Why the Gift Economy?

First, some backstory

I’m an interdisciplinary artist known for music and performance art.

I’ve performed 300+ times and participated in 400+ additional productions.

I’m personally disappointed in money as a tool, and have spent a lot of time experimenting with ways to translate value without using it.

I want the reward for my work to sometimes come back to me in the form of things that hold value better than money.

I experiment with the gift economy for 3 main reasons:

Using only fiat to value my services sometimes cheapens my return. Often the real value of my work is overshadowed by its fiat equivalent, so if a client likes my work and opts to compensate me outside of monetary terms, it’s often more meaningful or useful to me than its dollar amount could be.
Fiat is not an effective way to trade with everyone. I work with many different types of people, which I find fulfilling. Understanding and working with this constraint of modern economies gives me the option to have greater client variety.
I want to have healthier boundaries to the sale of my time. I anticipate my cash needs so I can keep pace with the ever-degrading value of the fiat dollar, not the things fiat is traded for, and not as an attempt to win a race against inflation. The value of my time would fall alongside the value of the dollar if I were to keep them too closely entwined, and this is one of the ways I try to separate them a bit.

Things I’ve received instead of money: