From Steven,
In case you missed it, I have a patreon account set up.
I *hate* the idea of asking for money, I have always felt that if you create art that matters to people, you can make enough sales to survive. And we managed to prove that for *many* years. However, due to Donna's illnesses, bills are piling up, and at this point, the art, music, writing, etc, is our only way of bringing in money, which for the most part puts it squarely on my shoulders.
It's one thing for an artist of reasonable skill and ridiculous work ethic to provide 50-75% of a household income. Because there's always that remaining percentage you can fall back on if you don't meet your goal for that month. It's an entirely other thing now that I have to cover 100% of our bills and cost of living selling art.
Because I'm pigheaded and I believe in both the quality of my work and the taste and loyalty of our fan base, I hesitate to say that it's impossible to accomplish without something like patrieon, but I will say it's very difficult.
The problem is that it's not just about finding people to buy your work, you have do all of the marketing *while* you are making it.
For instance, I spent pretty much all day in the studio mixing the new Stoneburner record. Which is great, and out of that will come a ton of shows and touring and shirts and other stuff... eventually. But not today or tomorrow. Meaning I have to take away from the time I would spend painting or doing whatever in order to work on something that won't manifest for another six months at least.
And even when it does, there's never a guarantee that anything I make, art, music, whatever is going to sell. We live our lives in eternal "time debt," for lack of a better word. We can't get ahead, because without a massive influx of money there's no ahead to get to. Even with that hypothetical influx, there's no guarantee that anything we create during that time will resonate with anyone, and we will be back where we started.
I will never complain about the life we lead. We asked for this life, it's all we know how to do. And we have the honor of being the vehicles and words for people, some of whom feel like they have none. At the very least the things we make go out in the world and matter to people, entertain people, and sometimes even help.
With your help we can continue doing it. I don't want you take that the wrong way, we won't ever stop making the things we make, but realistically, work of the quality that we produce has to be done full time. I work from the moment I get up until I go to sleep, and I have zero real world skills, there are no jobs available for "fine artist," and as much as I would love to teach, without a masters degree, my only option would be teaching K-12, and I hate kids. I would be a very bad K-12 teacher. And in addition to my soul, it would consume all of the time I use for making things.
I recognize that the above is a lot to digest, but I wanted to make sure at least once I wrote up something explaining our choices and situation in detail.
If the things we have made over the last 20 years (or longer for some of you) has mattered or contributed to your life in anyway, please consider a monthly donation. Even $1 a month adds up.
Anyone who knows us at all, should know that we do not take things like this lightly, we will do our best to make your investment in us pay off. There are already some incentives in place to work towards, but as this keeps going we will both release as much free exclusive material to our patrons as we can.
We need you.
If you know someone who might be interested in what we do, please share it.
Below is a link to our patrieon account, and below that are links to other things we do, to provide context.
Thank you for taking time to read this.
-Steven Archer
https://www.patreon.com/StevenArcher
Recent artwork http://preview.tinyurl.com/zm9rn8s
Ego Likeness our electronic rock band http://www.egolikeness.com
The ::Hopeful Machines:: free music archive http://preview.tinyurl.com/ogbq57g
My tribal electronica band Stoneburner http://www.stoneburnerband.com
My children's book "Luna Maris," http://preview.tinyurl.com/j8trrg9
Donna's author page on Amazon http://preview.tinyurl.com/hh433de
