Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...

[Nightshade]

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

Some things? Yep, went precisely as he describes: pick up something as a lark and within a year, holy shit, it's my job.

I have to correct this, since by no means did I pick up something "as a lark," I approached it with serious determination and that is the only reason I succeeded. It's actually nothing short of a miracle that I did, and required breathing sleeping dreaming eating and immersing in the profession without time to do anything else.

I have also done this in two different mediums (art and music performance) so I would know what I'm talking about. Of course, it's just my personal experience. Someone else might've gone a different route, had enough time to develop gradually and had the luxury of going to school for it. I didn't, I had to piss blood.

[surreality]

@nightshade said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

I also thought it would be useful to share my perspective, since it might be helpful and refreshing to someone trying to break into the art world. Don't need to repeat my mistakes if you can learn from them.

(First, thank you.) This I agree with. If someone is looking for a 'foot in the door' opportunity? Yeah, I even said -- coolness. Go for it.

There is some damage that can be done by this, still, though. Partly this is the whole 'customer inexperience' problem. "I paid $100 for this the last time when I got a similar thing from someone else, WTF you want $600?" If I heard one more time about how somebody's cousin would make it for less as an attempt to get me to drop a price -- and let's be real, they would never actually be asking the cousin to do it, it's almost always a request for the thing in hand right now at less than cost... it's one of those 'if I had a nickel every time' issues, I could retire now.

Photographer friends deal with this constantly. I dealt with it in jewelry all the time and still do. (Jewelry has the added bonus of people assuming that your labor is completely free, profits are not a thing, and they are literally just paying for nothing but the raw materials as though they were buying a bag of beads and metal and gemstones; this is very ugh.) And so on.

I did end up with a lot of jobs based on something I started just because it looked cool. I'm just not a person who does things by half measures pretty much ever. Dyeing? Went to a class. My teacher had me selling with her at shows in under a year and could easily have made more than my husband at his more traditional job inside a year. (Health went tits up.) The 3D texture stuff I did, from first 'eh, I'll give it a shot' to 9 months in, I was a top seller in at the premiere venue for that particular sub-genre of 3D. Hell, I've had weird art jobs. Most of them came about due to working to learn one really well while still doing another, and a lot of people do this.

My best -- and I mean best -- teacher was in illustration. For that group, at least, I was his pet example because I'm obsessive re: level of finish (read: anal-retentive perfectionism) and that's what most other folks lacked. (A lot of folks I went to school with half-assed it between parties, and frankly, that shit's never gonna work even if someone does it for 20 years. Whether somebody goes to school for it or studies independently, 'give a shit' is a required trait.)

He was very successful; he's worked for MTV, did one of our US team designs for the Olympics in China, worked for a number of well-known national brands, etc. He's the pinnacle of 'has to turn more work down than he accepts', and dude was amazing. Work was amazing, dude was amazing.

Dude also sat me down at the portfolio review at the end of the year, and grumped in my face about how while I was his best student that year (and dude also taught at Pratt, so holy shit, I turned purple), I should really be doing something else, because illustration very visibly made me miserable, and the thing I'd handed him as a fill-in project for a week I missed (which was in another fringe media I was just hail mary'ing would count) is what I should be doing, because, in his words, "This is the only thing you've ever handed me with a smile on your face."

So it's layered, and it's weird, but there's actually quite a bit that's relevant.

(I did end up diving into that other thing for a few years, and did weirdly well, but it didn't stick because twenty-something chicks with technicolor hair and a customer base made of rich blue-haired old ladies just doesn't quite click in some profoundly fucked up ways. I still do it now and then as a 'because I love it' thing, just never commercially, even though that market has changed drastically in the past 20 years and the current customer base looks one heck of a lot more like me these days.)

[Nightshade]

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

@nightshade said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

I also thought it would be useful to share my perspective, since it might be helpful and refreshing to someone trying to break into the art world. Don't need to repeat my mistakes if you can learn from them.

(First, thank you.) This I agree with. If someone is looking for a 'foot in the door' opportunity? Yeah, I even said -- coolness. Go for it.

Thank you for sharing your experience as well. Yeah, there were some points where we did agree.

