June Reading; “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Crowdfunder” (Patreon)

Just a few precious (and in Philadelphia, already blistering) days of Spring left. The book I had hoped to read is lost in transit, so I’ve shuffled my planned reading around to jump to a book I’ve been recommended countless times- with recommendations both for and against.

“The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help”

Amanda Palmer, 2015

On its face, this book has a natural place in the running theme of books I’ve been exploring on the themes of gifts, giving, and exchange. It’s also a text that gets discussed both in and out of my fellowship when I speak with fellow artists about “how the hell are we all getting by?” (or not, as the case can often be). But Amanda Palmer is a divisive figure to say the least, and the further I’ve read into this book, the more I think it’s a very interesting chance to think about the challenges and limitations of establishing relationships and networks of giving between artists and audience, and the ways that fame, wealth and privilege complicate those assessments. I also think there’s a narrative here about Scale, and the ways that what is small and scrappy should, must, or can’t help but change when it attains broader public awareness.

As the journalist from the Vulture article quoted above concludes:

“It’s amazing how many of the decisions Palmer makes wind up exposing precisely that disconnect, between the way things look to the interested and the way they look to everyone else.”

Related Readings

“Amanda Palmer; The Art of Asking”

TED Talk, 2013

Odds are very good that if you’ve heard of Palmer, it was through this video (perhaps even more likely than you having heard her music, which is its own complicated phenomenon). Her TED talk has been watched millions of times, and functions pretty well as an outline and summary of her book, which was in many ways adapted from it (the TED talk, in turn, was adapted from a blogpost. The Ciiiiiircle of Liiiiiife).

MANIFESTO FOR MAINTENANCE ART, 1969!

Mierle Laderman Ukeles

A fellow Fellow turned me on to this curious document - a proposal for an exhibition that never was - which makes a useful and striking distinction between “development” and “maintenance.” Ukeles has a fascinating career, and I think watching her argue the unification of two seemingly separate parts of her life is a really interesting lens to look at the kind of collapse of distance that artists like Amanda Palmer do in their own style of crowd-sourcing.

Also, her line “Maintenance is a drag; it takes all the fucking time. The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom” has been floating over my head as I do dishes lately.