'The Art of Asking:' Amanda Palmer's TED Talk

Lexington native Amanda Palmer, the musician and former Dresden Dolls frontwoman, was one of the featured speakers at this year’s TED conference.

Her talk, titled “The Art of Asking,” explores the concept of supporting art through modern-day patronage, an idea she tested and legitimized by raising more than $1 million for her latest album “Theatre is Evil,” through a Kickstarter campaign.

In her talk, which hit the interwebs earlier this week, Palmer recalls her turns as a street artist in Cambridge, and couch- and crowd-surfing in person and through social media. And how becoming "the hat" at her gigs and accepting money led to the idea of giving away her music for free, online while also asking for help for the project with her new band, the Grand Theft Orchestra. 

"I turned to crowdfunding and I fell into those thousands of connections that I had made and I asked my crowd to catch me," Palmer said during the talk. "And the goal was $100,000; my fans backed me at nearly $1.2 million, which was the biggest music crowd-funding project to date."

Palmer said it's difficult for artists to ask, but it's about building trust, and the internet offers tools to do that more fearlessly.

Watch her Palmer's TED talk here.