Forget the sales gimmicks—“Arthouse” is here to support artists sidelined by the traditional gallery model. In today's episode, our host, Scott “Sourdough” Power, founder of nonprofit media platform Arterial, discusses the concept behind “Arthouse,” an innovative TV series currently in pre-production. This series, which is fiscally sponsored by Arterial, aims to connect artists directly with buyers, eliminating the need for middlemen or galleries.

“Arthouse” is all about community engagement. Each episode will feature a family, a couple, or an individual interested in purchasing original art from a local artist but feels intimidated and unsure where to start, often working within a budget of just $500 to $1,000. The “Arthouse” team will meet with prospective buyers in their homes to better understand their needs, tastes, and living situation. Then, he takes them to visit the studios of three talented artists from their community. This immersive experience allows them to learn about the artists’ practices and the stories behind their creations. 

Scott believes that by directly connecting these buyers with local artists, “Arthouse” can recalibrate public perceptions of art ownership and make it more accessible to everyone. He emphasizes the socioeconomic dynamics that often deter people from investing in original artwork, noting that a lack of knowledge and exposure plays a significant role in this issue. By fostering open dialogues about personal tastes and accessibility, he aspires to cultivate a culture where original art is not merely reserved for the elite but is embraced and appreciated by all.

Tune into this episode to learn more about “Arthouse,” or subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on the latest “Arthouse” news.

Links mentioned in this episode: 

Arterial

Arthouse

ArtsvilleUSA

Crewest Studio

First Friday Exhibitions

NOT REAL ART

NOT REAL ART Podcast

Remote Season One

Remote Season Two Sneak Peek

Scott “Sourdough” Power

For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/introducing-arthouse

The Not Real Art podcast is intended for creative audiences only.

The Not Real Art podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs.

Now let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I am your host.

Faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host.

Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles.

How are you people?

Thanks for showing up.

We so appreciate you and your loyalty.

We do this for you.

It's all about you.

So thank you for being here with me.

It's the last week of the month and you know what that means.

It's time for an auditorial.

It's time for me to get on my soapbox and talk about something that's near and dear to my heart.

And today I want to talk about my greatest passion.

I want to talk about my passion for helping artists.

It took me a while to realize this, I think, but when I was about 27, I got a job as an artist rep.

I was offered a job as an artist rep.

I'd been a freelance graphic designer and the company that repped me as an artist actually told me, said, you know, we think you'd make a good artist rep.

Why don't you consider working for us as an artist rep?

And, you know, I was in need of a full time job.

I was a little tired of freelancing and I thought, what the heck, you know, I'll freelance, you know, do freelance design on the side and I'll work as an artist rep during the day.

And man, did I enjoy that job.

I really found my niche, I found my voice in terms of helping artists.

And my artists were primarily commercial artists, illustrators, photographers, creative directors, copywriters.

My clients were primarily advertising agencies and consumer brands.

And I would connect the artists with the clients and I actually did very well.

I broke sales records and worked with some of the best artists in Chicago at the time.

And I was successful only because I was passionate about it and I loved helping artists.

It felt like I had something that artists needed and wanted, which was the ability to tell their stories and, and, and market them and promote them and, and sell their work.

And so it was kind of a win win.

They had amazing talents to design and create and produce, and I had talent to, you know, talk, imagine that.

And, and it was a win win.

I was able to put a lot of money in a lot of artists pockets because I was passionate about helping those artists.

And I realized in doing that that I was just passionate about helping artists generally.

And over the years, as I've continued to work with artists, I realized that most artists agree, most artists want help telling their stories and promoting their work.

Most artists need that.

They prefer to make their work.

They prefer not to be bothered with having to sell and tell and market and promote.

And so that's where I come in.

That's where Not Relart comes in and that's where Crew Studio, my company, comes in.

Crew Studio is built to really focus as an entertainment media company on the visual and performing arts.

We exist, everything we do is to help artists tell their stories and promote their work.

That's it.

Whether it's podcasts or blogs or books or events or you know, some other project we're doing, maybe a TV show or a movie.

Everything is designed with the arts in mind.

Everything is designed with the artists in the center.

We're artist centric.

Everything we do is about helping artists tell their stories, promote their work and sell their work and make money in novel ways.

I'm, you know the problem with the gallery model, the art gallery model is that of course it doesn't serve 99.9% of artists really.

And there are hundreds of thousands of artists trying to make a living.

You know, millions of pieces of art are created every year.

