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Art, in whatever form, is valuable because it enhances our lives. It’s supposed to be emotional and cause you to react. It can be beautiful, satirical, sad, disturbing, funny etc. Art is personal and should reflect your tastes.

Through careful selection of quality and smart shopping, art can be affordable and may even grow in value. Of course it doesn’t make sense to purchase a Botaro sculpture while you’re hacking away at student loans and a mortgage. But, as your career and income grows, you can plan ahead for artistic expenditures, stick to a realistic budget and avoid expensive payment plans. Think of it like this; if there’s a $5,000 painting or sculpture you’re dying to have, start saving $420 monthly or use your bonus or tax return.

When you’re ready to buy, take your time, shop around; speak to professionals like a gallery director. A good gallery director will spend time with you to help you find a piece of art you love and that’s within your budget. Research artists, auction houses, and galleries through personal referrals and on the Internet. If you need help deciding on a particular style you like, visit many galleries and comb through websites of museums, or even www.art.com.

If you’re thinking of making an investment in art, investigate how many pieces from the artist exist, where they’re sold and whether critics have been favourable. Many pieces of art or an artist in general have a sales history and if you see the artist’s pieces selling at increase prices, that’s a good sign their work may hold its value. It’s important to note though that art prices can be volatile. If you really like a piece, get a second opinion. Ideally, you’ll invest money in art which touches your soul and doesn’t break the bank.

These days, galleries offer payment plans for pieces of art. While in Maui this past year, I investigated the origin on these plans and learned they’re being used primarily by the 20 to 30-something crowd. One gallery representative explained that payment plans make art affordable. However, like a car loan or credit card, these plans can have hefty interest rates and inflexible repayment schedules. Avoid going into debt for art. Because the value of art can be volatile; and therefore it can’t be considered good debt.

Don’t forget about other forms of art like theater, music, literature, dance, food and travel. Many communities or government organizations sponsor festivals which people can enjoy for free or inexpensively. Libraries or book shops may host a literary event, or a local government could sponsor a lunchtime Shakespeare play. If you travel, investigate local hot spots for the arts. You may find a jazz bar or cheap tickets for Broadway. Most communities have associations that promote local events through newsletters, Facebook or websites. Additionally, many corporations sponsor artistic events. So, check with your employer or corporate social club to see if you get special pricing on tickets or freebies.

Part of any good financial plan, besides saving and investing for the future and reducing debt, is social responsibility. The arts are an important part of our community and should be supported monetarily and through volunteering. Not only does giving make you feel good, there’s a return on investment and it shows up in a variety of ways – promotions at work, an increased network, enhanced sales, marketing, PR and leadership opportunities. One of the most affordable ways to infuse art into your life is through giving – join a fund raising committee for your local art gallery, teach an acting class, donate to a painting program, write articles for a travel magazine.

You don’t have to buy a Van Gogh to enjoy art. There are affordable and smart ways to infuse the arts into your lifestyle and business surroundings. And, that’s the beauty of art. Whether it’s painting to culinary experiences, the arts bring people together from all backgrounds and bank accounts.

People in the arts community love to hate on American painter Thomas Kinkade. You’ve seen his work. The floral gazebo pattern on your grandmother’s cross-stitch, the framed babbling brook on the wall of your dentist’s office and the scanned image of a sunbeam bursting triumphantly through dark, foreboding clouds pasted clumsily on grief counselling brochures in a funeral home. He is a multimillion-dollar corporation.

The Kinkade hate comes from two directions. The first being the fact that his paintings are terrible. The second is that his schmaltzy prints, which sell from $500 to $50,000, have made the man unfathomably wealthy.

One of the biggest hang-ups for those in the arts and culture community is that too many are determined to maintain the integrity of their craft by not selling out. Writers avoid crossing the line into advertising features and company communication materials. Photographers eschew wedding gigs and school portraits. Artists survive on a diet of Mac and Cheese, dreaming of recognition, and for some, that hefty Kinkade paycheque.

“Don’t ever worry about selling out – this is a construction made by other artists to make others feel guilty,” says writer, artist and advocate Ted Kerr. “If you’re able to maintain your artistry and your integrity and your creativity, and you’re able to embrace new artists, you’re doing great work and don’t feel bad about it.”

