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May 19, 2005
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| Midwest jazz group Happy Apple has received relatively little press in the U-S, but is quite popular in France. They are just one example of artists who are finding audiences outside of the United States. (Image courtesy of Happy Apple) |
St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota accordionist Kip Peltoniemi has never produced a CD in the United States - but he's big in Finland. While teaching there a few years back a music label offered to produce his album. Peltoniemi was thrilled.
"If you can get on a label in Europe you're not going to just be played in the country of origin of that cd," says Peltoniemi. "You're probably going to get some distribution into some other countries."
Peltoniemi says one of the advantages of being distributed in Europe as opposed to the U-S is that he gets a royalty check every single time his album is played on the radio. In the United States, musicians are paid based on an average of how many times they appear over a series of random air checks.
"It's not big. I don't get that much in royalties or anything," says Peltoniemi, "but it's nice to know every once in a while you get this check dribbling in from France for a $1.32 and you know that your song has been played in France and somebody's walking along some avenue, listening to your tune."
Peltoniemi's brother Eric has also had great success as an accordionist. The two grew up in Northern Minnesota, but are of Finnish descent. Kip Peltoniemi says he doesn't enjoy promoting himself. He says todays shrinking world allowed him to travel to a culture where he felt more comfortable.
"Because I was able to go there and be with fellow Finns who are also adverse to self-promotion and the hyperbole that goes along with the music industry right now, that was an environment I could work in very well," says Peltoniemi.
Peltoniemi has no regrets about producing with a European label, but it has presented him with some unforeseen challenges. The Finnish label does not handle distribution in the U-S, so Peltoniemi must do all his own promotion stateside.
If he wants to sell his cds, he has to buy them at cost from the music label, and he gets hit by the weak dollar-to-euro exchange rate in the process. Peltoniemi says if he produces another CD, he's going to create a different sound. Even in a global market it's possible to get stuck in a rut.
"If you're playing Scandinavian music and you get known as a Scandinavian musician, it gets to be a prison," says Peltoniemi. "It's a lot of fun for Finnish audiences but I want to broaden that out a bit."
Still, Peltoniemi says he's always amazed when gets an e-mail from someone in Australia writing to say they enjoy his CD.
"Just the fact that somebody can google your name and find out where to get your record," says Peltoniemi. "They can order it from Finland if they want to! For somebody like myself from northern Minnesota that would have been a total impossibility."
Minneapolis painter Doug Padilla says globalization has done great things for artists.
"I think it's invigorating; I think it's intellectually, aesthetically and spiritually invigorating," says Padilla.
Padilla recently had a show in a Paris museum. And he's about to present his work in two group shows in Chile. An artist he met over the internet is including his work in another show, involving self-taught and outsider artists from around the world. She plans to send the work on a multinational tour. Padilla says things have changed drastically since he was a kid.
"I remember what the fifties were like here. It was a pretty isolated time, and you weren't a part of the world and now you are, and it feels good," says Padilla. "It feels like the universe has expanded."
Padilla says the internet and the ease of modern day travel have had a tremendous impact on artists. Padilla is Mexican-American. Recently he travelled to Mexico for the Day of the Dead. Padilla says travel enriches not just his world view but his art as well. He says travel has long been considered an invaluable part of an artists education,
"But that kind of interaction between cultures and peoples, if it did occur, it happened very slowly," says Padilla. "You took a boat to Europe and lived in Paris and a year later you came back. That was nice, but that was only a small number of people that got to do that."
Padilla says he was able to show his work in Paris because he flew there and presented his work at the front desk of the museum. But while Padilla says globalization has presented him with many more opportunities to show his work, that doesn't necessarily translate to making more money.
"I'm working on a group show I'm putting together with my friends in Chile and we're going to try to have a benefit and go there. Will I make any money? No, I'll lose money. Will that make economic sense? No. But it will make a lot of spiritual and aesthetic sense for me as an artist," says Padilla.
Another problem is Padilla's art. It's big and heavy. He often paints on 8 foot by 12 foot wooden panels. Pedilla says he can't afford to ship those works. He says selling his work to an international market would be a lot easier if he were a photographer.
"When you look at a photograph online, it might not be the photograph but in people's heads they have a sense of what photography is like," says Padilla. "I think the more three dimensional things get the harder it is to replicate them and sell them long distance."
Despite the obstacles Padilla says he will continue to look for opportunities to show his work abroad. Meanwhile it's getting more and more expensive to rent a studio space in the Twin Cities. He's thinking maybe he should move back to Mexico and take advantage of cheaper real estate.
Ideally, Padilla says he'd like to spend half the year in the U-S, half the year in Mexico and make a few trips each year to Paris. And in this new global age, he may very well do it.
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