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Making money is art
For a long time, I thought of myself as an artist.
Music, mostly. Some writing. The kind of stuff you make because you can't not make it.
And somewhere along the way I picked up a belief that a lot of creative people carry around… that money and art don't mix. That the moment you start thinking about selling, you've sold out.
So I resisted the business side for years.
But back in my photography days, I was a huge fan of Andy Warhol.
Not because his art was particularly thrilling, but because he’d “made it” so to speak.
He got rich… before he got famous. And he did it by becoming one of the highest-paid commercial illustrators in New York City. By the 60s, his pop art made him a star. And after his death, his “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for $195 million dollars. The most expensive 20th-century artwork ever sold at auction at the time, and the priciest American artwork ever.
Here’s Andy’s take:
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"Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."
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Boom.
I read that line recently and something clicked. Because most people treat the algorithm like an enemy. Some faceless machine to be feared, gamed, or resented.
But it's not, it’s just a medium.
Same as a canvas, same as a guitar, and same as the silk screen Andy Warhol used to churn out millions of dollars while he still had the time to enjoy it. And his people enjoyed it too.
Andy Warhol’s factory was a haven for misfits, outsiders, performers, poets, and more. People who often had nowhere else that accepted them. Which reminds me of my old anarcho punk days. He also produced and championed The Velvet Underground & Nico, one of the most influential rock records ever. And he mentored the young and broke Jean-Michel Basquiat.
And privately, he was a devout catholic who volunteered serving meals at homeless shelters and financially supported his family.
Same time too, some have said he took more than he gave in return. But he also democratized art, saw the future, and his money still funds the future artists of today.
All to say, no one’s hanging your Threads up in a museum, but as soon as you stop apologizing for selling, and you stop pretending that “organic” is somehow more pure, the sooner you can get to making money with your art. And I think that's the shift that moved me out of my artist phase and into my entrepreneur phase.
I didn't give up art. I just realized that business is art too.
Reminds me of something Ram Dass once said:
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"You have to become someone before you can become no one."
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I think he was talking about contribution.
You become someone for the betterment of your community and the people around you. You serve. You build. You make money doing work that actually matters.
And once you've done enough of that?
Then you can go be a nobody, if that's what you want.
Money isn't the opposite of meaning. For most of us, it's the thing that buys us the room to go find it.
Something to think about.
Anyway, more and more these days, I'm leaning into the one thing I think that will help you the most… and that is email.
So here some of the upcoming changes you can expect:
I'm shifting the focus of my Skool community toward email. (It's already happening.)
I'm going to start running ads to grow it faster.
And I'm phasing out the free tier. If you're already on it, you can stay as long as you stay active in the community. But all new entry-tier members will move to a monthly subscription, and the premium tier price is going up too.
That's all coming soon.
So if you haven't hopped in yet, or you've been meaning to introduce yourself… now's a good time.
Especially if you want to stick around for the ride.
Here's the link:
Talk soon,
Kevin Hood