Art, Healing and Sustainable Business

Photo by Korben Perry)

My husband Korben Perry is an acupuncturist, and part of a national movement of acupuncturists who are building sustainable businesses which prioritize accessibility for low and middle income patients. These folks inspire me in their commitment to ending the dominance of spa-style acupuncture available only to the wealthy and upper-middle classes. The model is respectful of both healer and patient, and is not in any way a charity service. The fees are low enough that they can avoid dealing with the health insurance trap, the business is supported by the community and not reliant on government subsidies or other grants and funding sources, and the practitioners, while they work super hard, are not exploited. The model was built by some folks who are acupuncturists and social justice activists, and who aren't afraid to go ahead and create a business model that actually works for everyone involved. I think it's a great model for artists to read about, even if you have no interest in acupuncture. As an artist, reading about this model and being close to its practitioners helped me focus and understand my frustrations with the "art world" and begin to think much differently about what was and is possible for me as an artist. I can imagine people of very diverse professions could learn similarly from this.

The online home for this movement is the Community Acupuncture Network, and Korben is one of the bloggers there. Tonight he posted about me, and some of my experiences trying to figure out my relationship to visibility in the art world and economic realities of being an artist, and how related it is to what he has been doing with his clinic. It's sweet. I think that he, not being me stuck in my changing mind, is able to articulate something he sees in my path as an artist, better than I can at the present moment.

While I'm on the topic of the husband, check out some of his photos. I think he's an amazing photographer. I'm not biased, either.  :)