Kerr sold out in 2006 after undergoing a review process to become an artist in residence at the Shell Chemicals Scotford facility in Alberta. Through his photos and writing, he documented the six-week “turnaround” process in which the plant is shut down and extra workers are brought in for this once-in-a-decade “spring cleaning.”

“I was an emerging artist so the opportunity to be able to do a great project with a well-known organization was attractive,” says Kerr. “Once I learned more about it, what was really attractive, what held my interest, was all the workers that were there were all creative in their own ways.”

Kerr says artists oftentimes undersell their talents. “They will be just so grateful for a commission or an opportunity that they will quote what they’re willing to work for, and that is way too low.”

In order to ensure fair compensation, Kerr recommends both the artist and the company or client do a little research. “If this is an uncomfortable thing for [artists], they should seek outside help” from local and provincial councils and associations. The profession may appear a solitary one at times, so these organizations offer assistance whenever possible.

If you want to make money in the arts, you have to be creative. But that’s why you entered the field. According to the Cultural Human Resources Council, the 600,000 people working in Canada’s cultural sector don’t need to sell their souls or their kidneys to the black market to cash in. Here are some ways to sell out in your particular artistic stream.

Art

Whether you colour inside the lines or radically out of them, you can find work as an artist. You may not find a kind benefactor to pay you to paint and sculpt (like in the old days), but artist-in-residence opportunities, like the one nabbed by Kerr, are still widely available around the world. And thanks to the wonderful world of computers, graphic design is allowing many to explore mediums beyond the canvas. But unless your creations appeal to the art-buying masses, don’t expect to make millions.

Average hourly wage for painter/sculptor/visual artist: $10.10

Average hourly wage for photographer: $15.60

Average hourly wage for graphic designer/illustrator: $18.60

Music

When you consider a music career in its purest form (performing, recording and selling), musicians (indie and mainstream) are finding money selling out to TV commercials. Aside from playing instruments on stage, there are many behind-the-scenes roles for music lovers that bring in the money. Producers, mixers, recordists and engineers fine-tune songs, while publishers, distributors and promoters get the finished product out to listeners.

Average hourly wage musician/singer: $10.80

Average hourly wage for conductor/composer: $26.10

Performing Arts

“God I hope I get it. I hope I get it” is the tribal chant of the struggling actor. The easy answer here is waiting (tables and for the “big break”), but there are better money-making solutions for performers eager for stage or screen time. It’s not all about acting either. There are plenty of roles for riggers, stage hands and technicians if you’re willing to step into the background. Passionate about improving your area’s performing arts scene? Try your hand at fundraising and marketing.

Average hourly wage for dancer/actor/comedian: $16.90 to 17.50

Average hourly wage for technician: $16.30 to $29.10

Average hourly wage for producer, director, choreographer, etc.: $21.20

Source for Canadian wage statistics (2008): Government of Canada – Citizenship and Immigration (www.workingincanada.gc.ca)

Andreas Gursky was the man behind the lens for the most expensive photograph ever sold. Titled the 99 Cent II Diptychon it sold for $3.3 million US dollars in auction in 2007. Not bad.

Here’s a link to a 2000 pixel wide photo from the same photographer to get a better sense of scale.

Ed Burtysnky is famous for his Manufactured Landscapes series. He’s made his mark taking sweeping large-scale shots of industrial landscapes.

That’s a shot of a nickel tailings pond outside of Sudbury, Ontario.

You won’t find Burtysnky on this list of the top of the most expensive photographs in the world but he’s toured the world on the back of his Manufactured Landscapes series. Currently, a print of his will set you back anywhere from $6,000 to $40,000.

So what’s the secret of these modern masters?

I can’t believe I’m giving this tip away for free but here it is: Photograph contemporary commercial and industrial spaces, dispassionately, from higher up and from a distance with a large format camera. Make your print the size of a small house and you’ve got yourself a career.

You can thank me later.

At the heart of Calgary’s burgeoning “cultural district” lies Art Central: a visual arts complex with the express purpose of providing creative types a unique workspace. As a sort of incubator for the arts, the building is home to artist studios, galleries, the Calgary Arts Development offices, an architecture and design firm, and even a bistro and a coffee shop.

The building itself sits two stories above ground with extensive basement levels accessible from within. While the café and bistro inhabit the main level, galleries and artist studios are interspersed throughout the building.  One particularly innovative section, dubbed the Art Loop Gallery, is a conglomeration of 19 artist studios that also double as mini galleries. This set up not only provides an interesting experience for potential customers, it also fosters creative intermingling with the various tenants. Axis Gallery owner Rob Mabee says that “because most galleries and artist are selling different products, I see more cooperation rather than competition.”