There is some damage that can be done by this, still, though. Partly this is the whole 'customer inexperience' problem. "I paid $100 for this the last time when I got a similar thing from someone else, WTF you want $600?" If I heard one more time about how somebody's cousin would make it for less as an attempt to get me to drop a price -- and let's be real, they would never actually be asking the cousin to do it, it's almost always a request for the thing in hand right now at less than cost... it's one of those 'if I had a nickel every time' issues, I could retire now.

Yeah.... on one hand, I agree. On the other hand...

"I paid $100 for this the last time when I got a similar thing from someone else, WTF you want $600?"

"Sure, go to that other person. I've got 2 more projects I'm working on right now, and I'm being paid 600$ for them, so I can't afford to do anything cheaper, sorry."

Or you think hard and long whether you need that 100$ and you suck it up and do it, because it's drought for other projects and you have rent to pay. Sometimes necessity will dictate flexibility, sadly.

But I think my point is just, to have more perspective. We all know the "computer guy" who gets badgered by neighbors and acquaintances to fix their virus-laden machine for free. It's really not just arts. You have to learn to set limits, but also understand when it's better to be flexible. Whether you're 17 or older, with no prior work experience, you can benefit greatly from being the computer guy. You do it for free the first few times, then you start charging a little, then you learn enough to get hired by a company that does that stuff... It can be a lead up to a career.

One thing I wouldn't do though, is unpaid internships. That's complete bullshit. A company that does this is not a company I wanna work at. I'd rather work at a smaller place than be a cog in such a machine.

Mainly, I dislike this way of putting artists on a pedestal. I remember working on some underpaid jobs and half-assing them because of it, and it makes me so embarrassed with my past self. Now I realize I should've been more humble and grateful. There's a tendency to regard artists as these ineffable creatures of talent who are somehow special, and if an artist buys into this, it can be severely damaging to their success.

I've had people tell me, "Oh, how lucky you are. I wish someone would pay me to do art for a living." I had to laugh because luck and talent had nothing to do with it. Just hard work, eating shit, making compromises.

[surreality]

@nightshade said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

There's a tendency to regard artists as these ineffable creatures of talent who are somehow special, and if an artist buys into this, it can be severely damaging to their success.

This is the one spot where we disagree some, because the next bit -- the 'oh how I wish' attitude -- is problematic because, yeah, it is not just some magic that somebody yanks out of their butt. I've probably been luckier on the 'magic out of my butt' than a lot of folks I've known (mostly due to being raised in an environment full of artsy bastards who encouraged me to draw and sew and all the rest before I could even read) but I've still worked my ass off, and I don't think there's anything I do at all that anybody else is incapable of doing, and doing just as well with the work put in to doing it.

It's the 'having the will to do it until they do it just as well' that tends to be lacking, and it's a lot of what Awesome Teacher was talking about.

Some things do get it worse than others. A lot of the fine arts, or illustration, people see the learning curve more than they do with photography, jewelry stuff, the costume stuff I actually formally studied, etc.

That really does make a big difference, because many can't really tell the difference between the costume their cousin made for their kids from a commercial pattern for Halloween and the masquerade gala outfit somebody made from scratch, etc. other than 'it's fancier', and there's this assumption that with fancier materials, Cousin Jane could do the same thing just as easily, when it's just not at all the case. Cousin Jane absolutely could do it! ...if Cousin Jane learned the skills required to actually do it.

While I agree re: tell them to hire the other guy, or that sometimes that is a necessary lifeline it's handy to have, it isn't always that easy.

