Ann Rea: (00:01)
Hey, hello everyone. This is Anne Rea coming to live from San Francisco. And today I want to talk about an interesting topic. I want to talk to you about the designer Halston and his rise and his fall, and exactly why it happened. So one of the things that I teach in the Making Art Making Money program is I teach something called the “4-part code.” And this is something that is used by my students. And it’s also something that is common. And I can see the pattern and every single artist. Successful artists, living or dead, they all possess the 4-part code. And what’s great about this is something you can learn. It’s not something that you have to wait and hope to be scout-discovered and, you know, hope it works out. And sell your art by happenstance. If you know your 4-part code, you will be empowered.
Ann Rea: (00:57)
Now, let me give you an example. Let me first explain what the 4-part code is, and then break it down. And then if you’ve watched the Netflix documentary on Halston, you’ll be able to see the 4-part code and you’ll actually be able to see it in the very first episode. So, first of all, the four part code four essential components, and the reason that I was able to discover this was because I was a very, very serious student of art history and also of luxury marketing. And the reason I was a serious student of art history was because I just wanted to know why was one artist famous and another artist not. Why did one artist wind up up in the art history books while another did not? And what I’d finally dawned on me after studying luxury marketing is the only reason and artists wound up in the art history books was because at some point in time, there was a market for their art.
Ann Rea: (02:01)
There was a niche. Okay. So what does that mean? It means niche means a certain group of people who want to buy your art. It’s understanding who they are. It’s understanding why they want to buy your art, and understanding where to go find more people just like them. The big, big, big, big, big mistake that artists make is they’re always asking the question, where do I find more collectors? Where do I find more collectors? How do I find more collectors? Well, you have to stop, take a deep breath and relax and take it back a few steps, walk it back because there are some other questions that you’ve got to answer as an artist before you will ever find your niche. Okay? So the 4-part code goes like this. And what I want to make really clear is no element of the four parts has anything to do with your art.
Ann Rea: (03:01)
Let me say that again. No part of the four elements in the 4-part code have anything to do with your art. The other thing I want to tell you is it’s super, super simple. And even some of my students, they’re still like, they got to make it hard, so they overcomplicate it. But please don’t do that cause it’s really easy. So number one is your why you have to know your purpose. You have to know your creative purpose. You have to know who you are and what you stand for and what you stand against. If you’re going to be a successful artist, because as artists, we’re not selling goods or services, our product is emotion. And your job as an artist is to inspire. So you’ve got to know who you are, what you stand for, and what you stand against. You have to know your “Why.” Your “Why” has got nothing to do with your art.
Ann Rea: (03:57)
It has everything to do with you. Once you know your Why, then you know your mission which is referred to as the “What” which is based upon your mission. And based– excuse me, based upon your Why, what one problem is there in the world that you believe is worth solving. That’s got nothing to do with you. It’s got nothing to do with your art. It has everything to do with how you could be of service to others. The third part is your “How.” How you create value above and beyond your art. If you are going to– if you’re going to attempt to compete with all of the other talent out there, just based on the quality of your art, you’re screwed. You’re not going to make it. You’re going to fail miserably because you are not that talented. You’re not talented enough. I’m not talented enough.
Ann Rea: (04:48)
So you’ve got to create value above and beyond the art itself, using another non-art related skill or resource. Then finally you come to your “Who” which is who wants to buy your art. By the way, your How has got nothing to do with you. It’s got nothing to do with your art. Then you come to your Who. Who wants to buy your art, why they want to buy it, and where to go find more people just like them. That’s known as your niche. And so that’s the 4-part code. So I watched this as fascinating to me because I can really, if I know enough about the backstory of any artist, whether or not they’re a fine visual artists, I can pretty much see their 4-part code. And I can also see it in my students. Unfortunately they have to find it for themselves in order to believe in it.
