Art and Commerce with Domenic Sciortino

Domenic Sciortino is a creative powerhouse. By day, he’s a barber. Much of the rest of the time, he’s an artist, musician, and now, a talent buyer for a local entertainment venue in Pennsylvania. Dom was one of my first guests on the podcast, and I’m thrilled to have him back to talk about the intersection of art and commerce, with stops at creative courage (specifically, the courage to fail in and with a crowd), why you should always aim to please yourself first with your creative work (even if you want to sell it), the effects of ignoring our creative call, and just what happens behind the scenes of the performing arts—especially on the money side.

If you missed Domenic's first episode, give it a listen!

Read this week's article, which is a longer look at the potential perils of combining art and commerce. Check out my piece on lapsed creatives, too!

Episode breakdown:

00:00 Introduction

1:04 Creating art in various forms, sometimes successful.

08:29 Billy Joel forgets lyrics, crowd sings instead.

11:23 Sudden insight into creative life force experience.

16:42 Passion leads to happiness and less spending.

24:28 Robots creating art due to cheaper labor.

31:19 Promo highlights importance of arts education.

37:08 Artists deserve better pay and more transparency.

40:05 National touring artist fees are usually non-negotiable.

43:22 Wilco: Warner pushed Americana band, Tweedy went ambient.

50:27 Scarcity and marketing.

53:56 Existence and purpose: the struggle is worthwhile.

59:26 Don't judge yourself by professional standards.

 

Check out the full show notes at fycuriosity.com, and connect with me and fellow creatives on Substack.

Please leave a review for this episode and in it, tell us about your experience with art and commerce.

If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.

Want more? Here are some handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in music and visual arts.