Nothing jubilant about the building’s previous incarnation, the Jubilee Building

Swirl: Fine Art & Design owner Tracy Proctor comments that the design of the building artistically “leads to greater things” between tenants. Proctor’s gallery has been open since 2006 and has seen how the building has evolved and grown. She says that the building has a powerful concept and a fantastic location despite minor misgivings about the management.  A few residents want Encorp to increase their contributions to group advertising but Mabee disagrees. He says that “I don’t want Encorp to presume to market for my business, at the end of the day, each artist has to promote their product individually.” Another perfectly suited resident is the Calgary Arts Development: a foundation that is responsible for assigning government grant money and promoting the arts. Few other workplaces can claim such convenient in house link to government support.

The buildings developer and management, Encorp inc., has done a lot with what was once the grotty and suspect Jubilee building. In 2004, the pawnshops and convenience stores that made up the previous tenants were replaced with redesigned and sophisticated spaces, unified by a large common area. The building has really taken the idea of centrality to heart as a massive skylight features prominently in the centre. Ignoring the sky’s the limit”metaphors that spring to mind, the design unifies the building’s various levels around a striking shaft of light. “Restoring historic buildings and sustaining timeless spaces is Encorp’s mantra,” says their marketing director Kait Kucy.  Given the state of the block previously, it’s safe to say they succeeded.

“First Thursday,” Calgary’s monthly arts & culture festival has been a real boon to Art Central during the recent recession. Proctor noted that in the last two years “First Thursdays have brought in a high percentage of my clientele.” While complimentary drinks have been cut back after disagreements with the Alberta Liquor Board, Proctor’s best clients “come for the art, not the refreshments.” Kucy comments that “We [Encorp] always tries to encourage our tenants’ to do some community outreach.” This outreach has taken the form of free workshops, live music, and family oriented events which have all drawn customers into visiting the downtown location. “They are great evenings for exposure” says Rabee, but he also comments that “I’ve done ok because I’ve adapted to the new conditions” rather than rely on events alone. Contests have also been a successful way of generating buzz, and with prizes such as a building wide shopping spree it’s no wonder.  Collaboration with the local entertainment newspaper, Swerve, has brought recognition to the building as the paper is distributed with the widely read Calgary Herald. At a time where people are wary of purchasing non-essentials, the extra effort has allowed many galleries and artists to stay afloat.

In case the decorative butterfly peeking out from the collar of your brother’s highschool history teacher or the dragon sleeve that your mortgage broker’s shirt cuffs don’t completely conceal didn’t give it away, tattoos are in right now. Way, way in. Tattoos are now so common that they make the bow tie look downright radical by comparison. And while the tattoo’s growing cultural legitimacy has produced a few unwanted side-effects – the millions of ubiquitous tribal armbands and so-called “tramp stamps,” for example – it has also elevated the social standing of the tattoo artist from that of a quasi-criminal accomplice to a bonafide artist.

Sean Tracy, the owner and operator of Edmonton-based Pagan Tattoo, has watched his business move from marginal to mainstream. “In the last 15 years,” he says, “the industry has really become populated with smart, creative people, as opposed to people looking to make an easy living to support their vices, which was really the reality 20 years ago in a great percentage of the business.”

His studio is a testament to that transformation. Rather than being surrounded by pawn shops, payday loan operations and liquor stores, as it might have been 20 years ago, Pagan Tattoo is instead flanked by an animal hospital and a massage therapy clinic in a modest building that is rounded out by a bakery and a tea supply store. There are no cigarette butts on the sidewalk, no empty beer bottles nearby and none of the other social detritus that one might expect to find in the vicinity of a tattoo parlour. Instead, it’s part of a commercial tableau that pays tribute to middle class virtue.

The interior is equally unconventional, at least when it’s put up against against the grittier backdrop of the industry’s traditional esthetic. There are no pick-em posters on the walls of hearts, daggers, cartoon characters and other thoughtless tattoo choices, and no apparent side trade in booze, cigarettes, drugs, and other vices. There’s framed art on the walls, classical music playing in the background and a small table in the corner holding an empty bottle of San Pellegrino and a container of used paintbrushes. If anything, it looks more like a hair salon, only without the waxes, pomades and pretension. Only the distinctive buzz of the tattooist’s needle emanating from behind the curtain-enclosed partition gives away its true identity.