Ann Rea: (05:39)
So I have to guide them through a process. And they have to determine for themselves that this is their mission. I can’t tell someone what their mission is. And I can’t tell them how to create more value above and beyond their art. Because if I tell them they won’t be interested. So it’s a–but it’s a process. It’s a process that works. It’s been proven. And I’m going to give you an example of it with Halston. So Halston was an American, iconic American fashion designer. And he really was an amazing success, like a break through success. So if you look at the first episode of Halston, you see his most painful moment, and his most joyful moment. And here’s the thing, your most painful moments and your most joyful moments, that’s actually going to shape your “Why,” shape your purpose. And if you look at the first episode, you can see the most painful moment is a scene of him as a young boy.
Ann Rea: (06:42)
and his mother is having the life beat out of her by his father, and she is distraught, and she is scared. And so it flips quickly into a joyful moment where he’s caring for his mother, and he’s trying to make her feel special, and safe, and cared for. All right? So his “Why” is basically an understanding that we all the, you know, that understood. He felt like his mother needed, that she needed to feel valued. She needed to feel safe. She needed to feel secured, and cared for, and not beaten. Not abused. So that immediately, your Why is just your What or your mission is just your why in the form of the problem. So the problem in the world is that we don’t feel valued, and safe, and cared for. And this is particularly women, especially in that era where they had fewer options for recourse, and they didn’t have as much of a voice as they have.
Ann Rea: (07:45)
Now, we still have an issue with this, obviously, but it was even worse when Halston was growing up. So now we go to his How. Now, how did he create value above and beyond the art itself or fashion in this instance? Again, the Why and the What and the How got nothing to do with your art at all. So the How is he created this beautiful luxurious studio in New York and he invited women in, and he listened to them, and he valued them, and he cared for them, and he made them feel safe, and valued just by listening to them, and having this beautiful environment for them to safely gather. So then we go to his Who. Who wanted to buy his art, which is fashion? Well, it was mostly society women in New York city who had money, who had access to power through their husband’s money.
Ann Rea: (08:45)
And also Liza Minnelli, who also had a cultural influence, right? She had the ability to wear his fashion and really get it out there in the world in a way that was admired. Right? So one of the things that he really understood is something that I teach in them. What I teach–so I want to be clear, what I teach in the Making Art Making Money program is not conventional sales or marketing. Because conventional sales or marketing doesn’t work for fine artists. And the reason it doesn’t work is because, again, as I mentioned earlier, we’re not selling goods or services. We are selling emotion. And I can’t tell you how many MBAs have come through the Making Art Making Money program, still stymied about how to go about selling their art. Very smart. We even had a Harvard MBA could not figure out how to sell her art because they don’t understand the product.
Ann Rea: (09:39)
Let’s just think about that for a second. If you don’t understand the product, how are you going to sell it? So that was one aspect about Halston really did understand that real relationships, equal revenue. It’s incredibly important in luxury marketing, that you understand that. transactional relationships in luxury marketing will not fly. Um, also the other thing that I see from the series is he did not learn from his most painful moments. He didn’t extract the lesson. So he repeated those painful moments with big fights. So people who were close to him and addiction and seriously broken relationships. The other thing that you can see is that when he diverged away from his mission, he began to fail. Now he created, he was in financial problems and he created this partnership with JC Penny. That in and of itself was not an issue.
Ann Rea: (10:39)
The problem was his clothing was carefully tailored so that women felt comfortable and cared for and special. JC Penny had this stuff created in mass, and it was ill fitting. Even talk about this during the app, during the Netflix series, how ill fitting it was and how unflattering it was, and not very cared for. Another lesson that you can see is that he didn’t read his contract. He was so eager to see, feel safe and secure and cared for himself, that he blindly signed a contract, which literally sold his name Halston, literally. So it’s a huge lesson because a lot of artists, unfortunately, I hear from them all the time, they want to be discovered. They want someone else to take care of their business and marketing. And so they wind up making very irresponsible and reckless decisions with people who don’t have their interests at hand. They say they do, but they really don’t.