And it's not even always about the work, which is the aggravating part. I've been selling jewelry since I was... 10? 12? Somewhere in there. My mother was doing it as a side hobby, so 'Oooh, I wanna, too!' and I was bringing in more money at it than she was before I even hit high school. I still go back to it on the regular with lots of style changes and whatnot, but I take a professional approach to it in ways she didn't. I'm that person who insisted we take plastic, for instance, when she'd considered this absurd. (Our sales tripled.) I'm that person who insisted we get professional quality displays. (She refused. I'm now stuck footing the bill for them solo, and with less chance to fund that, as the shitty homebrew bullshit she concocted got us booted from the most profitable shows we did and were left with ONE, and I get to rebuild all of those relationships from near scratch, whee.) The differences in just approach alone are pretty big, and the difference they can make is also pretty big. That said, since I finally had the first bits of the displays that weren't kitbash half-assed bullshit, we managed to sell pretty dang well at our last show. Of the three jewelers in our section? All about on par in quality? Yeah, we outsold both of them by a mile. Their prices were lower than mine, on average. We got a last minute invitation to do another show the next weekend among a group of local artists that's damned near impossible to break into (quirky mini-town started as an artists' commun(e)ity; people living outside of it, even though it's no longer that really and hasn't been during my lifetime, just do not get asked ever -- yeah, one of those) that we never expected, too.

So... there is luck, and it helps. There's certainly shitty luck, too, and it... unhelps. But all the luck in either direction isn't ultimately going to go too far.

There are people who really will try to take advantage, either out of innocent ignorance or just being assholes. I don't tend to see people trying to explain 'hey, you know, this is actual work, and not secret effortless butt-yank magic' as putting artists on a pedestal so much as I see them trying to prevent the ignorance part of this equation through education. I mean, we're on the internet, and so we've seen this argument two bajillion times, yeah, so it's not going to be new news to somebody most of the time. It's stunning how many people I see face to face who none of this has ever occurred to before, though, and it's still a real problem.

A lot of people undervalue their work, too. One of the other jewelry artists in the room with me -- one of the people who did not do as well -- was, IMHO? WAY better than me. (We do very different things, so it's easy enough for each of us to feel that way about the other, which we did, but that's neither here nor there.) He had a ring I adored, and so help me, he would not allow me to pay retail for it, which I later overheard he did for everyone else, too. Which is sweet, but by gods, I wanted to shake the man until something rattled. He barely brought in $500 for the weekend. Ouch.

[mietze]

Just because someone has talent, skill, and training does not mean that they are willing or capable of being a good businessperson.

A lot of skilled professionals can compensate for this by working for someone who does have business accumen and can take care of that framework. Many visual arts folks don’t have as many opportunities for that.

I saw this a lot in massage as well. Despite being handicapped by starting my business pregnant, and thus unable to use all the tools I had for building my biz, I managed to stay in the black for over 3 years because I had a good background in business stuff thanks to running non profits as a volunteer. I know people immensely more talented than me that couldn’t keep their own place because they couldn’t handle even keeping deadlines straight for business license renewal, or massively overcharged or undercharged based on their actual costs and clients.

A lot of people are super uncomfortable dealing with money or asking for money, and I think that probably arts programs spend about as much time on entrepreneur skill building as part of their instruction as most massage schools do—slim to none.

So I don’t know i would put the blame on individuals seeking to hire an artist or what not (most people have no clue how to evaluate value) or artists who make the decision about price point when they’re inexperienced or inept. It’s a very tricky thing to figure out price point and valuing and negotiating things even if you do have a good head for biz...and many many many creative people don’t have the patience for it.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

Partly this is the whole 'customer inexperience' problem. "I paid $100 for this the last time when I got a similar thing from someone else, WTF you want $600?" If I heard one more time about how somebody's cousin would make it for less as an attempt to get me to drop a price -- and let's be real, they would never actually be asking the cousin to do it, it's almost always a request for the thing in hand right now at less than cost... it's one of those 'if I had a nickel every time' issues, I could retire now.

The entirety of what you're getting at seems to be "customer inexperience," which is a nice way of saying "customer idiocy" and/or "the usual American attitude of trying to get something for less than its value through force or fraud."

(By the way, I didn't make that up; an American economist pointed this out over 100 years ago, and it was as apt then as it is today.)

There is, or was, literally nothing wrong with looking to see if anyone would do work for less than time value, as far as I'm concerned. If I charged value for every niggling thing people asked me about the law, I'd be a lot richer and happier. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's willing to give up their skill and intellect for less than value, that's their choice.

And, in my opinion, artists, like lawyers, have the right to turn down business without being bullied or intimidated or shamed for sticking up for themselves, but choosing to do so doesn't give license to launching yourself at those who are willing to do things au gratis or for less than value. This is how business has worked since time in memoriam.

But if you're going to do something, do it right, do it well, and do it professionally, regardless of compensation. You choose fruit; you live with fruit.

But customers are fucking morons. I know this; you know this; we all know this.

[Insomnia]

My bad, I forgot this is 2017 and people don't actually read content anymore, they just automatically jump to being outraged and offended.

Thank you to those of you who did reach out in PMs, I believe I've answered them all, but I won't be following this thread further, so please get back to me in pms!

[surreality]

@Ganymede That's the first thing I addressed, though:

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

And if somebody's a novice, or does it as a hobby alone for free because they enjoy it, cool. If they feel inclined to do something pro bono or at a discounted rate because they like the idea or want to do a friend a favor, also cool. If they want to take a low payment for exposure and promotion, cool. A lot of this does actually have a detrimental impact on professionals, but there is a level of 'it isn't on us to control what other people do because they want to be doing it' to suck up and deal about.

It has some bad impact -- but nobody has any right to tell them to not do it. I mean, that was statement #1 in this whole thing. If somebody loves doing <thing> so much that they really do it all for the love, I'm the last person to take a crap on their head, even if it does have consequences for me personally.

If you mean the dude I mention definitely underselling I mentioned, though? He charged me barely above materials cost for the piece. And they're inexpensive materials. Dude wasn't doing this out of love, he was doing it to make a living wage, and his idea of what he can live on is a lot less than most of us. (He immigrated from a small town in Argentina where he was living in conditions I don't think anyone on this board would ever be able to handle -- we talked for a while. He isn't looking for anything more than a tiny studio apartment in an inexpensive area with his two (totally adorable) sons, and the guy knows how to stretch every penny to the fullest.) His work is sincerely gallery quality. People making similar pieces were charging 5x what I paid for the ring I bought, and up from there.

Most people doing jewelry work will by some parts as standard items. Simple stuff -- earwires, clasps, etc. He made all of them by hand. Every silver chain on his table made to go with his pendants was linked by hand with tiny tiny links -- and every one was soldered and sanded. (I do some chain work and this is... we will just dub it 'whoa and beyond'.) Even the simple braided leather 'chains' we see all the time for things that are the cheap options for a pendant all over the place? Nope, he was hand braiding them all out of the finest weight leather cord I had ever seen -- I was watching him do this during downtime -- and still only asking the $5 for them you pay retail for a mass-produced, machined item.

He felt he had to do this, to go to this extreme that most don't bother with not just because he could, but that he felt it was 'the way it should be done'. Mind-blowing work ethic, and this is workaholic girl talking. It's even more expensive to do it his way, not just for labor, too!

Dude had mines some of the metal himself before he immigrated. I'm not even kidding.

So I now have a $40 ring that I am always going to both treasure and feel incredibly sad about at the same time. He wasn't just blowing smoke about having mined the copper himself to talk up the price, either. It has some purchased materials, but those are silver and actual gold leaf, neither of which are cheap. Entirely hand made, fine work, truly created from the ground up. Even made some of the tools to do it with himself. I mean, for sheer awe factor? It is impossible to not have immense respect for this relatively simple object. (And it's not super simple; aesthetically it's gorgeous. If I'd made what I made the year before, I would have bought enough to cover every knuckle on my hand, no lie.)

I mean, seriously. Because while I'm not skilled at all in metalwork? I knew exactly what he'd put into that piece. And it was considerable. (There's a reason artists, even when broke, end up being the best customers of fellow artists.)

He would genuinely not take more money for this. I tried. Nope, just, "You understand what it is, that is special and rare, won't take another penny." The structure and design is deceptively simple; if I hadn't tried my hand (and failed horribly) at doing similar? I might not realize this. And that's the kind of thing that I would rather see people being rewarded for recognizing, rather than me getting a discount for understanding.

