Money Talk

They say never to mix friends with business, and I understand why. Money is a touchy subject and just the feeling that someone is taking advantage of you can destroy any good feeling between two people. However, going into business with a friend makes the "job" seem like fun-- the "job" being the business side of art: the marketing, the contracts, the purchasing, the organization and planning.

I am lucky enough to have a friend to do business with, who I actually met in my first graduate class at Hood College and who I did my Certificate show with last year. Our partnership seems to work well because she is great at social things and organization (delivering press packets, calling about information, remembering deadlines, etc) and I am good at creating posters, postcards, banners, etc.

Still, we have only recently begun talking frankly about money and the need to write out some rules about who contributes what. Both of us would rather have a friend than a business partner when it comes down to what's most important, so we are committed to keeping a good line of communication going about money and anything else that one of us might feel slighted over.

My question for any readers is: have you ever gone into business with a friend or group of friends (for a show, art fair, studio space, gallery, long term or short term), and how did it work out?