I just read an article that got me thinking about a subject that is never far from my mind these days. I know it occupies space in the majority of other artists' minds and hearts so I thought I'd share. Feel free to share this yourself if it resonates with you.
I am an artist. That's my profession. I work hard and I get paid very little in reward. But this isn't an article about self-pity. Don't get my wrong; I love my 'job', and I love what I do, and if faced with a choice to go back to 9 - 5 working for someone else with better pay, I really don't think I would do it. But this is an article about the realities of being a working artist. That is, a regular working artist, not one who is well known and can ask a high price for each individual piece of work without too much worry about where the next payment is coming from.
The article I read was talking about exposure vs. payment for art jobs. About the multitude of places out there who will be more than happy to have you work for them, be present at places, do artwork for 'exposure', but when you ask for or expect payment, they suddenly regress. Asking for money for what you do does not come easy to me certainly. But it is becoming more and more apparent that if I don't, people will simply expect that I don't need payment. Or expect that payment needn't be very much. When someone asks for a commission, or asks a price on work you have already created they have a figure in their head already. You have a couple of choices as an artist; to take on the work at the price they are prepared to pay regardless of the amount of work it may be, or to give them a realistic figure and in all likelihood have them say no and look elsewhere.
People can go to Ikea, Target even KMart these days, and get very cheap 'artwork' that will happily sit on their wall until the next decor change. When they ask you to create something or like something you have on your website, they often don't understand why they can pay $50 for something in a store, and you are asking $500 or $1500 or whatever the amount may be. So to dispel the notion that I as an artist love my job so much that I will give away the fruits of my labour, I am going to outline just how much work I do, what goes into a typical commission process and roughly what my per-hour wage would be if I broke it down.
When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is make coffee. My world does not function in any workable capacity without caffeine. So once my coffee is in hand, I check business emails and business social media accounts. I flag anything that needs replying to, I reply to comments on social media, and sometimes I post a photo to get the day started. And before anyone says that's not work, let me remind you that in this day and age, you must have a social media presence in order to be successful. Your customers are out there in cyberspace, not in your living room or art studio. So it's just another aspect of marketing, and a very important one at that.
While drinking my coffee I check my Etsy store, and reply to conversations and requests from people on there, even though a large portion of replies I make will never even be acknowledged. Most people simply don't bother replying to you if you don't give them the price they are looking for. But I take great care in my responses to people, and I will always respond with cheerfulness and honesty.
I then usually have to break to take my children to school and clean up, but I am back 'at work' within a couple of hours at most. I spend a large portion of time drawing or painting obviously and those portions of my day are the most enjoyable. When I get to just create. Usually I am working on multiple projects at once. At the moment I have three commissions/custom orders still being worked on, and two completed in the last week-ish. Plus work I am doing to put up for sale. Then there is the time it takes to properly photograph artwork, to store it, to package it, and to physically ship it.
I spend a large amount of time researching art, researching marketing, making notes, adjusting ads, changing and updating store listings to make sure they are reaching enough people. I email and converse with people about their orders and generally a back and forth email chain makes sure that they are getting what they want. A typical commission process involves a potential client contacting me with a request. I respond with a general fee guideline and timeline. They give me more specific requirements and I lock in a price and guarantee a time. I begin work, then show them the work in progress. They generally want changes, which I accommodate. I show them the work again, and usually more changes are requested which are again accommodated. After as many changes as necessary the work is finished, and either posted, couriered or delivered, or they pick it up.
I usually spend more time in the evenings uploading work to my store, drawing new ideas in my sketchbook, researching more art, researching more marketing, applying more marketing techniques to my ads and store, and then I go to bed and it begins again the next day. Weekends are not exempt from this routine, and I generally feel guilty if I haven't done any 'work' that day.
On average, if you factor in everything that is done for 'the business', I spend around 9 hours a day working as a minimum, and that doesn't include time spent teaching in lessons or workshops or classes. An average painting that I may charge $1000 for will take between 40 and 80 hours to complete depending on the level of detail. And often times, when a client asks for a particular thing, you don't know exactly how much detail it will take. What you think looks great with a lesser amount of detail, may not be to the clients' taste and you may have to add much more. A work you think you might have to do a large amount of detail in, might in fact only need a small amount when you are working on it. Art is very much a 'see how it progresses' kind of profession.
So you have to pick a figure from somewhere. So if you charge $1000 and it takes you 40 hours to complete the actual painting, that's $25 per hour. But if you take 80 hours to complete it, that's $12.50 an hour. And those figures only apply if you don't factor in any of the other 'stuff' you do for the business. So when you look at the 9 hours a day you're already working, you need to fit in this new work somewhere in order to get paid. So that 40 hours might in reality take 4 weeks to complete. So if you complete 1 of those average commissions in a month, plus a few sales online, say around $500, you are receiving $1500 for 250 ish hours work. So you are earning $6 an hour. No superannuation, no sick days, no holiday pay and no job security. You could charge more, but you have less clients who are willing to pay more.
So why do it? Because you love it. Because art feeds your soul and sometimes your wallet. But next time someone gives you a figure for something that you think looks easy or should be quick to do, or you want an artist to do something because 'it'll be great exposure!', maybe think a little about the actual time involved and the actual person creating it, rather than your own bottom line. Art needs to be loved and appreciated, but so do the artists who are creating that art for you.
So that's my little rant for today. I wouldn't switch being an artist for anything, hard work and all. I love being as busy as I am, and I love the lifestyle I have, even if that means not having much money. I get to take my kids to school myself, I don't have to put my baby girl in daycare, and I can be flexible with my schedule. And maybe one day my hours of hard work will pay off in a much larger financial way, but for now I am happy. And I guess that's the biggest upside of all right? Being able to truly say "I love my job".
I am an artist. That's my profession. I work hard and I get paid very little in reward. But this isn't an article about self-pity. Don't get my wrong; I love my 'job', and I love what I do, and if faced with a choice to go back to 9 - 5 working for someone else with better pay, I really don't think I would do it. But this is an article about the realities of being a working artist. That is, a regular working artist, not one who is well known and can ask a high price for each individual piece of work without too much worry about where the next payment is coming from.
The article I read was talking about exposure vs. payment for art jobs. About the multitude of places out there who will be more than happy to have you work for them, be present at places, do artwork for 'exposure', but when you ask for or expect payment, they suddenly regress. Asking for money for what you do does not come easy to me certainly. But it is becoming more and more apparent that if I don't, people will simply expect that I don't need payment. Or expect that payment needn't be very much. When someone asks for a commission, or asks a price on work you have already created they have a figure in their head already. You have a couple of choices as an artist; to take on the work at the price they are prepared to pay regardless of the amount of work it may be, or to give them a realistic figure and in all likelihood have them say no and look elsewhere.
People can go to Ikea, Target even KMart these days, and get very cheap 'artwork' that will happily sit on their wall until the next decor change. When they ask you to create something or like something you have on your website, they often don't understand why they can pay $50 for something in a store, and you are asking $500 or $1500 or whatever the amount may be. So to dispel the notion that I as an artist love my job so much that I will give away the fruits of my labour, I am going to outline just how much work I do, what goes into a typical commission process and roughly what my per-hour wage would be if I broke it down.
When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is make coffee. My world does not function in any workable capacity without caffeine. So once my coffee is in hand, I check business emails and business social media accounts. I flag anything that needs replying to, I reply to comments on social media, and sometimes I post a photo to get the day started. And before anyone says that's not work, let me remind you that in this day and age, you must have a social media presence in order to be successful. Your customers are out there in cyberspace, not in your living room or art studio. So it's just another aspect of marketing, and a very important one at that.
While drinking my coffee I check my Etsy store, and reply to conversations and requests from people on there, even though a large portion of replies I make will never even be acknowledged. Most people simply don't bother replying to you if you don't give them the price they are looking for. But I take great care in my responses to people, and I will always respond with cheerfulness and honesty.
I then usually have to break to take my children to school and clean up, but I am back 'at work' within a couple of hours at most. I spend a large portion of time drawing or painting obviously and those portions of my day are the most enjoyable. When I get to just create. Usually I am working on multiple projects at once. At the moment I have three commissions/custom orders still being worked on, and two completed in the last week-ish. Plus work I am doing to put up for sale. Then there is the time it takes to properly photograph artwork, to store it, to package it, and to physically ship it.
I spend a large amount of time researching art, researching marketing, making notes, adjusting ads, changing and updating store listings to make sure they are reaching enough people. I email and converse with people about their orders and generally a back and forth email chain makes sure that they are getting what they want. A typical commission process involves a potential client contacting me with a request. I respond with a general fee guideline and timeline. They give me more specific requirements and I lock in a price and guarantee a time. I begin work, then show them the work in progress. They generally want changes, which I accommodate. I show them the work again, and usually more changes are requested which are again accommodated. After as many changes as necessary the work is finished, and either posted, couriered or delivered, or they pick it up.
I usually spend more time in the evenings uploading work to my store, drawing new ideas in my sketchbook, researching more art, researching more marketing, applying more marketing techniques to my ads and store, and then I go to bed and it begins again the next day. Weekends are not exempt from this routine, and I generally feel guilty if I haven't done any 'work' that day.
On average, if you factor in everything that is done for 'the business', I spend around 9 hours a day working as a minimum, and that doesn't include time spent teaching in lessons or workshops or classes. An average painting that I may charge $1000 for will take between 40 and 80 hours to complete depending on the level of detail. And often times, when a client asks for a particular thing, you don't know exactly how much detail it will take. What you think looks great with a lesser amount of detail, may not be to the clients' taste and you may have to add much more. A work you think you might have to do a large amount of detail in, might in fact only need a small amount when you are working on it. Art is very much a 'see how it progresses' kind of profession.
So you have to pick a figure from somewhere. So if you charge $1000 and it takes you 40 hours to complete the actual painting, that's $25 per hour. But if you take 80 hours to complete it, that's $12.50 an hour. And those figures only apply if you don't factor in any of the other 'stuff' you do for the business. So when you look at the 9 hours a day you're already working, you need to fit in this new work somewhere in order to get paid. So that 40 hours might in reality take 4 weeks to complete. So if you complete 1 of those average commissions in a month, plus a few sales online, say around $500, you are receiving $1500 for 250 ish hours work. So you are earning $6 an hour. No superannuation, no sick days, no holiday pay and no job security. You could charge more, but you have less clients who are willing to pay more.
So why do it? Because you love it. Because art feeds your soul and sometimes your wallet. But next time someone gives you a figure for something that you think looks easy or should be quick to do, or you want an artist to do something because 'it'll be great exposure!', maybe think a little about the actual time involved and the actual person creating it, rather than your own bottom line. Art needs to be loved and appreciated, but so do the artists who are creating that art for you.
So that's my little rant for today. I wouldn't switch being an artist for anything, hard work and all. I love being as busy as I am, and I love the lifestyle I have, even if that means not having much money. I get to take my kids to school myself, I don't have to put my baby girl in daycare, and I can be flexible with my schedule. And maybe one day my hours of hard work will pay off in a much larger financial way, but for now I am happy. And I guess that's the biggest upside of all right? Being able to truly say "I love my job".
