Pagratis: What do you know now about the business of music that you didn’t know in your 20s?

Ian: Everything. I started when I was 12. I knew nothing when I started except that I wanted to write songs. Now I actually understand...well...partly understand how the business works. That being said, my business and my industry are changing so fast that it’s next to impossible to say that you understand them with any sense of veracity at this point.

Pagratis: How has the business changed?

Ian: Boy, how has it not changed! Digital changed everything.

Pagratis: What do you know now about art that you didn’t know then?

Ian: Probably nothing. Because so much of art is connected to your talent, and I think that talent is something you’re born with.

Pagratis: Can you fabricate success and talent or do you think you are destined?

Ian: Well, I think those are two separate questions because talent and success are two separate things. I mean, you can certainly create success, and you can maximize talent, and you can have success without talent and talent without success.

Pagratis: What is your definition of success?

Ian: Work that I’m pleased with.

Pagratis: Are you a success as a businesswoman?

Ian: That’s an interesting question. Yes and no. By my life, yes. Pretty much so. Because my definition of success in my business would be the ability to earn a living doing what you love. And I’ve certainly been able to do that. Almost all my life. Somebody else might look at my career and say, “Yeah, but you turned this down and you turned that down, and you should have been a multi-billionaire by now.”

Pagratis: Are you a success as an artist?

Ian: Yes, I feel pretty good about that. I’ve worked very hard at protecting my talent and nurturing it and making the most of it.

Pagratis: Are you a success as a woman?

Ian: You know, I would never even think like that. I mean, you are a woman. That’s the end of that. You are born female. I don’t know that I would ever think, Am I successful as a woman? I’ve never doubted that I was fine as a woman. I think I’m probably fortunate that way.

Pagratis: How is The Pearl Foundation different from other organizations?

Ian: Probably in part because our cost is so low. Our annual operating cost is $175. So that’s pretty amazing. It’s really a personal foundation...the only people active in running it are myself and my partner. We get all our services donated. My partner donates the legal, I donate the time, website is donated, my accounting firm donates everything, our entire operating expense, the cost of filing every year... So, that’s unusual. I think it’s unusual in that it’s so personally tied to one person, which is my mom’s memory.

Pagratis: When did you start the foundation?

Ian: We must have started scholarships in ’98, and then we became a full-fledged foundation in 2000... So much of what we do is Internet based. Much of what we do is Paypal buttons and Amazon honours and things that we advertise on the website like the Living Room Concerts.

Pagratis: Has anyone bought The Live Concerts sold on your site?

Ian: I just did one last weekend. We’ve done about 20 now. It’s a pretty cool thing. It’s cool that 100% is tax deductible and 100% goes straight to the foundation.

Pagratis: Whose original business idea was this?

Ian: It was mine. I guess this was back in ’98 or ’97 when we did a huge website auction to raise money in my mom’s memory... I just wanted to offer something that wasn’t normally offered to people when there was an auction. So I had the idea to offer a live concert in their living room. We called it a Living Room Concert. This was before people started doing what they now call “House Concerts.” I offered it, and an Irish woman immediately put in a stupendously high bid...and then it became, oh wow, maybe we could just make this a steady thing. What I do now is I tell the fans, you are welcome to band together, like one Irish group, and one Dutch group did and one English group did. They all banded together and kicked in however much they kicked in, and they held a Living Room Concert in someone’s home, but none of them had to pay the full fee. For wealthy people that’s a drop in the bucket worth of charity.

Pagratis: It all goes to charity or scholarships?

Ian: It goes for scholarships. It’s open to men, women...we don’t care about any class, gender, nationality, none of that. The only prerequisite we put in is, we like them to have been out of school for five years or more. We wanted to limit it to people who might have a harder time getting a scholarship than an 18-year-old.

Pagratis: Do you still dare to Fly Too High?

Ian: I don’t want to race as hard as I’ve been racing, and that’s the point I’m at now. I want to stay home more, and I want to not have to worry so much about making sure staff are paid and stuff like that. I want to concentrate on being creative for a few years.

Pagratis: I noticed in your book “Society’s Child,” you would take time off to focus on creativity...

Ian: It’s always hard to find a balance between the necessity of earning a living and the necessity of creating the thing that earns that living, which in my case is writing—and the necessity of time to just grow. As cliché as that sounds, to grow as a human being and as an artist.

Pagratis: What is the ideal situation for The Pearl Foundation? Where would you like to see it?

Ian: I would like to see it steadily raising enough money to endow a scholarship or two a year. That would be fantastic. We don’t raise that kind of money at this point because scholarships are so expensive. But we’ve been able to endow a scholarship or a partial scholarship at least every three years, usually, every two.

Pagratis: How much would be required to endow two scholarships a year?

Ian: Anywhere between $30 000 and $100 000 a year. And we try to work with the poorer schools, in the poorer areas now...even if they’re only getting $500; that $500 makes a huge difference.

Pagratis: Looking at the whole, have you made songs for the ages? You said in your book that you wanted to touch the ages.

Ian: I really wanted to touch people, touch people’s hearts. Looking at it as a business owner, if I wanted to do business and not be creative, I could probably make a lot more money, exploiting myself, just doing business at this point. Because there’s three or four hundred songs sitting there, and 24, I think, records. The business to me is a means to an end. Business is so I can generate enough money to stay home and write. This is normally the opposite of how most business people look at it. If I can, in addition to that, have something like a foundation, that’s just icing on the cake.

Pagratis: You sound very polite in your book and yet you seem to embrace the phrase “rude girl.”

Ian: I think it depends on what your definition of rudeness is. When I was a kid, it was rude to be anti-war. It was rude to tell someone that you didn’t want a 30 dollar dinner because your mother could feed the family for a week on that. That was considered rude. I don’t know that I’m polite so much as since I’ve gotten older, I would hope that I’ve gotten more gracious. It all depends on your definition. Words are really important to me. I consider words very carefully before they come out of my mouth or out of my pen. So, if I seem gracious in the book, it’s because I love language and I want to be very clear when I use it.

Pagratis: At one point in the book you realize that your words can make things happen fast...

Ian: Yes, it’s a pretty scary thought. And yet, what a cool thing that you can do that with just words.

Pagratis: What else would you like to accomplish?

Ian: I’d like to write a great young adult book. I’m a big young adult fan.

Pagratis: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Ian: Sure, thanks...I’ll see you in Canada. Pagratis: See you soon.

INTERVIEWED BY MAGGIE PAGRATIS

For more information on Janis Ian, her books, music and The Pearl Foundation, visit www.janisian.com.