But if his industry has risen to respectability in recent years, it hasn’t been an entirely smooth ride. The number of shops in Edmonton alone has ballooned in the past 30 years from no more than five parlous operating in the 80s to more than 60 today. That growth, which has been fed in recent years by television shows like LA Ink, part of what he describes as the “TV bomb,” has led to what he sees as a dangerous dilution of the industry’s talent pool. “With this wild expansion that’s happened in the last five years with the popculture craze for it, I would actually say that we’re back to a point now where there are an awful lot of people entering the trade who are untrained, unskilled, and they’re going to do some really, really shoddy work for a couple of years that’s going to need to be covered up later.”

But while there might be more bad tattoos out there than ever before, that’s more a function of the volume of ink being spilled than the designs to which they’re being put. As the industry has grown and matured, Tracy says, so too have the people walking through his front door. “There’s definitely a lot more willingness on the part of the client to put some meaning and personalization in their pieces, too. We see very little last-minute decision making, and a lot more stuff that’s been thought out over a six-month period.” Ironically, he credits those same television shows with educating the tattoo-seeking public. “That’s the one advantage of those television shows about tattooing, is at least the artists on them have been decrying the value of those crappy tattoos. That’s brought the bar up a little bit.”

While he’s willing to concede that there are a few virtuosos in his field, Tracy believes that for most competent artists the road to professional success is paved with hard work. Tracy, who opened his shop in 1996, says he’s only really become truly confident in his abilities in the last four years. “I really do think it takes a decade to make a really well- rounded tattooist,” he says. “There are people proving me wrong; there are people coming in and after five years they’re exceptional talents. But it’s like anything, the whole notion of needing 10,000 hours before you’re super, ultra proficient in it. It’s nothing but work.”

The first few years, he says, can be particularly challenging. “Initially, in this business, it’s kind of accepted that for the first five or six years you do a lot of everything until you build up a clientele and a Rolodex of people who trust you to do your thing. Everybody has preferences about what they’d rather be doing, what they’d like to be doing stylistically, but if you’re going to pay the bills and make rent and make people happy, you have to be able to embrace a lot of things and a lot of different styles and looks.”

Even after an artist has paid his or her dues, though, that willingness to try new things is an important habit to maintain. One of the easiest ways not to do that, Tracy says, is by falling in love with a particular style or, even worse, a particular piece. “I can’t over-fetishize it,” he explains. “I’ll do a really great tattoo, I’ll love it for a month or two, and then I’ll start to hate it because I’ve been looking at pictures of it and seeing the things I could have done better. You want to evolve past it. Anything that you love now in this business, if you don’t want to move past it after a couple of months you’re probably stagnating.” Instead of falling into familiar habits or relying too heavily on a particular style, Tracy believes in setting challenges and trying to meet them. “I did this really, really awesome shark’s head with a harpoon on Saturday, and I’m so stoked on it. I will probably get three months of enthusiasm to tattoo from that one tattoo, because it was such a big, big leap.”

The good news for aspiring artists is that the business of tattooing is one in which hard work is properly compensated. “Nobody’s getting rich doing this,” he stresses, “but it’d be disingenuous to say that we’re scraping by like Oliver Twist. You’re making a reasonable-type living like anybody else with 15-20 years of experience in a specialty trade.” For a young artist trying to figure out a way to make a living, Tracy says, it’s a compelling option. “It’s a really good way to put your skills, put your creativity, put your passion into work and not starve in a freezing hovel somewhere making paintings that you’ll never crack into the gallery scene,” he says.

There are intrinsic rewards, too, in addition to being able to afford both food and rent. “You are making art for people, the people, the masses. My art gets up every day and goes to work with thousands of people, you know? My art travels around the world. Some of my art is dead. Some of my art is raising kids. That’s pretty cool.”

Jeff Hamada has succeeded where so many web-savvy people have not. And he did it all by accident. Hamada took a blog, created a loyal, interactive online community and then monetized the whole deal. The result was Booooooom! – that’s seven Os – which gets 1.7 million visitors every month. A sign of how successful it is: GM advertises on the site.

Hamada trolls the net for work by virtually unknown artists and posts it under the sections Art! Design! Film! Music! Photo! Junk! and Projects! (exclamation marks are his). Unlimited talked with Hamada, a former Electronic Arts staffer who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, about his unexpected international following.

