Chrls Guillebeau – Art and Money

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Chrls Guillebeau – Art and Money

Lately I’ve had a lot of reasons to think about the relationship between Art and Money. There’s much to say about that subject, and we’ll cover it from different angles over the next few months. To kick off the series, here’s a quick story from the archives of unhappy people on the internet.

Andrea Scher writes over at , where she also sells homemade jewelry and does commercial photography. For five years and counting, she’s provided regular inspiration for a hyperactive community of women, fellow artists, and self-proclaimed superheroes.

So anyway, last week , and the new site will include a few spaces for sponsors in the right column. This is the normal protocol for full-time bloggers – build a community, write for free, and have some advertisers on the right-side that help pay the bills. That’s not my plan here, but I have no problem with people who do it that way.

No big deal, right? Well in the comments section of an otherwise tame blog, a few people felt like the world had ended. Here’s what some of them had to say:

• -it is not right to put an ad on your beauty. it is not healthy for everything to be for sale. this is a cultural sickness. -kelly

• -I really never thought I would see ads on your Superhero Journal. I won’t read it anymore because I am tired and sickened by the selling of America. You can paint it and dress it in pearls but that’s what this is. ADS. Ads. ads. I feel so sad. -penelope

• -i am opposed to advertising impacting every aspect of our existence and I wish more of us would keep boundaries around our creative space and say -˜this is not for sale!’ -katie

Someone even compared Andrea to a cocaine dealer and email spammer – yes, seriously. It reminded me of   in my favorite non-newspaper, The Onion.

Really, putting an ad on a blog is as bad as selling cocaine? It seems that the hyperbole of the internet takes over in full force with some blog commentors, who strangely enough don’t usually provide links to their own blogs.

Of course, most people aren’t that silly. There were dozens of positive comments posted on Andrea’s blog supporting her decision, with 95% of the people expressing their appreciation for all of the free inspiration she continually brings to her community. In the end I have no doubt that she will benefit