Re: the 'My cousin could totally make this', we eventually found a 'solution' of sorts. Because I would always be asked, "Explain how you did it," sometimes to the extent of asking for me to email them a pdf of an illustrated step by step to recreate my design precisely, with a 'to buy' list that would have included things that were not available for sale, being either vintage or components made by fellow artists and incorporated into the piece. (No, really. This was not a one-off experience, either. It was common enough that we had to make a policy, so to speak.) It was: "My teaching rate is $20/hour; take a card and give your cousin the info, and we can set up a time." (And for anybody curious, that is super dirt cheap for one-on-one mentorship and teaching.) Because, really? I'm totally cool with the idea of showing people how to do it. I'm just not going to teach a skill that took me hundreds of hours of trial and error for nothing so someone can just weasel their way into a discount.

I could tell stories about how that has gone over the years, but they're pretty depressing, with few exceptions. I've been lucky enough to find good teachers, and while I'm not a good teacher for a crowd, I'm actually great walking someone through things step by step in a way customized to precisely the things they're interested in regarding things I know. I wouldn't even care if they then made a hundred of the thing to become direct competition.

For a lot of the stuff I do, I also stick to minimal markup. I went through the art business seminars and classes in various places, but I also recognize that my work is fuss-intensive (perfectionist 'finish' streak) and that can crank labor costs through the roof if I'm not sensible about them. That said, training and experience ultimately bring those down because they become (dun dun dun) rote after a while. (The hardest thing about teaching is pausing to explain the things I 'just do' because after years of trial and error, because they're so ingrained and automatic they are not conscious steps in the process.)

@Insomia Sincere apologies for the derail. This is a subject very near to the heart for me, and one I am in the official season of dealing with on a near-daily basis. I know your heart is absolutely in the right place and I do think the project you're proposing will provide some great exposure to anyone who picks it up.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede

I will put the generalized groups of Indians and some Africans (I have yet to work out which region) as far worse than Americans in trying to defraud you one on one, though I don’t have the studies to back this up, just face to face. There is a lot of smiling and laughing with the Indians, but the moment I can get through this particular trope of person that I mean it when I say “I don’t haggle”. I know that it’s cultural, and I have run into European Americans that do this oh yes, but it’s still common enough that I have to regularly reset my expectations.

“Resetting negative expectations” is one of the more valuable skills I have learned.

[mietze]

I guess I don’t understand why you shouldn’t cherish something that was given to you at just above cost, by someone who wanted to do so. Sometimes people do make the choice to do that especially for people they feel appreciate it. I mean I do understand somewhat impulse for guilt, but I think it is a shame that might taint the enjoyment of a piece.

I have set up my chair at tent city and refused all donations other than a promise to pay it forward in some way if people really wanted to give me something. If I billed for time there probably I could have/“should have” made around $1500 during that time I spend there while they were close (and for typical outcall/location clients I’d have charged a lot more). I did it because I wanted to, and because I knew the people who would sign up for it did so because they needed the touch, the body work, the pain relief, whatever and it was my privilege to work with them. I always offered an insane discount to other body workers for the same reason.

It’s wonderful to have your work respected, to be paid fairly for it, and to put idiots in their place who disrespect you. (I too have heard my share of “well my kid/aunt Susie/grandpa/friend/partner gives backrubs all the time and doesn’t charge people $60!” Or “show me that trick/how to do that release, etc!”). But I don’t know. If I had done the equivalent of mining my own metals (I guess...ummmm squeezing my own coconuts or whatever I’d grown myself and combining them with the oils I’d distilled from gardening for a specific oil blend tailored to my client?) you better damn well believe that I’d choose to perform that on someone who maybe wasn’t able to shell out $500/hr but could and would as a fellow artist/worker/etc appreciate and bask in it.

[surreality]

@mietze

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

So I now have a $40 ring that I am always going to both treasure and feel incredibly sad about at the same time.

Again... this has been said. I know I'm wordy, but come on, this is two in a damn row, y'all, and that isn't cool.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

Again... this has been said. I know I'm wordy, but come on, this is two in a damn row, y'all, and that isn't cool.

Succinctly, if you want to make a concise point then you could try to employ verbal parsimony.

That said, I didn't read anything in what you wrote that contradicted what I wrote, which is that any negative impact underselling may have to professionals is due to customer inexperience/idiocy/greed.