How was Booooooom! born?
I took a year off school and worked at Electronic Arts. EA paid for my final year, but when I graduated, the company didn’t have a job open for me. I was sad about that. I started freelancing as a graphic designer about four years ago. I started Booooooom! about a 18 months ago as a personal blog to show all the art I made and the trips I took.

It’s changed a lot, though.
It changed early on. I didn’t think it was interesting for people to hear what I was doing, so I started posting art I liked, mostly work by lesser-known people on Flickr. I’d post something, email the artist to say I like his work and that I’d posted it on my site. The artist would get excited about it and mention it on his website. It became a conversation for art admirers. The site grew mostly by word of mouth. About six months in, everything went crazy, and now I get 1.9 million page hits a month. I wasn’t trying to make it grow. I just lost control.

Describe Booooooom!
It’s a daily inspiration site about photography and drawing. It’s different than a lot of other sites out there. I find artwork that I like by artists all over the world and I post it on the site, like an online art gallery. I really want to create a collaborative community.

I have another side to the site where we do group collaboration projects. I come up with an idea for a project and ask people to contribute. It’s an avenue for people to get inspired and make stuff that inspires others. I hope it becomes more of a focus of the site.

Could you describe a few group projects?
The last group project was a music video. Everyone downloaded the same music, filmed their own footage and submitted it. I stitched all the footage together. (See the footage here).

How much time does it take to maintain the site?
Now it’s a full-time job. I spend eight to 10 hours a day working on it. When I had freelance clients, I’d work on the site all night. I set it up to have three posts a day, so no matter where someone lives, when they go to the site there’s something new for them to see.

Jeff Hamada’s own art work. Hamada has worked for clients such as Converse.

How does the site generate revenue?
This is something I’m still learning about. There are three ways to make money: You get paid to write about a product. I’ve never done that and I’ve turned down a lot of opportunities. Or you can run advertisements from networks. I work with three or four networks that represent a bunch of companies. They pitch campaigns to me and I pick ones that work for the site. The third way is by having local companies in Vancouver sponsor the site. This is a one-to-one relationship.

The trickiest partnerships are with networks, because the products a network wants to advertise on your site are not always a good fit. They also want to sign long-term contracts, meaning that you lose control of what ads appears. But I can be pickier the more popular the site becomes.

Why do you think the site is so popular and continues to grow?
I am obsessed with analyzing the site and improving things that aren’t getting lots of hits. I paid a friend to make it more searchable and the topic I chose helped. No big sites are collecting the work that I’m collecting and there’s nothing going on for the community side of a lot of blogs. I put a lot of time into the site to make it feel alive.

There’s a stigma about art that only experts can talk about it. I try and make art inclusive. No matter what your expertise, you’re allowed to comment about the stuff you see. You don’t need credentials. I think the overall feeling is open and accepting.

Content-wise, I was uncovering a lot of unknown people, like people with only 30 followers. But when I mention one artist, he tells all his followers and then 30 people are checking out the site.

What would you like to see Booooooom! become?
I want to take it offline. I want to see some of the art on the site be shown in a [bricks-and-mortar] art gallery. I want the site to generate interest in the artists I feature. Beyond that I want to travel and meet the artists I cover and write about it. I want to publish a book of art. I don’t want to get rich. I’m not a business person that started this site thinking I could make money from it. The site is a lot bigger than the site I originally imagined. I’m definitely missing an opportunity to monetize completely, but I don’t want to be the mega-corporation of art sites.

Why?
My audience is a tricky demographic. It can get turned off by advertising if it isn’t done right. I could lose credibility really easily, especially if I include some covert ads. U

Jeff Hamada has succeeded where so many web-savvy people have not. And he did it all by accident. Hamada took a blog, created a loyal, interactive online community and then monetized the whole deal. The result was Booooooom! – that’s seven Os – which gets 1.7 million visitors every month. A sign of how successful it is: GM advertises on the site.

Hamada trolls the net for work by virtually unknown artists and posts it under the sections Art! Design! Film! Music! Photo! Junk! and Projects! (exclamation marks are his). Unlimited talked with Hamada, a former Electronic Arts staffer who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, about his unexpected international following.

