Kickstarter was already up and going when I got the Fellowship. Spending time with the other Fellows was about camaraderie, and I talked to a lot of amazing and creative people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I really like Kickstarter because you don't have to be a Medici to fund the arts and sciences or to get behind a big idea or a person that sparks your imagination. It's a type of microfunding directed toward creators.
I have a very warm feeling about Kickstarter 'cause I think it's the best of what we can be. It's people who actually help out our fellow artists. We actually kind of go into our pocket for something. It's very rare.
With Kickstarter, people are patrons of the arts. With Mosaic, people can be clean-energy investors like Warren Buffett.
Those projects most successful on Kickstarter - those that receive funding completely and quickly - do so largely because the creator has a strong social network and invites people to be engaged.
I remember early on, in the first couple of years especially, I would run into some people that would try to put Kickstarter under the 'social good' label. And I actually had this very visceral reaction - I just didn't like that at all.
To be told you've won a MacArthur fellowship is very flattering and gratifying personally.
We'd love it if everybody had a Kickstarter project. I believe that everyone has some kind of creative project that they think about - whether it's something small they'd like to do over a weekend with friends, or it's the film they've always wanted to make, whatever.
One of the first things that I did was, I got myself a publicist as soon as 'Maria Full of Grace' premiered in July, so that I could go and meet people that I wanted to meet: the writers and the directors and the people that are doing things.
I found it very helpful not to do the venture round. Instead, I started with very little money, a few thousand dollars, and I did every job myself. I was the first photographer. I was the first customer service rep. I was the first online marketing person.
Kickstarter has been such a heads-down thing.