Moving On--Rock/Paper/Scissors

Time to revitalize an old idea of mine.
I have been looking for the perfect job for years. You know, the one where you just open up the want-ad section and see this:

Looking for artists of all kinds. Use your talents. Get paid to create! Great pay and benefits. Great work environment. Great people. Great clients. No computer skills necessary. Bring your pet to work. Free candy. Start immediately.

Bwah-hahahahahaha. I know, right?

So. A few years ago, I says to myself, Self, why not create that job for yourself and others? In fact, why not just start by talking to friends who do art and form some kind of company-a company comprised of partners...
One where all the work is shared, the profits shared and most importantly, the benefits are shared. As a group, we could buy group health insurance, something mostly out of reach to freelancers and otherwise badly underpaid peoples such as ourselves. Also, wouldn't some form of savings plan and retirement benefit be nice?

The first group of artists I reached out to for input were less than impressed. They immediately assumed they would be doing all the work while the lesser artists, such as me, I guess, would just be leeching off of them. Having quashed such a threat to their own freelancing, they dropped all interest immediately.

Pretty ego-filled and presumptious. But valuable input, nonetheless. That was an attitude that was to be expected and needed addressing for the future... Artists come in 2 flavors, mostly. One flavor is hugely talented and knows it. Usually they are prolific. Another is not so sure and not so prolific. Oh, there's a third-- mediocre, and knows it, and does little work -wait! A fourth flavor! Mediocre and doesn't know it and does tons of work. Whew. The common denominator here is talent. The difference lies in self worth. Ego rules the field. Big ego views all as inferior,(often afraid of being found out as just being mediocre) and assumes they will be doing allll the work. Little ego is always putting their work down and generally screwing up by not believing in themselves enough. OK. How to traverse this ego mine field and have equal work and pay?

Hell, I dunno. Don't ask me. I'll be working on that as I go.

Now, the next group I reached out to simply were not in a position to help advance the cause. When you're below the poverty line, all you can do with yourself is work to live. No real time to plan or do anything but work. Thing is, this is the group I'm fighting for. I'm in this group. It's hard to manage your time when you're too tired to do anything once you're home. So. No advance that time.

The other night, I ventured the idea out again. A group of friends I've never met get together and BS on the Dimestore site. I just had a whim and threw it out there. This time-interest! So, now I have to rethink the whole thing and get a coherent plan together. At least an outline of goals and a plan to do this as a real viable business. I've had great input so far from the guys, so I'm encouraged that I may have finally found the right group to get this going.

Meanwhile, I had toyed with the idea of calling this collective artist community/business Rock, Paper, Scissors, then found this "collective" with the same name. Oh, well. But check out their site and ideas! Very cool!
http://rpscollective.com/new.php

So, now it's time to act. Look for further details here. I'll be using this blog as a platform for ideas and development. Gotta use it for something.