How was Booooooom! born?
I took a year off school and worked at Electronic Arts. EA paid for my final year, but when I graduated, the company didn’t have a job open for me. I was sad about that. I started freelancing as a graphic designer about four years ago. I started Booooooom! about a 18 months ago as a personal blog to show all the art I made and the trips I took.

It’s changed a lot, though.
It changed early on. I didn’t think it was interesting for people to hear what I was doing, so I started posting art I liked, mostly work by lesser-known people on Flickr. I’d post something, email the artist to say I like his work and that I’d posted it on my site. The artist would get excited about it and mention it on his website. It became a conversation for art admirers. The site grew mostly by word of mouth. About six months in, everything went crazy, and now I get 1.9 million page hits a month. I wasn’t trying to make it grow. I just lost control.

Describe Booooooom!
It’s a daily inspiration site about photography and drawing. It’s different than a lot of other sites out there. I find artwork that I like by artists all over the world and I post it on the site, like an online art gallery. I really want to create a collaborative community.

I have another side to the site where we do group collaboration projects. I come up with an idea for a project and ask people to contribute. It’s an avenue for people to get inspired and make stuff that inspires others. I hope it becomes more of a focus of the site.

Could you describe a few group projects?
The last group project was a music video. Everyone downloaded the same music, filmed their own footage and submitted it. I stitched all the footage together. (See the footage here).

How much time does it take to maintain the site?
Now it’s a full-time job. I spend eight to 10 hours a day working on it. When I had freelance clients, I’d work on the site all night. I set it up to have three posts a day, so no matter where someone lives, when they go to the site there’s something new for them to see.

Jeff Hamada’s own art work. Hamada has worked for clients such as Converse.

How does the site generate revenue?
This is something I’m still learning about. There are three ways to make money: You get paid to write about a product. I’ve never done that and I’ve turned down a lot of opportunities. Or you can run advertisements from networks. I work with three or four networks that represent a bunch of companies. They pitch campaigns to me and I pick ones that work for the site. The third way is by having local companies in Vancouver sponsor the site. This is a one-to-one relationship.

The trickiest partnerships are with networks, because the products a network wants to advertise on your site are not always a good fit. They also want to sign long-term contracts, meaning that you lose control of what ads appears. But I can be pickier the more popular the site becomes.

Why do you think the site is so popular and continues to grow?
I am obsessed with analyzing the site and improving things that aren’t getting lots of hits. I paid a friend to make it more searchable and the topic I chose helped. No big sites are collecting the work that I’m collecting and there’s nothing going on for the community side of a lot of blogs. I put a lot of time into the site to make it feel alive.

There’s a stigma about art that only experts can talk about it. I try and make art inclusive. No matter what your expertise, you’re allowed to comment about the stuff you see. You don’t need credentials. I think the overall feeling is open and accepting.

Content-wise, I was uncovering a lot of unknown people, like people with only 30 followers. But when I mention one artist, he tells all his followers and then 30 people are checking out the site.

What would you like to see Booooooom! become?
I want to take it offline. I want to see some of the art on the site be shown in a [bricks-and-mortar] art gallery. I want the site to generate interest in the artists I feature. Beyond that I want to travel and meet the artists I cover and write about it. I want to publish a book of art. I don’t want to get rich. I’m not a business person that started this site thinking I could make money from it. The site is a lot bigger than the site I originally imagined. I’m definitely missing an opportunity to monetize completely, but I don’t want to be the mega-corporation of art sites.

Why?
My audience is a tricky demographic. It can get turned off by advertising if it isn’t done right. I could lose credibility really easily, especially if I include some covert ads. U

Attila Richard Lukacs has long been considered one of Canada’s most influential and avant-garde artists. Now, with fellow artists and collaborator Michael Morris, he has launched a travelling show exhibiting the Polaroids he has been creating for over 25 years. Unlimited fired quick questions to the pair about their relationship, how to collect art, how to get good collaboration and why they both should have hung onto their Andy Warhols.

Michael Morris and artist Attila Richard Lukacs
Photography by Malcolm Brown

Unlimited:  How do you get started investing in and collecting art?
Attila Richard Lucas: We’re coming out of an inflated market. And so everything was high, high, high. Prices were high. Now there’s an adjustment. So, it’s not so scary. Won’t be so scary for younger collectors to get into it because galleries, even a lot of galleries in New York, they’re just not doing that well anymore.  So I mean you don’t see the high prices. I started collecting when I was in 13.

