I got an email earlier this evening – those of you who subscribe to my newsletter, Sam Bayer’s Low Notes, already know about this – from an old friend of mine. Raianne Richards is half of Mark Mandeville and Raianne Richards (I bet you can guess which half), one of my absolute favorite folk acts, and they’re playing McCarthy’s in Porter Square this Sunday at noon, and I haven’t seen them in more than a year and it’s a hop, skip and jump from my abode, and I. Am. Stoked. And this email (which, I’m delighted to report, was a reply to one of my newsletters, faithful reader that she is) was a personal invitation to this show, which, of course, she didn’t need to do, because I’d already bought my tickets.
But she asked. This is what real artists do.
When I was a child, my father decided to turn his lifelong love of stamp collecting into a side hustle, and he got his stamp dealer’s license, and every year he rented a booth at the big local stamp show and, well, kinda sold stamps, but mostly chatted with collectors and enjoyed his contribution to the hobby. And he dragged me along to that first show, and I – fearful of my shadow, your shadow, my shadow’s shadow, you name it – hid under the table for most of the show. You see, I had yet to whip off my horn-rimmed glasses, Superman-style, and emerge from the phone booth (or beneath the table) as the dynamic, confident performer you see now. You will not find me hiding under the table anymore at local open mikes and Somerville Songwriter Session performances – you’ll find me hamming it up on stage, where I belong. But what I still kinda suck at is the asking.
I have a mailing list. I have CDs. Both are well worth the time and/or money. But I hesitate – like many artists – to ask for email signups, or for money for my CDs, or to push too hard for, well, anything. And I am not alone – my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, and I have been fortunate enough over the years to have enough money to purchase some lovely visual art, and I’ve lost track of the number of times I had to bargain the artist up because they weren’t valuing their art substantially enough.
Asking sucks. It’s an act of faith, of trust, a public request for feedback about the price tag, and it’s tough to hear so many people say you’re not worth the money. But Mark and Raianne are professionals. They run a nonprofit music enterprise in Uxbridge, MA – Blackstone Valley Music – where they’ve worked and taught for a long time, maybe as long as I’ve known them. And you can’t run a nonprofit without asking for money, and developing a thick skin when people don’t respond. It’s what they love, and it’s what pays their bills, and so, they ask.
Ask for what you’re worth. The worst that someone can say is no. It doesn’t mean the art is worth any less.