written by Takudzwa Mathabire

Welcome again to another episode of our Art-preneurship lessons. I hope by now you have identified your artistic talent. Let us now look at how your talent can start generating income for you.

In this era, we have many artists, some who are upcoming and many others who are already in the industry. From long back, I wondered if the market for Art really existed. I would see artists in the high-density suburbs such as  Highfield in Harare, struggling and living unmatching lifestyles. They were good well-known artists, who were very dedicated to their artistic works.

But, I always wondered what really lacked.

It is not a secret that our local creative sector is not very much appealing from the outside, very few artists seem to make it in life through venturing in art. But, the reality is…

How many of our artists are really in business?

I mean, how many follow the right business techniques, rules and use regulations?

Visit the galleries, the record studios or designers in and around Zimbabwe’s cities, you will see a lot of piled up pieces of art of a different sort. Indeed artists are mostly good at making art these, they do more of production but nothing more matching on the marketing and business side. This is all understandable since many artists may not have a good business background.

Most of the time our talent is demanded by the markets at a time when it is not ripe ‘n’ ready in the business sense. Then, later on, that same career quickly dies due to lack of proper business skills.

Musicians can sometimes host free shows for a period equivalent to half of their career in pursuit of exposure or Art for Art’s sake. Thus they forfeit income from royalties, bookings, sales and other income-generating deals.

‘Art-preneurship’ is the fusion of art production, business principles and techniques.

Without a good understanding of Business as an artist, you may continue to face many challenges. As a result, many local artists start and end their careers broke.

The Art-preneurship series is focused on laying the business foundations and fundamentals. As an artist/creative this series hopes to offer in-depth with entrepreneurship knowledge that is related to art.

Catch our next post and tell us what you thought of this one.