UL: Is there a younger market of collectors emerging?
ARL: I find I come across a lot of young people who collect. A lot of young people starting up galleries. You should only buy something you really like. If you’re buying something for speculating you don’t plan to hold onto it for very long and you never really get attached. It  becomes more of an object. A good painting or a good piece of art always takes time to unfold. You see new things in it all the time.

MM: I had an opportunity to meet Andy Warhol when he was first making his Marilyns. The Famous Marilyns. I bought a set of those. Right at the beginning in '68 you could buy them at $200 apiece. In the '70s, I sold eight of the nine for $1000 each and saved one that I particularly liked.

UL: Five times your investment.
MM: A good friend of mine is president of Sotheby’s Canada.  I saw him a few months ago ,and he asked if I still had the Warhol.  He said, “You know I can sell that for you for $100,000 for the one piece.” I said, just out of interest, if I had had that [complete] set, what would it be worth?  Three million, he said.

ARL: The first piece of art I bought was I borrowed $800 from my dad to buy an Andy Warhol soup can.  I started in grade seven.

MM: One of those, especially the early ones, a couple hundred thousand for that now.

Artist Attila Richard Lukacs on the business of buying art

“We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.” _Benjamin Jowett

Gregorian chants blast from Les Ballet Jazz de Montréal (BJM_Danse) studio. Two male dancers are rehearsing for the show Jack in a Box as a dozen or so sweatpants-clad dancers sit around the perimeter of the room, watching and stretching. The choreographer-in-residence, Aszure Barton, stops the music and walks over to the two men, getting right up close and speaking in a voice so quiet that I strain to hear her from just a few feet away. “I’d like to see you do this instead,” Barton says, grabbing one of the guys by the cheeks with her forefinger and thumb, like you would to a chubby-cheeked boy. The dancers on the sidelines laugh.

Barton has earned the respect of her dancers with this intimate, personal approach. She does a lot of what she calls tasking – asking dancers to do exercises that are more psychological and emotional than physical. This collaborative soul searching is the starting point for many of the best sequences in her shows. “It’s not just me coming in and saying, ‘Do these steps.’ The dancers create the work with me,” she explains

Dance hasn’t been so popular since Michael Jackson moonwalked his way to superstardom, and the Edmonton-born, New York-based Barton has become a kind of It-girl. At 32, she has choreographed a Tony-nominated Broadway show (starring Cyndi Lauper), founded her own dance company, taught at the Julliard School and become the artist-in-residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Barton is credited with creating some of the most innovative work in contemporary dance. Mischa – as she called fondly calls the iconic dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov – describes her work as “fresh, arresting and fascinating.” Not that she wants all the credit. “I am not just doing it on my own. I’ve been very lucky and successful…” Barton laughs and makes bunny ear gestures to suggest quotation marks. “…whatever that means. But it is with an incredible amount of devotion from the team.”

The organizations who commission shows, however, can’t always offer the kind of lead times that these relationships require, so she will often fi ght for, say, the seven weeks it takes her to create a one-hour piece. With a kind of old school approach to developing talent, Barton likes to get to know her team. Dance troupes are usually referred to as The Company, but Barton calls hers The Family. “I am really interested in the people that I am working with. I am not interested in saying, ‘I am Aszure and this is what I want you to do.’ I want to create an environment where people feel they can bring stuff to it. I don’t
want them to feel like I am on a power trip.”

The personal/business divide can get tricky when you’re so close to your team. “As an artistic director or leader of a group, you have to be able to separate yourself,” Barton says. “There are certain things that just have to be said, or have to be directed, or otherwise there is no focus.” So while she is no whip-cracking dictator, she admits, “I am learning to be a businesswoman, in terms of, you are not always going to make everyone happy. And that you have to detach, though I can never detach completely. I still take everything to heart, and I think that makes a good company, any kind of company.”

Just back from Australia, where she worked on a commission for the Sydney Dance Company, Barton made a quick pit stop in New York before landing in Montreal, with emergency meetings scattered along the way. A workday might go until 10:30 or 11 p.m., then the troupe goes for beers and often heads back to the studio, not because they have to, just because they want to. Still, there can be too much of a good thing. Barton refers to 2006 as a year of “absolute fantasy-hell.” She was choreographing and workshopping a show in Montreal, making a new one for her company, creating a piece for Baryshnikov and choreographing The Threepenny Opera. Then she was asked to do another show and had to say no. “I couldn’t do it and it killed me. Because you want to take everything. You’re thinking: How long is this going to last? How long am I going to have these opportunities? Now I realize that life is what it is and that I have to be patient.

