What can Miami’s creative world get from Kickstarter? The CEO has a message
The crowd gathering at Miami Beach’s SCOPE Art Show wasn’t only interested in seeing the works on display. They also wanted to hear about the business side of the art world.
And Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor was in the house to deliver.
Appearing at a Miami Art Week event in December, Taylor focused on how artists can get funding to get started and keep it going.
“The beautiful thing about Kickstarter is it starts to level the playing field for us,” Taylor told the Miami Herald. “It’s tough for us to be commercially successful as artists. It’s allowing us to build our own communities and not have to rely on structures that existed before.”
Kickstarter allows users to raise money for creative endeavors, including art and film. The company launched in 2009, and helps creators get paid by their fans and supporters.
An artist’s followers can invest in projects and get updates about the evolving work. The funding serves as seed money to get projects off of the ground.
Taylor, 36, joined New York-based Kickstarter in September 2022 after a stint as chief marketing officer at Artsy, an online art selling platform. He also has collected art for about a decade. Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, he was interested in art, but collecting was expensive.
“I remember growing up in the ‘hood and if you were an artsy kid, you were lame,” he said. “Now, the artsy kids are the cool kids.”
Chicago artist Hebru Brantley is far from lame. Brantley has raised nearly $175,000 from almost 600 supporters on Kickstarter since June to develop his graphic novel, “Flyboy.”
Initially, Brantley was hesitant to use the crowdfunding tool because of how it could affect his perception as a fine artist. But raising almost $75,000 and reaching his initial funding goal in less than two hours — well, that quickly changed his mind.
“Once I did it, it unlocked a lot and showed me that there is a bigger audience out there that’s ready to invest and feel a part of something that you create,” he said. “I think that’s a powerful thing and a very unique activity.”
Brantley launched his Kickstarter this year and spent seven years developing a world guide for the “Flyboy” universe. Creators can create different tiers of financial support for their campaigns, and Brantley has nine tiers of his Kickstarter that range in price from $30 to $15,000.
The financial support from the project’s Kickstarter makes working with and paying collaborators that much easier for Brantley.
Brantley recruited Cody Ziglar, a Black writer who has worked on “Futurama,” to pen the series. Miami native and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” alum Sadaj Shah will illustrate it.
“It’s been a long time coming and has been in my head for so long,” Brantley said. “I’m excited for people to see and experience the world.”
Taylor is excited about the possibilities that artists across media have to create independent, financially supported work. A recent partnership with media streaming platform Tubi allowed 10 filmmakers to receive $10,000 pledges to their Kickstarter campaigns and guaranteed distribution on Tubi, which is owned by Fox and had 97 million active users as of January 2025.
“A filmmaker [told me], ‘I didn’t have to go through all of these changes on my film and I was able to submit a film that was my vision,’ ” Taylor said.
After his chat at Miami Art Week, Taylor walked around the SCOPE Art Show to take in the showcased work. But he didn’t walk far before he was stopped by an art collector or artist.
He appreciated each story, and took solace in how today’s artists don’t have to be “starving artists.”
“The thing that’s most extraordinary about the artists now, is that they believe in themselves,” he said. “Now they truly believe they can do that. With platforms like Kickstarter, they can truly build a career for themselves in the art world for as a creator.”
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