And we need to figure out ways to stoke demand for that art, right?

For artists to make more money, we need to bring more people into the art market.

We need to bring more people into the marketplace so that they understand how to buy original art and that they too can afford original art.

Did you know that the so called home decor wall art sector, this is the, this is the stuff you buy in Target, for example.

This is the mass produced everything from art prints and wall hangings and tapestries and you know, all that stuff that is a almost 7 billion dollar category, $7 billion mass produced stuff that is available at Target or Walmart or Amazon or whatever.

And most people settle for that, right?

They settle for it because they think they can't afford original art.

And you and I both know that there is a ton of original art out there available for sale, priced anywhere from a hundred bucks up to a thousand bucks or a 5,000 bucks.

And by the way, most art available for sale, I would argue is priced between a hundred bucks and ten thousand bucks.

And I believe that there is a lot of people out there that can afford art for 500 bucks, a thousand bucks, a couple thousand bucks.

5,000 bucks.

If only they knew how to find the art and buy the art.

If only they knew how to, to go to an artist studio and meet an artist and feel comfortable with that.

Most people feel like they have to go to an art gallery and buy art from our art gallery, and that's typically how it works.

But you talk to most people and they're very uncomfortable going into art galleries.

Art galleries can be an intimidating place, a stuffy place, a kind of elitist place, and you feel like, oh, the art's expensive, I can't afford it, so I'm not going to go in there and you know, I'm going to feel bad about myself because they're going to, they're going to look at me weird and I'm not going to afford that money.

And so we need to figure out a way to empower people around art, educate people around art.

We need to find a way to democratize art and make it accessible to the mass market to most people.

We need to create a system that, that empowers and educates people.

They realize that, you know, they don't have to settle for mass produced home decor wall, wall art from Target.

People need to learn that there are amazing artists working and living and working in their community, in their region and they, and that artists are small businesses and, and that they can go and buy art directly from the artist.

You don't have to go to an art gallery.

And, and so if people understood this, if people were empowered, I believe that artists would sell more art because more people will be buying art.

You know, sales is a, is a numbers game.

You know, we need a bunch of people in the top of the funnel to get one sale out the bottom of the funnel.

And so the more people we have in the funnel coming down, the more sales will get, the more conversions we'll get into the sales.

So the goal has to be, I think, for artists and for, for art and everything we do is hopefully getting more people into the market who will look and consider buying original art if not for the first time.

And, you know, and whether that art is 100 bucks, 500 bucks, a thousand bucks, or 5,000 bucks, if people knew where to go, how to engage with artists, I believe more art would sell.

Also.

People need to feel confident in their own tastes.

People have to, we have to find a way to empower people to realize, you know, what beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

That makes us the art expert.

Right.

I know what My favorite colors are.

I know what colors I hate.

I'm not going to necessarily buy art if I don't like it.

I'm going to buy art I like.

And most of the art world has done a great job of convincing people that you should buy art to collect and art to appreciate an economic value.

Well, let me tell you something, people.

I hate to break the news to you, but art from a financial perspective is a horrible investment.

Never buy art expecting for it to appreciate in value.

Buy art because you love it.

Buy art because it feeds your soul.

Buy art because you want to look at it every day in your house, because it makes you feel, because it makes you think, because it makes you.

It moves you in some way.

Art is soul food.

That's what I believe.

And I want my home filled with it.

It makes me.

It's energy, it's positive energy.

And, and, and I want other people's homes filled with original art that moves them and bring positive energy into their homes.

And by the way, that's what most artists want.

Most artists want people to just buy their art because they love it and want to look at it every day.

And because it moves people, it makes them feel something.

Most artists are, you know, they, they understand that, that art is not.

People shouldn't buy art as an economic asset.

They should buy art as soul food.

That's what I believe.

And most artists I know agree with that.

And so over the years, I've been thinking about, okay, how do we do, how do we help artists tell their stories and promote their work?

How do we grow, demand for art?

How do we bring in more people into the sales funnel?

And, you know, how you, how do you do that at scale?

Right?

Because it's one thing to do it, you know, you know, onesies here and there, twosies here and there, a little here and there.

You know, the art world is a hugely fragmented place.

I mean, it's regions, arts communities and regions, but in, in their galleries serve those communities and regions.

Maybe they're national, international, but none of us can afford that art.

But the reality is most artists, and most art is a, is a regional, local thing.

And there's no real way for artists to sell their art at scale in a national way and maybe an international way.

And so I've just been thinking about that.