This January, BJM_Danse is touring the shows Les Chambres des Jacques and Jack in a Box in Alberta (they were created at the Banff Centre for the Arts). Barton hopes the tour will break through the stigmas some people have of modern dance and make them see that it’s “not always some weird naked person running around stage. Though it can be, and that can be very, very beautiful.”

Aszure is gratified when audiences not used to contemporary dance are surprised when they actually have a good time. Creating an experience is part of what she considers to be her job. “I’m not trying to do some egomaniacal work, masturbation on stage. At the same time, I’m not trying to create accessible work, but work that people can relate to. Because it’s real people.” And so is she.  U

Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in
_Bob Seger, “Night Moves”

When faced with the various trials and tribulations befitting a career of spontaneous entrepreneurship – some of which have been actual courtroom trials – I often ask myself, “WWSD?” What would Seger do? Unfortunately, the answer always seems to be, “Have another beer.” And it is in one of these situations that I find myself today. It’s only 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday (I think), but thankfully my beer fridge is always open. I’m reflecting on the darkness of an autumn night on the lonely prairie, and the pernicious mixing of business and pleasure that tends to take place in my life after the sun goes down.

My mind drifts back to one of the first business dealings I had as a young lad. It was with Monsieur Pierre Cochard, the venerable owner of Chez Pierre, one of Edmonton’s oldest and best known dancing establishments for women who seem to have misplaced their clothing and men who seem to have misplaced their wives. Cochard, I understand, is featured in an interview somewhere else in this magazine. Where, I don’t know – they cancelled my subscription last month in light of recent cost-cutting measures at unlimited. They also relocated my desk onto the loading dock. For legal reasons.

I was a little too tall
Could’ve used a few pounds

I was just 19 when I first met Pierre Cochard. I had recently completed my first commercial art job – a four-month stint with a bar that lasted five months, creating a series of portraits of gangsters to adorn the joint. Much to my parents’ chagrin, I was keen to continue painting for “cash only” businesses (and, naturally, to continue living in their basement). Chez Pierre had a great big exterior wall that faced one of the busiest streets in downtown Edmonton. (OK, “busy” and “downtown Edmonton” are mutually exclusive, but the street had traffic at least, which is more than most of the streets downtown could boast in the late 1990s.)

Problem is, the wall already had a mural on it: a huge, out-of-proportion portrait of Cochard sitting on a stool. His head was way too small, which made him look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Cochard had been a boxer in his youth, and his business background was as diverse as my stock portfolio, though markedly more successful. And in its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, Chez Pierre was the place to be in Edmonton. It served a popular daily lunchtime smorgasbord, I’m told. All this to say that Cochard was somewhat of a legend around town. He deserved something better on his wall than a
bad portrait.

We weren’t in love, oh no, far from it
We weren’t searchin’ for some pie in the sky summit

So I went to Chez Pierre one night. My first time in a strip club. In Canada. On a weeknight. I gave Cochard my pitch. We could do a fresh mural. It’d be striking, colourful, grand. It’d reinvigorate the business. His answer was something along the lines of, “Why would I do that? I could turn out the lights, paint the building black, paint the windows black, and people would still come.” It was a tough sell.

I finally convinced Cochard to give me a photo of himself and I would do a mock-up for nothing. If he liked it, great, we’d do it. If not, no harm done. Unless he really hated it. Then “some guys” would pay me a visit.

A couple of weeks later I returned with a painted portrait on canvas. I drove up to the club around 9 p.m. – Cochard tends to come to the club for just a couple of hours at night. That’s what I call “nice work if you can get it.” That’s what he says about guys who make their living with paintbrushes.

He liked what he saw and I got the job. A few weeks later, Cochard paid me in cash. I think it was $1,000 – a taste I’ve been following ever since. The mural is still there, and my signature includes my phone number from back then. Which explains why my parents still get those calls at 2 a.m. U

Awoke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves

issue 7

Ian Mulder would like to thank all the little people who made this column possible. Which, when you’re a six-foot-three Dutchman, includes a lot of people. Not that he looks down on them. He’s not nearly bitter and cynical enough to do that. Funny, ain’t it, how the night moves.