Guerrilla Artist : Thomas Lane’s ‘Manifesto’ Urges Unity to Fight Corporate Control

For years, Thomas Lane was a struggling poet and musician.

But recently, having acquired a measure of financial success through a business venture, the Montrose resident is moving on to a larger struggle.

Lane has written and published “The Artists’ Manifesto,” a book that urges artists to liberate themselves from corporate domination. With the book as his vehicle, he’s pressing on as a Karl Marx of artists, promoting what he hopes will become a worldwide movement through which writers, musicians, fine artists and comedians will take control of their financial and artistic destinies.

“The time has come for artists to understand that they have been divided and conquered by those who are motivated by greed,” Lane wrote in his Artists’ Declaration at the outset of the book. “It is time to unite.”

Lane’s thesis in the 132-page book is that by banding together and forming their own marketing units, artists can regain the integrity that they may have lost in the process of making a living.

“Historically, the artist has been a puppet of the status quo,” he said. “We were looking at bare-bone survival and not thinking about what the implications would be if we compromised our artistic integrity.”

The book attacks the traditional institution of patronage as a form of sustenance for the arts.

“We gave them what they wanted and maintained our employment,” he wrote. “Our response was completely understandable. Nevertheless, it was still a form of prostitution. We have been ‘kept lovers.’ ”

Currently, Lane, 43, is devoting all of his time to promoting his message.

Since publishing his book, Lane has appeared on several cable television and radio programs, including KOST and KFI. He said he has received responses from artists throughout the United States and Europe.

In a recent interview on KLOS, late-night radio host Frank Sontag asked Lane:

“Are you getting a sense that there is something major going on right now?” “I do. I really feel we’re on the cusp of some kind of change,” Lane replied.

Lane said he wrote “The Artists’ Manifesto” because he felt frustrated, and looking around, he believed other artists were feeling the same way. Lane has not made much money from his art, though he would like to. He said he once had a deal with Chrysalis Records, but that fell through because he refused to perform the songs dictated by the company. He has sold three songs, one to the television show, “The Facts of Life,” but has now shifted his attention from selling his art to promoting his movement.

Today, Lane supports himself on money he saved from a street vending business he began in New York and resumed after moving to Los Angeles nine years ago. After starting out selling jewelry and belts on street corners, he became a supplier for up to 20 door-to-door salespeople.

He published his book himself and has sold almost 500 copies at $23.95 each, marketing it on book tours and by radio and television promotions. If sales take off, he hopes to hire someone to handle the administrative details so he can return to the kind of music and writing that have motivated him all his life.

The child of two academics, Lane grew up in Connecticut and has been an activist since his early teens; his family was politically radical and was caught up in the civil-rights movement.

Lane says he was not just marching to the beat of a different drummer, but, “I was hearing a whole different orchestra.”

“I wanted to write and sing about heartfelt matters, while the world was becoming fixated on acquisition and consumption,” he said.

Selling on the streets of New York made him realize that, to be successful, artists had to become smart--knowing how to maintain their integrity and learning how to promote themselves with good business skills.

“Ours is just like any other profession--we have to be skillful, we have to rehearse, we have to run the business,” he said. “As in any business, it takes a lot of work.”

Lane’s ultimate goal, which is laid out in the book, is to put artists in touch with each other through a network that would eventually stretch across the world.

The network would bring artists of similar interests together, increase artistic outlets and ultimately allow artists to regain their independence and integrity.

The organization would provide a directory of artists and a newsletter to keep all the members informed of projects. Lane also proposes an apprenticeship system through which an artist who achieves success can offer assistance to other artists.

Financing would be through membership dues, the selling of products or services and donations.

Lane acknowledges that his current roster of dues-paying members is minuscule compared to his expansive goal. So, until the movement goes global, he’s pursuing it at its smallest unit, the artists’ gathering.

Recently, Lane and several friends, including Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, held an experimental salon at a friend’s house. Lane wrote a poem to a piece of classical music; Cartwright performed an excerpt from a one-woman show she created called, “In Search of Fellini.”

“This is the perfect catalyst to get people moving on personal goals,” Cartwright said. “It inspired me to be the artist that I am, and it showed me that I have the ability to communicate through my artwork.”

Ritch Esra, a music business educator at UCLA, has been telling his students the same thing for several years. He will be using “The Artists’ Manifesto” in his class this fall.

“The book eloquently articulates the point I have been trying to convey for years: that artists must take responsibility and accountability for their careers.”