It happens in what I do all the damned time, and there's a part of me that wants to shake the potential clients and tell them that you always get what you pay for. And then I'm getting yelled at by opposing counsel because I take over a case that's been fucked since its inception because the previous lawyer had no clue what he was doing.

Customers are generally ignorant and stupid. I wish I had better things to say about them.

[mietze]

Why be sad over a freely given gift though. Unless the person is either ignorant or somehow deficient which it doesn’t seem either is at play here.

Hence my...well, irritation is too strong of a word for it, but it’s in that vein, of people who jump all over people laying out their asked for rate on either side. If you don’t want to work for an unprofessional rate, you shouldn’t and you shouldn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. But IMO neither should you assume that someone who chooses to is doing so for WRONG!!!! reasons. You just don’t know. If someone I treated at a discount on a home visit because of Reasons tries to strong arm the next LMT for that rate, they’re an idiot. But it doesn’t make me one, and I hope the nice beneficiary of it wouldn’t wring their hands and allow that lower rate to tarnish it. I’d almost rather them not accept it. But again, not my call, it’s on them if they accept or not.

I think what people charge for services is highly personal, and that nobody should get shit thrown at them for disclosing what they can afford or what they choose to charge.

Ultimately the artist or worker has to make their own decisions about what their exceptions and bottom line is. I intensely dislike it when people seem to be butting in on that without any nuance, or trying to make someone out to be stupid/the devil. It’s just more complicated that that.

[surreality]

@ganymede Really aren't any concise points on this one, and the attempts at such earlier just got a lot of snide commentary, so... meh.

And really, no; the negative impact in the case I was describing was... dude was actively shooting himself in the foot in a way that make things harder for himself and his family. $500 would barely cover the expenses of traveling to that show, paying for the space, paying for a night at even the cheapest local motel, and paying for food for him and his family to sell his work there in the first place.

It ended up costing him more to sell there than he earned, and that's before you count what he spent on the materials to make his pieces or his time.

So it isn't just customer ignorance that can screw someone over, no matter how good everyone's intentions are. It is very upsetting to see this happen, particularly to someone who is endeavoring to be kind, when that kindness puts someone notably into the red.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

So it isn't just customer ignorance that can screw someone over, no matter how good everyone's intentions are. It is very upsetting to see this happen, particularly to someone who is endeavoring to be kind, when that kindness puts someone notably into the red.

I understand why it is upsetting or frustrating. I had to watch my partner sell herself short too often, and then watch her burn out, and then hold her as she cried and mumbled about how she was very close to offing herself.

But you said your piece, and hopefully your crafter friend will take it to heart.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede

This is why customers come to you, and also why customers don’t trust you. They know that you know more than they do, so they suspect and believe that you can and therefore will pull one over on them.

Also, your particular customers are a bit stressed along with their ignorance.

Also also, people in general are ignorant and stupid, so.

[Ganymede]

@thenomain

And yet people aren't shy at all about heading to their doctors.

[ThatGuyThere]

I know my take on this will piss people off but what the hell.
From my point of view it is the job of every customer to get the lowest price possible for whatever they are wanting, it is the job of the supplier to get the highest price possible this is what makes a market economy. This is try whether are talking about art, a car, food or labor.
I will never fault someone for trying to get a lower price on a thing, just as I do not fault the producer for says, well for that price I will keep said thing instead of selling.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

@thenomain

And yet people aren't shy at all about heading to their doctors.

And yet doctors are shy telling them that their problems come from, e.g., being overweight because they're afraid to lose the business.

And yet doctors get pushed around by their customers all the time because of something seen on TV, on the internet, or worst of all because this can't possibly be true. And the doctors' bosses, administrators, and others tell the doctors not to rock the boat.

So yes, absolutely, people want experts but don't want to be told that they're wrong even by experts.

I mean, let's talk for a minute about climate change....

[Kanye Qwest]

@thenomain said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

And yet doctors are shy telling them that their problems come from, e.g., being overweight because they're afraid to lose the business.

the hell they are. Doctors notoriously blame any and everything on weight. Particularly weight in women.