’t an artist at some point become a millionaire based on their work instead of relying on a welfare system? And should our work really belong to the public for free? Wouldn’t this affect negatively on the respect people have for art if everything is free? After an internal battle personally an earning model from art seems to be a better choice in terms of livelihood. Even though money is not everything or even close to the top of the list when making art, but living comfortably is definitely something everyone strives for in life. And relying on a social system feels like being supported by parents and never standing on one’s own two feet.

Interestingly enough for the workshops choosing Laura Molloy’s “Mapping Your Workflow to Understand Your Practice” was a great fit as I was able to explore my own way of working and approaching projects. By realizing the chaos and messiness of my thought patterns and then seeing the logic within that jumble it became clear that the starting point and the first questions are key (see figure 1). From the center looking out we realize there are many important resources that are needed to get inspiration from Pinterest to Stack Overflow and even the magical properties of tea. Everything is a digital artifact and only a few aspects marked with purple are analog in nature. This contrasted drastically with others workflows and allowed for a deeper understanding that not everyone has the same work flow. For example, there was a work flow based completely on time and being able to wake up after 5am to go for a run. This seemed incredible to even imagine in my eyes, but was completely logical to another. Coming to realize that everyone is different, even though this is obvious in itself, is every now and again a real eye opener and should be administered to everyone at regular intervals.

To conclude the overall day was a success in bringing new ideas and different views onto the table. It gave rise to more thought on the future of artists and how to conduct a small business in itself. Outi Somervuori’s discussions on making art earn by analyzing buyers’ behavior in relation to pricing, how customers see prices, process the price information and react to changes in prices. This is definitely the way to go to have a product that will create revenue flow for artists. We have to make art be important for the business/audience group it is created for. From the final panel discussion hearing Teemu Keisteri’s talks on his Ukkeli character brought hope that one can really make a living doing art even in this time and age. Also joining in was Jukka-Pekka Timonen to tell us about copyright and advising everyone to have their copyrights to whatever they put in the world. This way we don’t make it hard for other artists who are trying to earn and create a united front that art should be appreciated and payed for just like any other form of work (refer to figure 2). “Shoe me the money” was a fun and creative event that can still be viewed online (“Show Me The Money Videos”).

You can checkout the seminar at “Show Me The Money Videos”. Powered by Panopto. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.

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