I mean, sure, you can start a website, what have you, but that's.

That means that you, the artist, have to do the digital marketing and do the, you know, buy the advertising and all that.

And artists don't want to do that, artists want to make art.

They want somebody else to handle the marketing and promotion.

And.

And that's why we started Crew West Studio, and that's why we started not rel Art as a.

As a way to create a platform that would help artists tell their stories and promote their work and amplify and boost artists and their work and their stories.

And as a result of that, we're always thinking about new and novel ways to do that and.

And to innovate and create interesting platforms and opportunities for artists to.

To.

To be promoted and to.

And to share their art and with the world and their stories with the world.

And so a few years ago, I.

Well, during the pandemic, I think actually Netflix had a show called Chef's Table.

And when I saw that, I thought, oh, my God, that is such a beautiful show.

It was gorgeous to watch.

It was lovely to learn more about chefs and how they prepare their food and how they cook and how they.

What they.

How they think and feel about preparing food and, you know, feeding others and what have you.

And I.

It was such a beautiful show.

And I thought to myself, man, you know, that show, that format is just perfect for visual artists.

I mean, why not go into visual.

Into our studio and learn about art making, learn about their art, and go deep and humanize and demystify artists in the art world?

That's the thing.

I mean, so many people are.

Are intimidated because it's a mysterious world, and artists are these mysterious creatures, and the art market is the most opaque, unregulated, corrupt markets out there.

So, of course, people are intimidated and confused.

And so everything we do here at Crew West Studio is about helping to humanize artists and demystify the art world and democratize art.

And so when I saw Chef's Table, I thought, okay, how do we.

How do we bring that to the masses?

And with a focus on visual art?

But also, I knew that Chef's Table was hugely expensive to make for Netflix.

Millions and millions of dollars.

And of course, we can't really afford to do that.

So what can we do and.

And what can we learn from.

From cable networks like hdtv?

And what can we learn from shows like House Hunters?

And how do we take a little bit of the DNA from Chef's Table and a little bit of the DNA from House Hunters and come up with something that works for visual artists?

And so after some thought and maybe a cocktail or two, I came up with the concept.

And the concept is called Art House.

Art House is a unscripted Television series about real people meeting real artists to buy real art without breaking the bank.

And so art house is this idea where we go into a community.

Not New York, not LA, NY and LA, Miami.

They don't need our help.

I'm talking about Wichita, Kansas, Kalita, Ohio, Madison, Wisconsin.

I'm talking about Pomona, California, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I'm talking about Spokane, Washington.

And we meet a family, we meet a couple, we meet a person who is really interested and curious about art and buying art.

And they're a little intimidated.

And they've only got a thousand bucks, so they've only got 500 bucks.

And they want to buy original art, they don't want to buy mass produced stuff and they don't know where to start, they don't know what to do.

Well, of course, enter our expert, affable host who meets the couple, understands what their needs are, their budget, their tastes, how they're living, and then takes that buyer to meet three artists working in their communities.

And we go into each artist studio and we learn about the artist, their practice, their art making, we learn about their art.

And we could then go to each of the three artist studios with this couple and our host.

And the couple, the person is, you know, maybe they love one artist and, and they don't like another artist, or she loves one artist and he hates that artist, but he loves another artist.

So there's this subjective, very real process of reconciling the different tastes because beauty's an eye the beholder, and finding that artist that two people love or that a person loves can be challenging.

But of course, eventually one artist is selected in the show and that artist gets chosen to place art in the couple's home.

And in the final act of the show, there's a big reveal where the artist places art in the home for that couple.

And of course, there's some drama, there's some tension.

Are they gonna love it?

Are they gonna hate it?

What's the, what's the deal?

And you'll have to stay tuned.

You'll have to wait to see, you'll have to watch the show, tune in and watch it to find out.

But that's the basic concept of art house.

Real people meeting real artists to buy real art without breaking the bank.

And we've been working on this project for a couple of years now, and I am thrilled to tell you about it.

Now I'm also humbled to ask you for your support.

We're going to launch a crowdfunding campaign on June 10th and I would love for you to support this project.

We have cast our host, the expert, affable host that I mentioned a few moments ago is the one and only Carmen Acosta from Los Angeles.

She's been on the podcast, she's a friend of the podcast, she's fantastic.

She's going to be the host of Art House and she's going to travel across the country to meet these people and take them to meet artists and place art in their homes for the first time.

And so we are thrilled about this project.

