We love puppet artist Jim Henson’s view of money, which we read about in an excerpt of Liz Stevens’ Make Art Make Money: Lessons from Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career:
Henson viewed money as energy, the energy that makes concrete things happen out of worthy ideas. Money was not an end in itself. It could provide physical infrastructure or it could help him hire other artists and technicians to realize a nascent idea. I don’t ever recall him being the least bit concerned or afraid of money or obsessed by it, which many people are. It just wasn’t what drove him — at all. —Liz Stevens
Henson’s philosophy is refreshingly clear and was partial fuel for Improvised Life’s new Friends with Benefits program, through which we hope to continue to make “concrete things happen out of worthy ideas”, with our heart and principles intact. We launched just shy of a week ago, and the energy and support coming through from our readers has been a marvel.
THANK YOU deeply for collaborating with us. We hope to be an example of the new internet economy: crowd-sourced, ad-(and influence) free.
(If you haven’t checked FWB out already, please take a look.)
on the subject of money, I must mention Lawrence Weschler’s book “BOGGS A Comedy of Values”. In case you aren’t familiar with it, American artist JSG Boggs would draw money, then try to spend it, which regularly landed him in trouble and provoked fundamental questions regarding the value of art and the value of money.