A link to a great article at Newsweek for artists just starting out…

[Aanarav Sareen]

Nice article! I think the last line on the second page hits home for most of us.

[Craig Seeman]

Can we sticky this on Craigslist and Mandy’s.

[Aanarav Sareen]

[Craig Seeman] “Can we sticky this on Craigslist and Mandy’s.”

LOL. I am going to forward it to Craigslist, just to see what happens (it never hurts to try!)

[Michael Munkittrick]

It sounds like those folks might have hijacked your “Client or Grinder” article. After the last week of so of the COW being in an out of the every changing battle to remain relevant and profitable, this is a very good vindication for what most everyone expressed.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Ron Lindeboom]

The Cow fighting to remain relevant? The very root of the word implies “relative” and in relativism there are no absolutes, no one-size-fits-all. The very “fight” you refer to was little more than a public flogging of someone who offered a job that was beneath many here but would have been worth someone starting out who wanted to hone some chops while picking up a few bucks along the way.

Mentoring programs have been a long and respected part of crafts and people would get in line to learn the trade and would often pay for the privilege and work long hours for nothing. In this industry, interns have been a part of the landscape for a long time, as well. There have been more than a few times in my own career where I worked free just to learn a craft or process.

The very point of the article “Clients or Grinders” is that it is stupid to trade something of value for nothing. But I, as the guy who wrote Clients or Grinders, do not feel for a moment that every “deal” has to be a cash one. I wouldn’t be in the position I am in today if years ago I had not traded out some of my time as a business consultant and planner to a company that needed my help. They were magazine publishers and I made the deal commensurate on me having as much access to their tools and processes as they had to mine. While I understood business, they understood the print process, light tables, shooting color, halftone and stat films, cutting amberlith and rubylith and stripping out color-seps to set register for the press so the screens didn’t moire pattern when printed — I learned it all. Even helped the pressman at night with his set-up and afterwards helped him wash the presses. I wasn’t a kid and was in my early 30s. But I ended up getting way more from them than they did from me, even though they were the ones in trouble and I had to work very hard to help them straighten out their problems with the bank. Some of my friends back then argued that I was an idiot and that I could have gotten a large chunk of the business signed over to me — and probably could have. But I had just bought PageMaker 1.0 and an Apple Laserwriter 1.0, along with one of the first Mac Pluses. I had a goal…

…that goal has paid off many, many times since then based on the experience I gained at what my friends used to jokingly call “Ron’s ten cents an hour.” But we just got the Sony two-page ad FedEX’d to us yesterday and when it came and I placed it in the magazine, I looked at Kathlyn and Eric and said: “Sony. Damn, do you believe it? Sony. The hard work is falling into place.”

To the kid who was willing to sleep on floors, travel, shoot and cut a five-minute-a-day project, I have little doubt that they would have gotten a lot out of the job that was offered. Was it for you or me, Michael? No, not at all.

But hey, there’s a story in here somewhere… ;o)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

[Michael Munkittrick]

I didn’t mean the COW needed to fight for relevance. I was referring to our struggle to remain relevant and viable as artists completely independent of the COW. I’m sorry if that came out wrong.

God knows I understand the apprenticeship and mentoring programs as I not only worked through them but now host them myself as there is a need, and I am completely open minded and aware of the fact that everyone has to start somewhere, but it would behoove people with that frame of mind to state that clearly so that they don’t trod over people who would misread and misinterpret their request, as I did.

I’ve never been one to punch a person in the gut without considering the path that they traveled to get there, and I’ve been wrong quite a few times in my brief time in this industry, but there needs to be a lucid and dedicated effort of introducing new up-and-coming pros to the industry that doesn’t involve bashing them in the head with an unreasonable amount of work for a miniscule amount of compensation, regardless of what form that compensation comes to them. As my record will reflect, there are moments of pure clarity that have proven to be the most poignant and cherished recompense that I could’ve hoped for. Experience is priceless and knowledge truly is power, but my thinking is that the object of “restocking” our industry with the next generation, we should instill as much of the dignity and self-worth that we’ve been so graciously blessed with so that the industry can move forward.

Looking back over the last 20 years, the ideology of apprenticeships has changed so dramatically that the term is almost not applicable anymore. Today, you spend a year in line to get the job, a few months getting acclimated and then it’s time to move on to the next pot of gold. It’s not like it was in the sense that there are so few people who hire anyone without a pretty comprehensive skill set that there is no opportunity to actually learn.

As for the fact that “box5productions” got one to the kisser, maybe so, but it wasn’t for lack of respect of the COW or a personal attack in the least. I, like many