Ann Rea: (11:48)
They have their own interest in mind, like American Idol. Don’t get me started on American Idol. Okay. One other powerful lesson you can learn from Halston, he’s doesn’t give a shit what other people thought. And there’s a famous quote by Andy Warhol. And I don’t know the exact quote, but it goes something like this, “As soon as I stopped caring what other people thought, I started to be successful.” And that’s important because when you are on a mission, you really don’t care what anyone else thinks, except for the people who are aligned with your mission. So that’s another separate lesson. You notice in the series, he’s got people who are deeply dedicated to him. They’re not actually dedicated to him because he was a prick. He was a giant prick. What they were dedicated to was his mission. So he had people working for him, doggedly, despite how abusive he was, because they really did believe in his mission.
Ann Rea: (12:47)
So that we’re– all those are the lessons that I picked up from– I picked– Jess says, “I can’t wish I could afford the course.” So Jess, it’s actually a program. And I would say, is that true? Because you might not be able to– what I say for a lot of people who say, you know, it could be true. You can’t afford the Making Art Making Money program because it’s not cheap. It’s not cheap at all. But when I dig a little deeper, when people say that, it’s typically because they’re used to saying that. They haven’t looked into our funding option. They haven’t looked at our– they haven’t asked about our fundraising ideas. They just say they can’t afford it. But then they go on to spend a bunch and a bunch and a bunch and a bunch of money on stuff that costs them way more than my tuition will ever cost them.
Ann Rea: (13:40)
Katie, one of my students just said to you, Jess, “you can’t afford not to take it.” Thank you very much, Katie. Katie is one of my students. I’m very proud of her. I’ve just seen her grow so much since she started in this program. And I know she’s gonna continue to grow, because she is dedicated to her mission. She is dedicated to her art. And so if you want to– if you don’t know anything about the program, there’s a way to learn a few things. You can learn about some of the strategy that I just discussed. A lot of the strategy that I discussed, and a lot of the principles that I teach. And you can also learn more about the details of Making Art Making Money program. If you just go to startmakingartmakingmoney.com/application, and you have to complete the application, and I personally review your application.
Ann Rea: (14:28)
If it looks like I can help you, I will invite you in. If it doesn’t look like I can help you, I’ll still try to help you. I’ll still give you some resources. But I do want to make it clear that my program, I’m not selling this. This is not, I’m not, I mean, I’m on a mission to help artists take their power back. And I really will like, I will, I won’t let up on you. Right? I will not let up on you because you really should. You really should take your power back. That said, I can’t help everybody. I can only help people who are willing to help themselves. And if you’re in a scarcity mind space, you got to pop out of that really quickly, because it’s holding you back. There is plenty of money to be made in fine art right now. Right now, the affluent are buying more art than ever before.
Ann Rea: (15:22)
They started buying more art after the pandemic hit. And the reason behind that was because they’re stuck at home. So they started remodeling. They started buying additional real estate, and they’re not lavishing on vacations and travel like they used to. So they are buying more art. And they’re also looking for art that has meaning, real substantive meaning which unfortunately the art galleries are not going to convey in these silly cringe-worthy. You heard me, everybody, those artists statements are awful. Missions, on the other hand, like the one we just spoke of with Halston, I mean, you can feel your heart open up with that mission. It’s so incredibly powerful and it’s still relevant today. That’s what’s so magical about the mission is. It’s not just, you know, relevant for Halston’s time. It’s relevant today, and we can learn so much from it. So, I hope that this will help you see if you decide you want to watch the Netflix documentary on Halston, kind of look at it from a different lens and take away some of these lessons, because I found them very powerful.
Ann Rea: (16:36)
I felt like, wow. So anyway, I was going to teach this lesson just to my students in the Making Art Making Money program. But I really do believe, strongly, that artists really do need to understand how art is sold. And it’s not what you’ve been told in art school. And it’s not what you’re going to learn in business school either. So again, I would encourage you to apply to enroll for the private Master Class. Just go to startmakingartmakingmoney.com/application. I’ll talk more about the strategies and the principles that I teach, and also give you details about the Making Art Making Money program. It is free. There is no obligation. If I think I can help you, we’ll let you in. If I don’t think I can help you, I’ll be very honest with you, but I’ll try to point you in the right direction and give you the resources that you need. Thanks for listening. I hope this was helpful.