We believe that it's the right time for a show like this is the right idea at the right time from a cultural zeitgeist perspective.

We, we believe that artists are hungry for something like this.

They need a platform.

We believe having a show like this would grow, demand, stoke demand and increase sales and convert people away from buying mass produced home decor items to supporting local artists and support supporting the arts.

We just are super passionate about this project obviously.

And I'm passionate about it because of course it aligns with everything that I've been passionate about for the last 30 years, which is really helping artists and putting money in artists pockets.

And so Art House is in development.

We have to make our pilot episode.

And as you may or may not know, you know, Hollywood is imploding in many ways.

There's no money out there for independent producers like us.

Certainly if you're Steven Spielberg, that's, that's a different story.

But for a no name producer like me and like us, it's, it's a challenge to find any money out there for any idea like this.

And of course, you know, most legacy media in Hollywood are risk averse really at the end of the day.

And so we have to show them what we mean.

We have to show them exactly the show we want to make.

And so we want to make the pilot independently.

We want to independently finance and produce the pilot episode featuring Carmen Acosta going to Chicago, meeting a couple, taking them to meet three artists and placing art in their home without breaking the bank.

And we are thrilled about this pilot.

And so because we're trying to raise the money independently, we're going to launch a crowdfunding campaign June 10th and I humbly ask for your support.

There'll be of course, amazing incentives and rewards for your support.

Whether it's a dollar or $50 or $100.

I really hope that you will consider supporting this project.

Oh, by the way, each donation is tax deductible.

We have a fiscal sponsor, Arterial, which sponsors this show.

This Podcast is also a fiscal sponsor for Art House and we are so grateful for that.

And because that means that anybody can get a tax write off for their support.

As I said, of course there's going to be amazing rewards and incentives, limited edition prints, really interesting experiences.

But what we're really excited about is what a show like Art House could mean for artists around this country and for real people in this country that are feel overlooked and underserved by the current art market and the current art gallery system.

And a show like Art House would both educate, democratize and stoke demand, and I think ultimately improve the lives of artists by putting more money in their pocket.

And so I could go on and on and on about this, but you get the point.

I'm here to tell you about Art House so that you can consider supporting our crowdfunding campaign.

We're trying to raise $150,000.

We have 45 days to do it.

Oh, by the way, we've already raised 25,000, so that's wonderful.

So now we're trying to raise 125,000 more and we can do that with your support.

One of the cool incentives is for 50 bucks, you'll be able to nominate an artist, you know, you'll be able to nominate your town, your city, you'll be able to nominate yourself as a potential buyer on the show.

Because of course, we're going to need to find artists all over the country, are going to need to go to communities, we're going to want to find people that actually are, you know, excited to buy art for the first time, perhaps.

And so you'll be able to nominate yourself or an artist you know or your community.

That's one of the cool incentives.

So please look out for our promotions, please look out for our links.

If nothing else, tell everyone you know about it, Please share with everyone you know this story and this crowdfunding campaign so that we can get the word out and raise this money.

Certainly there are enough artists out there that if, if everybody, if all the artists in, in America gave us a dollar, that would be more than enough.

Ultimately, we want to make a full season, of course, eight episodes.

This pilot will help us raise more money and help us perhaps sell the show.

We're very interested maybe in doing it independently and just distributing it on YouTube, but we're also open to talking to the HDTVs of the world or the PBS's of the world, because again, we want to democratize art.

But of course, nothing's more democratic than YouTube.

We would love to have it on YouTube.

But we need to raise money independently for that as well as for marketing.

But we're going to put first things first.

We're going to, we're going to try to get this pilot made.

We're going to try to raise the money we need.

Perhaps you can help us, perhaps you will consider to help us support this work and with a tax deductible donation of some kind.

So I thank you, humbly thank you for your consideration and your support for this project.

And I just, you know, wanted to spend a few minutes talking about this project because it'll, it really is born out of my greatest passion of helping artists.

Always thinking about new and novel, interesting, innovative ways to help artists tell their stories and promote their work and do it at scale.

And a TV show like Art House would absolutely be powerful for artists in, in promotion and helping the world discover them.

And so this is this, this is something we're passionate about.

And thank you so much for listening and than for your support and by all means, please check out Art House.

All the best.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to the Not Real Art podcast.

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Not Real Art is produced by Crew West Studios in Los Angeles.

Our theme music was created by Ricky Pageau and Desi Delauro from the band parlor Social.

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We'll be back soon with another inspiring episode celebrating creative culture and the artists who make it.