Posts by Russell Brown
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I was at my lowest losing my mind and someone passed me a book called 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers.
My Mum got a lot out of that book (and an associated seminar, IIRC) at a really difficult time for her. That made me take take the self-help industry a bit more seriously henceforth.
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I don't know about art, but I do have to wonder what's the going rate to give those sweet cheeks a lascivious pat... :)
I'm sure something could be arranged for charity ...
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I think I can recall reading an article by or about Dick Frizzell who spoke out against the artist's royalty in the Listener a couple of years back, which surprised me.
It doesn't surprise me. Dick was one of the first, and still one of relatively few, painters to work out early how to earn well from his work. In part that's because he's never been squeamish about taking commissioned work, and perhaps the royalty shouldn't apply the same way in cases of commissioned works, where the customer could be seen to be literally buying the rights.
Actually, "buying the rights" in the motion picture sense is also an interest case. I'm presuming that if I have some interesting life experience that Hollywood wants to make a movie of, and pays me a sum for the pleasure, it's acting on a moral, rather than a legal right. Anyone else know? Can I copyright my life story?
However I'm struggling to reconcile my position on the artist's royalty with my stance on intellectual property rights, of which I think the likes of copyright & patents provide too much protection.
Yes. Nat's points were well made. If there was to be a new right created it would have to be tightly drawn.
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Whether or not it should be done...? I can't see any logical reason for it, except that it's a way of returning more money to artists and encouraging art production.
Which is precisely the rationale for copyright itself.
As long as they don't mind, I'm never planning to buy a McCahon, so it's no skin off my nose.
Actually, we have a reproduction of 'As there is a constant flow of light ...' on the wall of our lounge. I love that painting - the only time I've seen the original I actually cried.
But I recall that there was a reproduction right implicit in the price. Do I recall correctly? Anyone know how that works? Who grants the right and who gets the money?
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Times were rough for Colin and his wife and family, insanely so (he did get a small inheritance through his wife and so could buy a little place at Muriwai), however it was the total rejection of his work in local terms (he was discovered by Australia) that fully embittered him. He has been called one of the greatest artists of modern times, in Germany. The quotes of those who derided him are very similar to those of Tom's.
The documentary that screened on TV One a couple of a year ago was illuminating in that regard. He wasn't just ignored - he was reviled. His kids had stones thrown at them on their way to school!
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I actually kept a few copies of the early Propellers and the other Propeller distributed stuff (Gordons, Steroids, Mockers etc), but time diffused them. The big earners are the Suburban Reptiles though....$505 for Sat Night on Trade me and US$300 for the Megaton 12" on a collectors site...damn it all. only 500 of each pressed.
Woo! I have 'Saturday Night Stay at Home', but not 'Megaton'.
Who's paying these prices, BTW? European collectors?
The rarest NZ vinyl I have is the Six Impossible Things EP (Bill Direen and friends) - only 100 pressed.
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I will say again: no one is owed a living. If you feel compelled to be an artist then good on you, but capitalism can be a cruel mistress so don’t expect others to save from your own mistakes if you sell to cheap.
I somehow don't think Colin McCahon would have been able to ask $2.75 million for 'Walk (Series C)', which is what Te Papa paid for it in 2004, 30 years after it was painted.
The poor bugger could hardly feed his family sometimes. Yet I'd derive even more pleasure from beholding it if I knew that some small fraction of that huge sum had gone back to that family.
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This whole idea that artists - or the RIAA - is owed a living is rediculous. You sell something, then it belongs to someone else and if they make money out of it then good on them. Its not hewn in stone that artists are guaranteed a living.
Maybe not, but over the years we've first invented the idea of copyright then blessed various schemes and collecting agencies to exercise it. Writers get the modest return of the Writers' Fund as compensation for their works being held in libraries, songwriters get a slice of commercial radio advertising revenue, etc.
There's no intrinsic right in any of that. You do it to encourage the creation of new works, or because you value the role of artists in society, whatever.
You could argue that the family of Colin McCahon, having struggled through his life as a misunderstood artist, should benefit from the massive posthumous inflation in the value of his work. I'm simply saying it's worth discussing.
Does it mean that all those people who pick up a dirt painting for a pound at a car boot sale, take the jolly thing to the antiques roadshow and discover its worth 5000 pounds have to pay a cut to the artist or the artist's estate? What a load of rubbish.
It seems unlikely that private sales would come under such a scheme and even if they did, the resale royalty in that case would be 5p. If cashing up your windfall on someone else's ignorance means forgoing 5%, that hardly seems onerous.
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Can I get a cut of the Trade Me and Ebay prices some of my early stuff hauls in now then? I like this idea....
You need to be cleverer: certain bold alternative music artists in NZ have become quite adept at creating scarcity and then hauling the last box out from under the bed to cash in on the fanboy market. If you hadn't been having such a good time you might have thought about that at the time, hey?
But seriously, I think comparisons with music have limits, other than to suggest that a collection system is viable. You're selling copies of works, not the originals.
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Other than that, I'm relatively relaxed, so long as it isn't implemented in such a way as to encourage art to be whisked off to a nearby country with no reciprocal laws for sale.
I guess there's that risk with the Australian government having nixed the idea in favour of a big new wedge of taxpayer funding. But it seems that a number of dealers there already operate voluntary resale royalty schemes, and the predicted art-flight in Britain just hasn't happened.
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